How the issue of dual participation created a rift in Alaska’s youth hockey community

Traditionally, youth hockey players ages 14 to 18 have been permitted to participate in games and practices for both their local high school and Team Alaska, the state’s lone AAA tier competitive league program.

After receiving feedback from a majority of players’ parents, Team Alaska program director and 18U head coach Matt Thompson and fellow coaches at other age levels decided that their players wouldn’t be permitted to play both this year.

“When you’re reviewing things, you’re trying to look at what is the bigger voice and what do people want: How did our teams do? Did we have success? Were there issues here? And then we ask all the coaches,” Thompson said.

The high school and comp teams share the goal of developing young Alaska hockey players, but the decision has put a strain on their relationship. Many high school coaches disagree with the either/or approach. Generally, high school teams acquiesce to regular absences by some of their top players during the regular season to allow them to compete at both levels.

“You’re taking kids away from the game they love and they’ll never get these years back,” West High head coach Rob Larkey said.

Every year, the coaches of each youth program from 14U to 18U are allowed to decide whether to allow players to take part in both the high school and competitive league seasons.

Last year only the 14U team, which consists of mostly high school freshmen and middle schoolers, and 18U, which includes high school juniors and seniors, permitted their players to do both.

At the end of every season, Thompson sends surveys to parents and legal guardians of players so they can provide feedback on how the program can improve and voice concerns anonymously.

Thompson said after last season, they sent out 60 surveys, and only a few voiced appreciation for dual participation. Many more came back expressing frustrations about a lack of commitment from the team as a whole.

By late summer, the Team Alaska coaches had decided to stop allowing dual participation.

“This isn’t just a decision on me, it’s a decision by the program collectively,” Thompson said. “I backed those coaches, and they asked me to send an email out at the end of August just to reaffirm that we were doing that because there were a lot of people asking questions to those coaches.”

After sending the email, he said he didn’t receive any correspondence from concerned parents or coaches about the decision aside from Kevin Fitzgerald, an assistant coach at West High School.

Thompson and 18U coach William Wrenn met with the coaches from West in June, but the meeting turned sour on the topic of dual participation, which led to some friction between the two parties.

In early October, Fitzgerald, himself a former comp coach, sent a lengthy letter to hockey families outlining his criticisms of the decision. It included a number of responses to issues raised in the meeting as well as reasons players should consider high school hockey as opposed to club hockey.

“That was the only school that we heard from,” Thompson said. “One school that had an opinion on something. A school that I went to and played for sent out a letter that stirred up the pot a little bit.”

Forcing a decision

There was a point earlier in the year when it was unclear whether there would even be a 2025-26 high school hockey season. It was one of three high school sports on the chopping block during the Anchorage School District’s budget discussions in the face of a large budget deficit.

During the summer, when the season was still up in the air, Larkey said Team Alaska asked West players who play for both teams about their plans for the upcoming winter. The players couldn’t give a concrete answer because nothing had been finalized at the time.

Since the sport was ultimately spared from cuts, Larkey believes it’s unfair to make players and their families choose between the two.

“You’re forcing the kids that love the game and want to play the game to make a choice on that,” Larkey said.

In doing so, he thinks that Team Alaska has put more pressure on itself to perform better if they’re going to have players who play only for them year-round.

“Where are you going to measure yourself?” Larkey asked. “You should be getting out of regions and going to nationals. If not, then where are you at and how many of your players are going on (to play at the next level)?”

Chugiak head coach Rodney Wild believes kids are being forced to make a choice between the two, and in most cases, it’s not theirs to make.

“I don’t buy the reasoning as to why,” he said. “They’re doing it because they believe it’s in the kids’ best interest, I truly believe that. They’re not doing it to hurt the kids or put the kids at a disadvantage. They truly believe that what they’re doing is best for their players. I just don’t agree with it.”

Often, it’s the parents who are making the final decisions on behalf of their student-athletes. In many cases, players want to play for their high school teams as well.

South High lost between 10 and 15 players to the decision, but that hasn’t stopped them from opening the season on a high note as the lone undefeated team in the Cook Inlet Conference.

“South gets hammered the most with those Team Alaska guys but it’s OK,” Wolverines head coach Daniel Ramsey said. “We’ve had some JV kids come up, we’re in our fourth season now so our seniors are big on this team. That’s who our first line is, all seniors.”

High school hockey benefits

The high school coaches at West, Chugiak and South referenced the type of overwhelming support that comes with playing at that level. There are often big crowds featuring friends, family, faculty, alumni and the community at large. In travel hockey, teams typically play in front of scarce audiences predominantly made up of parents.

“I coached comp hockey too, and all you do is go to the arenas and moms and dads are the only ones in the arenas,” Larkey said. “There’s no cheerleaders in the crowd leading chants or a band being played. It’s a different excitement.”

The rivalry games between Chugiak and neighboring Eagle River average around 1,000 fans filling the stands and lining the rink at the Harry J. McDonald Memorial Center, providing an atmosphere that is “absolutely raucous,” said Wild.

“I feel like the kids are being forced to sacrifice an experience that they will not be able to replicate after they’re done playing (youth) hockey,” Wild said. “They’re robbing these kids of an opportunity, and they’ll tell you that there’s nothing like playing high school hockey.”

Many youth hockey players won’t get a chance to play in front of a packed arena outside of high school unless they play for a good junior hockey team in a passionate community.

“I think it’s really cool being able to play for your high school because you get to represent your school and represent the hockey team,” South sophomore forward David Berg said. “You really get to put out for your school and your fans.”

West wasn’t hit as hard as some of the other teams when it came to the volume of players they lost to Team Alaska’s decision. Larkey said five players are forgoing the high school season to commit to Team Alaska.

“We don’t want kids to throw their Team Alaska away either,” he said. “We don’t want to interrupt them as well.”

Possible resolutions

Youth hockey is the rare sport in the state in which the high school season overlaps with the competitive league season.

According to Thompson, the Team Alaska program director, the conflicting schedules are the most detrimental to Team Alaska at the time when the team needs to be at its best and sharpest, around the time of the high school regional tournament.

Thompson said he’s spent the past four years trying to work with the Alaska School Activities Association on a possible resolution.

“Before I was event program director, I was meeting with them to see how we can make this work because I get that high school hockey more than anything is the experience,” Thompson said. “The way that the schedules are built up for high school and our comp, it doesn’t set either of us up for success.”

His proposals to ASAA over the years when there has been dual participation included moving up the dates of the high school postseason or changing the start of the regular season to earlier in October.

“That would give us more wiggle room for our teams to prepare for the regional tournament and hopefully punch a ticket to nationals,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately, ASAA doesn’t want to separate the big schools from the small schools, and the difficulty there is that the smaller programs practice outside, so their season is surrounded by the temperatures to have outdoor ice.”

To develop a possible resolution for future dual participation, Thompson wants to work with ASAA to ensure a pathway that is beneficial for all parties.

“It wasn’t an easy decision. It is not one that is set in stone that no matter what moving forward, that’s what we’re doing,” he said. “It all comes down to that I think there’s a way for this to work for both, and I think that adjusting the (high school) season even by a couple weeks would change a lot of things.”

Finding success

All six Alaskans currently on the Anchorage Wolverines junior hockey team have come through the Team Alaska pipeline, which Thompson believes is a direct reflection of how the program sets its athletes up for success.

“These kids who are aspiring to play for the Wolverines one day or for any of our other junior programs in the state or any program that is outside the country, they’re (on a) stepping stone by playing at (our) level,” he said.

Thompson regrets that his players won’t get to have the same types of experiences as those who opt to play at the high school level, but knows that the sacrifices they make now have the potential to pay major dividends later.

“A lot of these players are asking for more of a challenge and unfortunately, in high-level athletics in high school, college or junior hockey, there is sacrifice,” he said. “Anybody that’s gone through it understands that. Unfortunately, you can’t have everything.”

Thompson and Team Alaska compiled a list of youth hockey players with birth years of 1975 until present day who have left the state to pursue higher levels of competition, and the number of those who leave each year has grown.

In 1992, there were only a handful, and that number stayed low through 2005. But there have been double-digit departures in 19 of the last 20 years. The most in a year during that span was 43 in 2019, and departures remained in the double digits during the COVID-19 pandemic with 11 in 2020.

“Our goal is to keep these kids at home,” Thompson said. “When you’re sitting there and thinking that Team Alaska hasn’t won anything, our goal is to keep some of these best kids here.”

Larkey, the West High coach, pointed to a large number of players who have participated in high school and have gone on to bigger things in hockey as well. Among them is Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman, who played at South High and the AAA Alaska Junior Aces before moving up in competition.

Thompson said the fact that Team Alaska has been able to consistently contend for region titles despite not having the top local talent is tangible proof of their growth as a program. They’re seeing sustained success and better results this year on their travel teams with no dual participation, he said.

“We’re clearly doing something that people appreciate because they want to be a part of it and they’re staying in it,” Thompson said. “That is probably more rewarding than anything. Seeing kids staying in Alaska and staying in the program to represent Alaska.”