Sobrato High School club-team captures Div. 4 championship
With its year-round warm weather, California is not exactly
looked at as a fertile breeding ground for ice hockey players
– but that doesn’t mean that roller hockey, the closest thing to
skating on ice, isn’t thriving on the West Coast.
Gilroy, Sobrato and Live Oak high schools all have roller-hockey
club teams. San Benito High School doesn’t have a team, but it is
the subject of on again, off again chatter.
Sobrato High School club-team captures Div. 4 championship
With its year-round warm weather, California is not exactly looked at as a fertile breeding ground for ice hockey players – but that doesn’t mean that roller hockey, the closest thing to skating on ice, isn’t thriving on the West Coast.
Gilroy, Sobrato and Live Oak high schools all have roller-hockey club teams. San Benito High School doesn’t have a team, but it is the subject of on again, off again chatter.
In recent years the sport has been growing like wildfire in the region. Bellarmine Prep High School in Santa Clara, for example, now has three club roller-hockey teams.
“It’s basically like they have a Frosh, JV and varsity team now,” said Live Oak coach Chris Reynolds, a longtime hockey buff who has played in adult leagues. “It would be great if the sport would keep growing. If the (San Jose) Sharks do better, everyone gets on the bandwagon and starts thinking about the sport again and it grows.”
In fact many of the athletes that play roller hockey also play in ice hockey leagues as well.
As club teams, none receive funding by the local school districts, but they do play their games using the name and colors of the schools that they represent. And all of the teams are made up of students from the high school they attend. Live Oak, Gilroy and Sobrato high schools have rosters hovering in the 10-man range, which allows for two lines and one or two reserve players.
It costs roughly $150 per season for each athlete to compete in the year-round sport, which includes three 10-game seasons that run from September to June.
Like rugby or other less-appreciated sports in the United States, roller hockey forges on in an underground sort of way, as players and their parents keep it alive by forking out additional money for transportation and so that their child can compete in the ever-growing sport.
Interest in the sport is growing so fast that the biggest concern right now is how to handle all of the growth.
“Just four years ago, there were 10 teams in the whole area. Now there are 38,” said Jason Horwood, who just finished coaching Sobrato High’s club team to the Division IV Championship, which took place last weekend at San Jose’s Rollin Ice Arena on Tully Road. “It’s growing real fast.”
Horwood and his team didn’t have long to celebrate before it was back to business again. On Friday, the league’s spring season, which runs through June 10, kicked off.
On Tuesday, however, the Bulldogs’ coach was still relishing his team’s 6-2 win over Pioneer High School in the championship game.
“I was ecstatic. Pioneer was undefeated,” said Horwood. “It was unbelievable we didn’t even win a game last year. To come back this year with the same kids and win it all was unbelievable.”
Horwood coaches the team with his 13-year-old son Cody, who loves the sport.
“I never played the game. He likes the Sharks and ice hockey and comes up with some pretty good plays. For being only 13 he helped me out a lot.”
While Sobrato was capturing the Division IV title, Morgan Hill’s other cross-town high school team, Live Oak, picked up a 12-11 win over Los Gatos in the Division II Championship game. It was the Acorns’ second consecutive title in Division II.
“We won both the fall and winter,” said Reynolds, whose 16-year-old son Tyler plays defense on the Live Oak team. “That’s a pretty good playoff run. It’s pretty exciting. This team has a good bunch of guys on it. A few of them play ice hockey as well. It’s amazing the level of skill that some of these kids have already.”
According to Reynolds, since finding frozen ponds to skate on in California is impossible and getting to an ice arena is difficult, roller hockey is a good way of getting kids exposed to some form of hockey.
“We have one kid who plays for the Junior Sharks team. It’s a great launch pad for ice hockey. Ice is hard to come by in California, but some kids are talking about playing ice hockey now in college,” Reynolds said. “So it opens doors to the sport.”
There are five divisions in the league based on skill level with the top division being Division I.
This past season the Bulldogs team finished with an 8-2 record while Live Oak’s squad went 7-3 en route to the title.
The Acorns road to the title was impressive in that they had to beat Milpitas in round one and Archbishop Mitty in the second round without the team’s two top-scoring juniors Brian Costello and Kyle Dutra, who missed those games to attend their Junior Prom.
Keeping the winning going will be difficult next fall for the Acorns without their star goalie Ricky Lasher, who will graduate this May.
The fact that both local schools won their respective division titles says something about the surge in roller hockey interest in the South County Area.
“Another big part of the success down here is all the support that we get from the parents,” said Horwood, who lives in San Jose but offered to coach at Sobrato to fill a void. “There’s a lot of support down here.”
Horwood plans on coaching the Sobrato squad only through the spring season. After that, he’d like to get a team going at Oak Grove High School, where his son Cody will attend.
“Then again, you never know I could move down here and keep coaching at Sobrato,” Horwood said. “We like the Morgan Hill area a lot.”
Although some teams practice at different locations all games take place at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose – the location of the Rollin Ice facility, which has two full size rinks.
Games used to consist of two, 22-minute halves. For the start of the spring season the games were altered to play more like a National Hockey League format, with three 15-minute periods.
For more information on any of the local teams or on roller hockey in general go to www.rollinice.com.
