Community News

A hockey town or not? Dwindling numbers threaten LPHS boy’s varsity hockey program

HEATHER SACKETT, News Staff Writer

POSTED: June 26, 2008

Save | Print | Email | Read comments | Post a comment

LAKE PLACID — What happens when a hockey town doesn’t have a hockey team? Lake Placid may find out in a year or two if player numbers continue to dwindle.

In a village with a defining Olympic hockey heritage, low numbers are threatening the ability of the Lake Placid High School to field a boys varsity hockey team.

“Our numbers are not what they once were when I first came here,” said retiring Lake Placid Central School District Superintendent Ernie Stretton. “Eleven years ago it was not out of the ordinary to have 30 or 35 kids going out for the team, playing boys varsity hockey.”

That number, according to Stretton, has dropped this year to 18, prompting some parents to worry whether fielding a team this coming season is viable.

“I had just heard from some different parents that there was a concern about hockey,” said school board member Pat Grant. “If there were not enough kids to field a team, parents should know.”

Grant’s son, a ninth-grader, played on the varsity hockey team last year and has signed up for next year’s team. She said several parents have expressed concern over three veteran players moving out of the district or attending another school, leaving behind a young, inexperienced team. She said some are worried about the future of the program.

“I think, on the whole, Lake Placid would feel very disappointed if we didn’t have a hockey team,” she said. “It was one of the sports and one of the school community activities that brought people together. It was something they were very proud of and they were very good at.”

Boy’s hockey coach Keith Clark said the team is, indeed, facing the loss of three players to transfer, but said it’s still too early to tell how many players will start the season. With 18 signed up at this point, Clark estimated this year’s team could realistically have anywhere from 15 to 20 players.

“We are in a little bit of numbers crunch,” Clark said. “Losing three players to transfer, that’s hard on a team when the numbers are low to begin with.”

Clark, however, is not worried. He thinks the low numbers are cyclical and said most schools deal with this issue at one time or another.

“It’s just a matter of weathering the storm,” he said. “There’s a little bit of a lull in numbers, but we have a lot of kids in this school that want to play hockey and have a real passion for the team.”

Stretton, who played Division I college hockey for the University of Denver, said the minimum recommended number of players for a team is 21. He said making a team work with 12 to 15 players would be possible, yet very difficult.

“Getting 18 to 21 players to suit up for a game is the ideal situation,” he said.

Stretton cited several different issues that he thinks are to blame for the weak numbers, including declining school enrollment, a trend seen throughout the Adirondacks as young people move out of the area.

“There are so many other options that students have today that they didn’t have 10 or 15 years ago,” he said. “There are a multitude of other opportunities — clubs, drama, other athletic opportunities — that can take away from a student’s interest in a sport. Working students, that pulls them out. The cost of participating in some of these programs, like hockey, is very expensive. The number of kids going through the youth program each year are not offsetting the kids that we are losing through graduation. All those things add up and exacerbate the problem.”

However, Stretton is not content to sit on his laurels and let the program die out. During his tenure at Lake Placid, he has been a major proponent of athletics, helping to add several sports programs and levels of programs. Not a single athletic program was cut while he was here. He said he has been proactively seeking out solutions to up hockey numbers, including merging with other districts.

Four years ago, the Lake Placid boy’s varsity hockey team merged with Keene Central School and currently has two players from Keene on the team, both seniors this coming year. Stretton said kids from Keene participate in Lake Placid’s youth hockey program, so it made sense for them to play on the high school team as well. This year, however, will be the last for that arrangement.

“A lot of our kids did the youth hockey (in Lake Placid) and so they knew each other,” said Keene Central School Superintendent Cynthia Ford Johnston. “There’s no younger kids (from Keene) participating in the feeder programs yet, so we’ll let these kids finish and discontinue the program after their graduation.”

According to Lake Placid Central School Athletic Director Donna Moody, numbers for boy’s varsity hockey have been fluctuating a bit, but not really declining, over the past few years.

According to Moody, there were 18 Lake Placid students, plus two from Keene on last year’s team, 14 plus four from Keene in 2006-07, 11 plus five from Keene in 2005-06, and 15 plus five from Keene in 2004-05.

Moody, like Clark, remained optimistic about Lake Placid’s ability to field a team in the future, adding that new players could possibly move into the district.

“I think for the next couple years the numbers are going to be down, but it will rebound and we will be fine,” she said. “The key is not to panic.”

But without the extra players from Keene, plus those lost through transfer and graduation, the 2009-10 season could potentially be in jeopardy. In an effort to boost numbers, or at least replace the players lost from Keene’s phasing out, Stretton has been in talks with other school districts about the possibility of merging programs.

According to AuSable Valley Central School District Superintendent Paul Savage, merging with Lake Placid is a possibility — but not until the 2010-2011 school year. For the last two years, AuSable Valley has been sending five hockey players to the Plattsburgh High School team, and Savage said it will continue to do so until the players graduate so they can finish out their high school career with the same team.

“We have a number of students who are younger and playing in the Lake Placid youth hockey,” Savage said. “We would make a nice, natural fit with the Lake Placid system. It would be an opportunity for good collaboration between districts. But we don’t want to hurt those that play now.”

Stretton added that he had approached other Tri-Lakes schools but was told they wanted to try and field their own team.

For a high school, being able to field its own team is an important element for building friendly rivalries between competing schools and for fostering school spirit. So far no one has addressed if merging teams from different neighboring districts dilutes players’ school pride and sense of identity. Combining sports teams, however, is something that occasionally must be done in small Adirondack districts that cannot field teams of their own and still be competitive. Elizabethtown-Lewis, Keene, Moriah and Westport merge to form one team for some sports programs, like track.

“Of course it depends on whether you are the sendee or the sender,” Stretton said. “If I was merging our district with some other district with some other name, I understand that piece. It is going to have an impact, no question. But the bigger issue is not to have a program at all.”

Although Stretton is in his last few days as superintendent (he retires June 30), he is doing everything he can to make sure the boy’s hockey program is at least alive, if not well. He said the biggest mistake the district could make would be letting the program lapse with the intention of bringing it back when there is more interest.

“This is a hockey town,” he said. “When you drop a program, regardless of what the program is —athletics or academics — it’s hard to get them back because you drop that money out of your budget.”

The answer may be boosting the number of kids who participate in those “feeder” youth programs. It’s very difficult, Stretton explained, for someone who has never played hockey or skated before to join a high school team.

“You don’t just all of a sudden say ‘I’m going to start playing hockey,’ you have to get these kids younger in hockey,” he said. “Skating is huge; you don’t learn that in one year.”

According to Billie Jacques, of the Lake Placid Youth Athletic Association, while there are still many participants in the younger age groups, the older teams are hurting for numbers.

“There’s no doubt we are losing kids moving out of the area,” she said. Despite the evidence of low numbers, Stretton’s outlook is anything but bleak.

“There are nervous folks out there,” he said. “The important thing is for the community to understand we are going to have a good, flourishing program, but it’s going to take some time to get the numbers back to where they need to be. It’s just going to take a couple of years to get us over this hurdle.”

Subscribe to Lake Placid News

Share: