The Daily
Advertiser
February13,2005
Section:Sports
Page: 10C
BROUSSARD -- When Top Shelf toyed with the notion of starting up a high school in-line hockey league, critics laughed.
A high school hockey league just wasn't going to fly deep in the heart of football country.
The idea came about six years ago
and now six years into its existence the high school hockey league at Top
Shelf (
"Many people told us high school hockey would never work out," said Jimmy Greco, owner of Top Shelf. "We said, 'Well it may not, but let's try it out.' Our first jamboree, which we called our mascot tournament, had 17 teams in the tournament and it was huge. The place was packed the whole weekend. It's been no looking back since then."
Jonathan Kehrer participates in track and swimming for Teurlings Catholic as well as being a goaltender for the in-line hockey team. His favorite of the three sports is no contest.
"This (hockey) is my favorite by far," Kehrer said.
Teurlings is currently one of 11
teams playing in two divisions (I and II) at Top Shelf. Division
I (varsity) consists of St. Thomas More, Comeaux, Lafayette High, Teurlings
Catholic and Acadiana High. Division II or the junior varsity level has six
teams (STM Grey Cougars, LHS White Lions, STM Maroon Cougars, Team
There is an entry fee of $1,450 per team which averages out to around $150 per player depending on how many kids a coach wants on the team. The teams play every Thursday and Friday during a 10-game schedule and then are re-seeded for the playoffs.
So far, St. Thomas More has been the team to beat at Top Shelf. The Cougars have won four of the last five High School Hockey Championship Trophies.
"It's a very coveted, sought after trophy," Greco said. "After the season is over and we present the trophy it's sort of like the Stanley Cup. They're skating around with it. It's a big deal."
Right now both of the trophies are at STM -- the Division I and II champs from last year. Comeaux, STM's biggest rival, would love nothing more than to pry it away from the Cougars this year.
"It's STM (our biggest rival)," CHS' Lewis Carpenter said. "We've played them every time in the championship (game). That's what I look forward to every high school season -- to play STM."
"STM, they're like the best," Kehrer said. "They haven't lost in the last three years. They're stacked."
The two teams may very well meet again. The Cougars are currently unbeaten 4-0-0 and the Spartans are second with a record of 3-1-1.
With all the success the Cougars have enjoyed comes the tasks of staying on top.
"It seems that everyone is gunning for us," STM's Kyle Lee said.
The league also is grabbing the attention of students and faculty at the participating schools. Some schools give weekly updates on the outcomes during morning announcements, but others rely more on word of mouth.
"They announce it over the intercom on who won and everything," Carpenter said. "It's getting bigger. When it first started no one talked about it, but it's getting bigger."
"We have people asking for sweatshirts and things like that just like any other normal sport," Kehrer said. "They also announce the games at school over the intercom. It'll only get bigger."
Lee said STM doesn't announce the games at school or in the school paper, but he did say flyers are often put up. The rest of the publicity is by word of mouth and Lee said students are easily able to remember that the team plays on the same days each week.
Lee also plays soccer for STM and has noticed although the hockey team isn't talked about as much the Cougar pride remains.
"It's starting to get like that now," he said. "We're fortunate. In the beginning it wasn't, but now that the fans are into it and the principals are kind of into it they make sure we keep the STM conduct wherever we go. Even students come to our games now and make sure we keep the pride. They don't want us to lose."
STM isn't the only school where the sport is taken seriously. Some schools, like Comeaux, award letterman jackets for the sport.
"We had it last year and the year before, too," Carpenter said. "I'm pretty sure they're going to do it again this year, too."
Kehrer said players at Teurlings have inquired about letterman jackets for the sport, but have been refused.
"Our school won't let us do it," he said. "They have some people in there (locker room) that have been playing since the eighth grade, but they won't let us do it. They say it's not an LHSAA sport."
Greco hopes the sport will
someday be sanctioned by the LHSAA. While he says it's a long shot, he's
optimistic. According to Greco,
"Our ultimate goal is to get it fully sanctioned by the state," he said. "We know that it's a long shot, but records show it's possible. That's our long term goal."
In the meantime, the league continues to grow and keep in-line hockey a participation sport in Acadiana. Greco said his recreation leagues were losing participants at the high school age before the high school hockey league began.
"A lot of kids say I don't play football, I don't play basketball, but I want to represent my school and I play hockey, so I would love to represent my school," Greco said. "When kids would turn 13 and 14 you would see a big drop off in our league. When we started high school hockey it brought a huge amount of those kids back because they can represent their school in hockey."
The hockey league also serves as
a feeder league for in-line club university teams, including the
"UL has one of the best roller hockey teams in this part of the country," Greco said. "I believe that high school hockey is a huge factor in that. Probably 80 percent of the guys on the UL team have come through the high school program here."
2005
Date Time Division Game
2/17, 6 p.m. II Team
2/17, 7 p.m. II STM Grey vs.Comeaux
2/17, 8 p.m. I LHS Lions vs. Comeaux
2/18, 6 p.m. I STM vs. Acadiana
2/18, 7 p.m. I Teurlings vs. Comeaux
2/18, 8 p.m. II Lafayette vs. STM Maroon
2/24, 6 p.m. II LHS White vs. STM Grey
2/24, 7 p.m. II STM Maroon vs. LHS Black
2/24, 8 p.m. I Acadiana vs. Teurlings
2/25, 6 p.m. I STM Cougars vs. LHS Lions
2/25, 7 p.m. I AHS Rams vs. Comeaux
2/25, 8 p.m. II Comeaux vs. Team
3/3, 6 p.m. II Comeaux vs. STM Maroon
3/3, 7 p.m. II LHS Black vs. LHS White
3/3, 8 p.m. I Lafayette vs. Teurlings
3/4, 6 p.m. I Lafayette vs. Acadiana
3/4, 7 p.m. I Teurlings vs. STM
3/4, 8 p.m. II STM Grey vs. Team
3/10, 6 p.m. II LHS White vs. Comeaux
3/10, 7 p.m. II STM Maroon vs.
Team
3/10, 8 p.m. II LHS Black vs. STM Grey
3/10, 9 p.m. I Comeaux vs. STM Cougars
3/11, 6 p.m. II STM Grey vs. STM Maroon
3/11, 7 p.m. II Team
3/11, 8 p.m. II Comeaux vs. LHS Black
##
Prep hockey standings
Division I Standings
Team Record PTS GF GA P/M GAA
STM 4-0-0 8 45 7 38 1.75
Comeaux 3-1-1 7 28 20 8 4.00
Teurlings 2-3-0 4 16 31 -15 6.20
Acadiana 0-5-0 0 7 47 -40 9.40
Division II Standings
Team Record PTS GF GA P/M GAA
STM Grey 3-0-1 7 30 13 17 3.25
LHS White 3-0-1 7 26 16 10 4.00
STM Maroon 3-1-0 6 28 15 13 3.75
Team
LHS Black 0-4-0 0 9 26 -17 6.50
Comeaux 0-4-0 0 10 33 -23 8.25
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