Colts Return to the Rink
On Feb. 25, 2008, the Parkway Central ice hockey team won the Founder’s Cup, one of the major cups in Missouri high school hockey. Two years later, the team would disband, leaving Central hockey players without a real home team, until now.
This year, 13 years later, hockey returns to Parkway Central. Former player, PCH alum, and current staff member Eric Kniffin remembers what it was like to be on the hockey team that won the Founder’s Cup.
“We went undefeated for a long time that season. It was an exciting season,” Kniffin said. ”It was really fun. All the guys were pretty close to each other. We used to hang out outside of hockey every once in a while.”
Kniffin’s young start in hockey is what led him to be a part of the team in high school. After watching St. Louis Blues games with his brothers Kniffin decided that he would play.
“I did learn to skate at age four or five and then got on a team actually. It was part of the Chesterfield Hockey Association’s first year in the Valley [the Chesterfield Falcons],” Kniffin said.
Clubs similar to Kniffin’s have fostered a hockey community in the Parkway Central area. In fact, head coach Ted Rumpf believes that this helped put together the current team.
“These kids come out of largely playing two different organizations, Chesterfield Hockey and Rockets hockey, sort of blending them to put this team together,” Rumpf said.
Rumpf explains how the fight to return hockey to Parkway Central has been ongoing for multiple years.
“Our original goal was to focus on getting the team back for a year from now when once we figured out that we thought we could get the numbers together, the biggest change was trying to push us forward even quicker. We ran into some folks with our group that said, we’re moving this too fast and that we didn’t want to do this quickly,” Rumpf said. “For me, it’s all about the kids and wanting to give them the chance to play. And as soon as we figured out that the numbers were there, we want to make that happen,” Rumpf said.
When conversations first began about bringing back Parkway Central hockey, Midstates originally required they return as a varsity team. However, in the past few years, when schools like St. Dominic gained teams, they had junior varsity teams. Throughout the past few years, Rumpf has attempted to persuade Midstates for Central to return as a varsity team. But with Midstates going in this new direction, Rumpf sees clear goals for the first few years of the program.
“A goal for mine, I don’t know if we’re gonna have the numbers for next year, is really to hopefully be able to run both the varsity and a JV team,” Rumpf said.
With a lack of previous culture and familiarity that comes with being an established program, Rumpf is excited to see how the individuals come together to make a team. With some people having played for years and others never before, the team will be an interesting blend of experience and talent level.
“ You’ve got a kid like Blake [Huelskoetter] who hasn’t played for two years because he got disenfranchised with the high school hockey system and he got forced, essentially out of high school hockey and decided to play with us as a senior. I think that’s awesome that [he] is wanting to play with us,” Rumpf said “We got another kid Antoine Aaron, who’s a freshman and has never played hockey in his life. He’s skated on ponds. He’s done well for limited action.”
A trademark of any good team is their identity. Historically, many sports teams at Parkway Central have had strong identities. For example, our football program is known for its “smashmouth” style of offense. Coach Rumpf believes that the new hockey team is starting to build an identity of its own through its new beginnings.
“Good kids, that want a chance to play the sport, and until somebody came together to start organizing the group and figuring out that the player counts were there at the school, it just didn’t exist. And kids were going to other schools or finding other avenues to play. The kids that are here, just want an opportunity to play and represent their school,” Rumpf said.
With a new team often comes struggles. Whether it is chemistry or understanding roles throughout a season, the returning Colts team could easily be expected to face a few bumps in the road over the course of a season. While Rumpf explains his anticipation that the team reaches a winning record, the coach describes simpler things that he wants out of his players daily.
“Expectation is for the kids that show up to work every day, to be able to field a team for every game. I do think we can be an over .500 team,” Rumpf said.
Most junior varsity teams lack any experience at a varsity level. Rumpf notes the contributions to winning the experienced players make and how they help out the younger players.
“I think we’ve got a veteran team in comparison to what some of the JVs that we’ll see and run into. So I think that gives us a competitive advantage for this year,” Rumpf said.
One of these more experienced players is junior defenseman Jack Miller. His experience began when he was in second grade and fell in love during a Blues game. For the past two seasons, Miller has been playing at Westminster due to the lack of a team at Central. He originally had mixed feelings about switching teams in the middle of high school to play another season of junior varsity.
“I was excited and a little sad. I was more excited because it’s going to be fun to be able to play in front of my own fans,” Miller said. “But over at Westminster, I was pretty close with most of the fans. So it was still fun to have that. But I think it’s going to be better to be with people I’m friends with and people that go to my school.”
At Westminster, Miller played in the Founder’s Cup division, a playoff division at the varsity level. He describes the major difference between playing at a varsity level and playing junior varsity.
“[We] Just had our practice game against St. Dominic and it was a lot slower pace, even on the Founder’s, [which] is the lowest level of cup,” Miller said. “It’s still much faster paced than JV and a lot more physical. In pretty much every aspect of the game, this is just a couple, a level or two kind of down from where it was for the Founder’s Cup,” Miller said.
On the other hand, Miller does not just have to adjust to a slower game, but also to a new group that still needs to iron out every detail.
“Since it’s a newer team, we’re not quite as close. At Westminster, we had pregame dinners and we’d go to someone’s house and eat dinner. And then after the game we’d go all hang out at someone’s house again, or we were just a lot closer in general,” Miller describes. “Also, warm-ups were more coordinated. And I think that’s something that’ll come to Central as we keep going. But that’s one of the things I’ll miss most.”
To help smooth over some of the bumps in the road, Miller finds himself in a leadership role. He explains how having players lead can be vital to a team’s success.
“I think it’s important to show some of the younger kids that it’s not the same as the as their club teams were, and then it kind of needs to be taken a little more seriously. But then also, it’s being led by the kids and not like parents and coaches, and a lot more decisions, like what do you do for warm-ups or some of the drills you do in practice are made by the captains and not the coaches,” Miller said. “When I played on Westminster, it was pretty much fully led by the players and just kind of supervised by the coaches. I think it ran a lot smoother. And we ended up doing what we wanted to do. And it’s one of the things that helped us get closer.”
Hockey can be a rough sport. With body checks and sticks being able to hit or wipe out a player, a team must stick together to protect their own. Miller sees this as one of his few individual goals for the season.
“[I hope to] get a lot of goals, and protect my teammates. I’m one of the bigger guys out there because a lot of our team is young. So Blake, Charlie and I mostly have to kind of keep watch over everyone else. Make sure no one does anything dirty to them. And I’d say as a team, obviously win some games, but get closer, get a good foundation for the new program and hopefully bring something back and get students involved,” Miller said.
Huelskoetter, a senior forward, is excited to return to the ice after not playing high school hockey since he was a freshman. Huelskoetter attributes his passion for hockey to his family.
“My brother played and my dad played. And so I just started playing when I was young and got lessons. And I just really loved it because of the people that were associated with the organization,” Huelskoetter said.
After playing for Parkway West his freshman year, Huelskoetter found himself looking for a new team after Parkway Central left the team. The player pool process disillusioned Huelskeotter on high school hockey/
“I decided I wanted to stop playing hockey because I got drafted by I think it was Fort Zumwalt West or East. And I didn’t feel like playing for that team, because I didn’t know anyone on that team. And it was a far drive. And just like all that added together made me want to stop playing,” Huelskoetter said.
Huelskoetter is the only senior on the team, which creates an interesting dynamic that urges him into a leadership role within the team after being named captain at the start of the season.
“It’s definitely weird, being the oldest kid on the team, but I don’t mind it. I think it’s cool. I guess it’s fun to be around all the freshmen and sophomores, and obviously, the juniors as well. But it would be nice to maybe have another senior on the team,” Huelskeotter said, “ I’d say that the coach expects me to do more, especially to show up earlier. And just do more for the team because I’m the oldest person on the team.”
Huelskeotter expects his senior season to be fun and has hopes for the future of the program.
“I just want to win a bunch of games, create good relationships and connections and really continue the hockey organization from here,” Huelskoetter said.
Freshman forward Rose Solomon began hockey the same way a lot of people begin sports when they are younger.
“I was kind of at that stage where my parents just put us in every sport. And I just never played hockey and I asked them to play hockey and I just fell in love with the game,” Solomon said.
Solomon also plays outside of school on a high-level club team, the AAA Blues, which makes her miss a lot of time for travel and games. She admits the difficulty of that schedule and describes how she can manage it.
“It’s hard. I communicate with my teachers a lot though. And I have people to help me along the way,” Solomon said,
Unique to a lot of sports at Parkway Central, hockey is co-ed. Solomon explains the experience of being the only girl on the team.
“It’s actually good. All the boys are nice, and they all worked very hard. So it’s just a good community in general. They don’t really treat me any differently,” Solomon said.
Looking ahead to this season Solomon does not know what to expect but believes the team can come together and be successful.
“Obviously, none of us have played together really before so not really much to expect, but we have some good players and I think we’ll do pretty well,” Solomon said.