Tradition on ice

Welcome to Rink World. In Rink World, life revolves around centrally located sheets of ice, and those who transport themselves on razor-sharp blades, cutting and darting at high speeds. In Rink World, they classify themselves by a unique nomenclature: Mites, Midgets, Squirts, Pee Wees, Bantams, and, at the top of the heap, Juniors. Beyond that, they love acronyms – referring to themselves by such names as Say-Ha, My-Ha and Pa-Na-Ha.

And at the center of Rink World is a small, black rubber disk, called a puck.

In Rink World, they start playing when they are barely bigger than the bags in which they pack their gear, when they aren’t tall enough to see over the dasher – the sideboards that surround the rink.

This is the world of youth hockey, a world in which hundreds of enthusiastic Inland Empire families take part year-round. Youngsters begin to play at 5, although there are some who start a bit younger. Those who are bitten by a love of the sport can continue to play through their teenage years.

“My cousin started to play hockey and I decided I wanted to give it a try, too,” said Mitchell Fowler, 11, a member of Pee Wee A team at Planet Ice. “I’ve been playing for six years, and I just really enjoy it.”

Teammate Tanner Mort, also 11 and also a six-year hockey veteran, agreed.

“We practice two nights a week and have games just about every weekend,” he said. “I like it. My family comes along on the trips, and it’s all fun.”

Kim Via, who runs the Inland Empire Amateur Hockey Association, has two sons who play.

“It takes a pretty committed parent to get their kid to a 6 a.m. practice on a Saturday morning,” she laughed. “In order to have ice time, there are times when you just have to practice that early, but it’s not easy.”

“I have one piece of advice for new parents,” said Jim Noldin, who heads the Spokane Amateur Youth Hockey Association. “I tell them all that this is going to be a long run – this could be a 15- to 18-year run. They don’t want to burn themselves out at the very beginning.

“It’s a long run and you have to have fun. You have to let your kid have fun, and you have to have fun. Hockey is a good outlet for your kid, it can teach a kid a lot of very valuable lessons. Our coaches are pretty awesome, and they teach the whole kid – they teach the game and they teach the kid sportsmanship and discipline. Plus, the players are together six months out of the year, which is much longer than other sports, so you have to learn how to deal with people over a lot longer period of time.”

Hockey has a rich tradition in the Inland Empire, and the tradition continues to grow. Today there are two double ice rinks operating full-time in the Greater Spokane area: Eagles Ice-A-Rena in north Spokane and Planet Ice in the Spokane Valley. North Idaho soon will have its own home ice when the Kootenai Youth Recreational Organization reopens its rink in Post Falls later this month.

“That will be a big help for us,” said Tom Power, head of North Idaho’s Mountain Youth Hockey Association. “One of the biggest helps will be with cost of ice time. There will be a pretty significant savings per hour.”

SAYHA, the area’s oldest organization, operates out of the Eagles Ice-A-Rena and serves more than 400 youngsters. Three other organizations operate out of Planet Ice, with the two Idaho groups set to shift to the Post Falls rink. The Inland Empire Amateur Hockey Association serves the Spokane Valley and North Idaho and operates out of Planet Ice.

For the next few weeks, both Idaho organizations, MYHA and the Immaculate Conception Hockey Club, also operate out of Planet Ice, but both will shift to the KYRO rink.

Combined, the four organizations cover roughly 1,000 hockey players. At the upper end, they sponsor two junior hockey programs: the Spokane Braves in Washington and the Kootenai Colts in North Idaho.

The youngest a boy or girl can begin to play hockey is age 4, and they can spend as many as five years working through the Mite program, which encompasses anyone 8 and younger. From there, they graduate into the Squirts, who are 10 years old and younger. Pee Wees are 12 and under; Bantams 14 and under; Midgets 18 and under.

At the Midget level, players are broken into different sublevels, 16-and-under, 17-and-under and 18-and-under, with various select programs breaking off.

Within those groups there are different classifications. At one level, there are house teams – teams that play all of their games at the home rink against other teams within the program.

As players improve, they progress to Rep teams, teams that travel to play games and tournaments around the Northwest and in British Columbia. Travel costs can add up in a hurry. Powers said he tries to limit the cost per season to under $2,000 per player, and teams will run their own fund-raising efforts to defray costs.

There is a further distinction between Washington and Idaho hockey programs.

Washington youth hockey programs operate under the banner of the state organization, the Pacific Northwest Amateur Hockey Association (pronounced Pa-Na-Ha). Regionally, PNAHA joins organizations in Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Northern California.

Idaho and the Idaho Amateur Hockey Association feed into the Rocky Mountain region.

“I think that gives our players a little better chance for advancement,” Power said. “It’s a different region, and I think we’ve seen a couple players have the chance to play at a higher level that they wouldn’t have had in the Pacific Northwest region.”

The cost of playing hockey is not cheap. Ice time can run into several hundreds of dollars per hour. Equipment is expensive, especially when dealing with youngsters who seem to outgrow their clothing overnight.

But each organization has ways of helping each other. Equipment swaps are an annual event, and it’s common to pass equipment back and forth between families.

“We have an equipment manager in our organization who keeps track of equipment,” Power said. “Families donate equipment they no longer use and we keep an inventory.”

Three 14-year-olds who had never played hockey before recently joined MYHA, Power said. The organization was able to outfit two of them from head to toe at no cost.

The Immaculate Conception Hockey Club, which operates out of the Immaculate Conception Church and school in Post Falls, outfits each of its players, with the exception of skates and gloves.

“The other thing we do is we practice during the school’s physical education period,” explained coordinator Vince Hughes. “We have 180 boys in the school, and more than 100 of them play hockey. And we have a few kids from outside the school who also play for us.”