Our Underdog Year- Hockey Teams in COVID

I run a hockey team called the Vipers. At the time, we were entering our seventh season in Breckenridge and still had yet to have had to have one single season that was profitable. However, the momentum in the town was finally starting to build right when COVID hit. We had to cancel the final four games of a team that I had poured my heart and soul into, and truly broke my heart to have to cut the season short.

I didn’t really think that the town would embrace us after COVID… I thought that losing all that momentum meant the team was finished, and that I would have lost the team and would be starting back from scratch. It really overwhelmed me with sadness to think that I had invested so much time and money into something I love so much that was wiped away by such tragic circumstance.

It definitely took an emotional toll not being around the team and the guys not having that sense of community and bonding around one another there was an emptiness inside of me that was difficult to describe or replace. That was probably the hardest part was not knowing what to do with all of that energy and where to put it. I was amazed and so overwhelmed with gratitude that when COVID began to diminish that the town was still excited to have us and in a lot of ways was thirsty for us to be back our survival of COVID galvanized the Vipers and our ability to endure. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for all of the people that helped us build an organization that provides so much value to the players and to the fans and to the kids and to the employees and to the town.

Communities are tested when they are under duress and pressure and how they react to that duress and pressure is what defines their character. To see the people of Breckenridge to rally together to compete in something they love and rally around the Vipers was truly inspirational to me that I had given some thing valuable to the town and to everyone involved it really warmed my heart to see kids excited to come to the game and friends getting together to watch the game and the players in the locker room also happy to see each other and the camaraderie and community that was built around it as a focal point really made me feel like my ambition to even start a hockey team which was largely predicated originally on my just intention to want to play hockey again but I think that’s what makes it kind of beautiful is that everybody just wanted to play hockey again and we were united by our love of the game. The vipers success in the community following COVID and it reminded me of who I am and what built my character as a human being.

Hockey is my life, and I think part of that is the nature of Hockey itself. Anyone that can play at a high-level started playing so young that it really is intrinsically a part of your development as a human being. It’s ingrained into your DNA and to see that reflected in the Vipers after COVID is like coming home.