Players, coaches and community excited for puck drop in 2nd Annual Palmer Lake Outdoor Classic

Jan. 5—If life gave the Lewis-Palmer Rangers ice hockey team lemons in 2020, then coach Scott Bradley has since made a lemonade stand.

In February of 2020, the Rangers were set to take on the Pine Creek Eagles on an outdoor rink at Falcon Stadium in the aftermath of a NHL Stadium series game featuring the Colorado Avalanche and L.A. Kings. However, the game was canceled because of poor weather and road conditions.

"Ever since then I kind of had the itch, I'm like 'Man, all the kids were super excited and we didn't have the opportunity. Is there another venue that we could do something like this?', " Bradley said.

The thought eventually blossomed into the creation of the Palmer Lake Outdoor Classic in which high school teams get the opportunity to play 4-on-4 hockey on a frozen Palmer Lake. In the inaugural Classic a year ago, about 1,000 people came to watch the Rangers play Cheyenne Mountain. Bradley expects an uptick as this year's Classic, which takes place Friday, features the junior varsity and varsity squads of Lewis-Palmer, Cheyenne Mountain, Pine Creek and Chaparral out of Parker. Beginning at 6 p.m., there will be eight games played, 30 minutes each, Bradley said.

The goal is to provide a neat, community event powered by volunteers, food trucks, fire pits, local businesses and of course, high school hockey.

"(Pine Creek) had a player meeting (Tuesday) night and I said, 'My whole focus (Friday) is fun,'" Eagles head coach Ed Saxer said. "The most important thing is to have fun and to enjoy the moment because moments like this don't happen very often."

Saxer said he was at Pine Creek on Wednesday and heard from five people within ten minutes who were excited for puck drop Friday night. One person was Pine Creek principal Tracie Cormaney whom the Eagles coach invited to be a guest coach for the team at the event.

Saxer recalls the amount of work it took to get a green light for the canceled 2020 match, and credits his old player for his hard work in making the Palmer Lake Outdoor Classic happen. Saxer was an assistant coach for the Air Force Falcons when Bradley played for the Falcons between 1997-2001, serving as captain in 2000-2001.

Despite outdoor hockey being a cherished tradition, Bradley said he never got the opportunity to play a real outdoor game himself.

"I grew up in Colorado Springs, I played 18 years of hockey, I played at the Air Force Academy for Coach Frank Serratore and loved every minute of it," Bradley said. "I never had the opportunity. That was before the Winter Classic started to show up and before these big pushes for outdoor games. ... I never had the opportunity as a player to do that and so maybe that's part of the motivation it's just I think the players really enjoy that atmosphere, just to kind of take it in, in an outdoor setting."

Friday's events will play out a little differently than a standard hockey game. First, while the games are sanctioned by the Colorado High School Activities Association, the games won't count for or against any team records.

Standard NHL hockey rinks are 200 feet long and 85 feet wide. The Palmer Lake Outdoor Classic will feature two 120-foot-by-60-foot rinks that will be enclosed with 18-inch high boards. Bradley said it will be "pond hockey rules" with no blue lines or red lines that are common to standard games. There will be fewer face offs, no contact and no slapshots for spectator safety. Although Bradley said the teams will have plenty of pucks because they are bound to go out of play.

Regarding the ice itself, safety is paramount. To make sure the frozen lake can sustain multiple players on the ice, Bradley said he and other event organizers spoke with ice specialists who put on these events professionallly in places like Canada, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The ice needs to be five inches deep all around the pond to sustain play, Bradley said. Battling the dry and mercurial Colorado weather season a year ago, Bradley said it came down to the wire, but the organizers were able to go through with the Classic. This season, the ice on the Lake is about eight inches thick thanks to the cold temperatures the region has experienced. Even so, they closely monitored the pond and removed excess snow because snow can act as an insulator and decrease ice levels.

Bradley said the eight inches is thick enough that a small vehicle could be driven on it. But he didn't personally test that theory. Instead of deploying Zambonis in between games, volunteers will employ self-propelled hand plows during intermissions. To treat the ice, Bradley said they used a pump to recycle the pond water back on top of the ice which creates a nice sheen to the surface.

With the games played at night, Bradley hopes that the wind will be kind Friday. But truth be told, the elements are just part of the experience.

"If the wind starts howling ... that could be making it really painful not just for the spectators but the players and everybody," he said. "But that might be the case and if it is, that's all part of the experience. So it's one of those small-town, community experiences that we're not looking to make it ... big and glorious, we just want it to be a place that attracts a lot of people to come watch an old-fashioned high school hockey game and enjoy a hot chocolate, a coffee, some food, snacks for a very affordable price."

Go to https://www.locallevelevents.com/events/details/23787 for more information.