Making Do with What They Have

In only the ninth season of existence in ACHA Division II hockey, Metro State’s program can play the “young team” card with a valid level of sincerity in several areas. Age, experience and participation on the team as well as in the league could all be factors to MSCD’s dismal standings at the end of ’08.

Head coach for the Metro hockey team, Curtis Duffus, has been apart of the organization nearly as long as it’s been around, having played for the Roadrunners five years and going straight into coaching them the following year. Now in the second season as coach, his youth is just another part of the same story.

With a 3-16-1 record as of the end of December, Coach Duffus explained that a lot of the other teams have players coming into school after a couple years playing junior league hockey, more so than Metro.

“A lot of our kids are fresh out of high school, so the age difference is our average freshman is probably 18 or 19 years old and the average freshman around the league is probably closer to 20 or 21,” said Duffus.

“We are extremely young,” said returning forward Turner Bahn who also doubles as the team’s president. “I’m pretty much the oldest one on the team and I’m only 23.”

With the additional aspect of only six returners on the team, the young keep getting younger, and Bahn had expected a bit more from last years squad.

He said that sitting in the locker at the end of last season, the question of who is returning was asked and nearly everyone raised their hand. Come tryouts this year though, only seeing eight of those guys actually show was discouraging.

“I expect pretty much everyone on the team right now to be coming back,” said Bahn. “Hopefully these guys do stick around because it’s tough to try and rebuild every year.”

To add to the obstacle of age, playing for Metro can be a challenge in itself. The Roadrunner athletics in general, apart from the women’s powerhouse of a soccer team, have barely made a name for themselves in the Colorado athletic world as major competition. The state college status of the school and that most of its attendees are full time workers as well as students—who by majority make quite the commute to and from class—has always been a factor in most aspects of Metro.

“It’s hard to be as competitive as we want playing for Metro. It’s club hockey and there’s not a whole lot you can do to be strict and buckle down on everyone,” Bahn said. “It’s club hockey and we’re trying to make it fun so we don’t want people to be stressed out about having to miss a practice or miss a game.”

All things considered, talent is one of the few things this team does in fact have.

Forward Dan Golden, for example, currently leads the team with 27 points. According to Bahn, the offensive side of the puck is not something they have been struggling with, but rather the defensive end giving up only a small window of time for the opposition to take advantage of, and then failing to recover.

Metro scored nine goals against No. 2 ranked Weber State earlier in the season, and seven against No. 1 ranked CSU.
“If you score nine goals against a really good team, you should be able to win the game,” said Bahn. “We’re just not playing defensively and that’s contributing to our record right now.”

Still though, in addition to the defensive struggle, there are just too many extenuating factors to get it together.
“There’re just a lot of things we can work on in terms of our systems and our culture,” Duffus said. “It’s unfortunate that a lot of the teams we play against practice four of five times a week, and we’re only on the ice a couple. It’s a matter of making the most out of the resources we have.”

Duffus said that the strides Metro is making toward becoming a more traditional school with potential university status are also helping. Between the increase of dorms to live closer to campus and the credibility that would come with it, recruiting would be made easier. The university status of the school would hopefully attract a larger demographic of traditional students looking to play hockey. 

As for the remaining half of this season, hope is not lost.

“I’m pretty optimistic about the rest of the season,” said Bahn. “We’ve got a bunch of winnable games and I’m hoping we can get some momentum here in the next little while and finish the season off strong.”