Hockey Diplomacy: The Vail International Hockey trip offers local players a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow on and off the ice

Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, the food, the culture, it was just memories,” said Jorge Sinaloa, one of 34 area youth hockey players who participated in Vail International Hockey’s recent 19-day trip to Eastern Europe. Scandinavia. The eight-city tour, which ended with a match in Iceland on 5 January, included two games in each country visited for each of the 17-member U17 and U14 teams. Most importantly, however, it provided the student-athletes with an opportunity to expand their global perspectives through hands-on visits to unique historical sites, conversations with some of the witnesses to important moments in the 20th century, and… well… hockey, of course.

“It’s a vehicle to get them interested and is our common bond with the countries we visit,” said Eric Eves, executive director of Vail International Hockey, who calls the nonprofit’s vision “hockey diplomacy.”

“All of these countries, they have their own perception of America, and we don’t have the knowledge or basic knowledge or misconceptions about them,” he said. “And just breaking cultural barriers and trying to bring the world closer. And hockey is just a beautiful part of that.”

Intercultural communication

“We played some of the best youth teams in Finland, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Sweden,” Eves noted, quickly dismissing the relative weight of the scoreboard. That is, except for the home fans. In reality, the attendance list reveals a geographically concentrated representation of the familiar Colorado region, with athletes hailing from Steamboat Springs, Fraser, Frisco, Glenwood Springs, Edwards, Avon, Vail, Wolcott, Aspen, Basalt and Carbondale, hundreds turned out to watch a game that the scoreboard said was “U.S.A. against”

“We’re not a select team,” Eves explained. But opponents often are, and when the games inevitably don’t match up, Eves adopts an old strategy originally used by Vail International Hockey founder Merv Lapin to keep learning and international exposure going: defensemen switch teams.

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“All of a sudden these kids are wearing a Latvian jersey and those guys are wearing a Colorado hockey jersey,” Eves described.

“That’s where the real beauty of the game and the language of hockey isn’t even a language, it’s the knowledge they have of playing with each other, and they get more creative.”

“It was really cool because I got to meet all the kids and see what their hockey was like,” said Vail’s George Grayson.

“Playing with teams from other countries, we really got to see that we weren’t used to a different style of play,” coach Mark Greer noted.

“Many of these European teams play on Olympic-sized ice. We saw how they use the ice space better and how they move the puck and play more of a possession game.

Greer’s favorite memory was when, after switching defenses, the Swedish team drew something for their new player, Sinaloa. When the Battle Mountain junior scored, both benches went wild. The image captured the power of the universal language of hockey in forging friendships and crossing cultures. Of course, with competing teenagers, some bonds weren’t made right away.

“An interesting exchange (I had) with a player was that during the game we didn’t really like each other and then afterwards we talked and I found out he was really nice and we became friends,” Tarn Ihnken said. Gavin Vold exchanged pins with the coach and Charlie Kaplinski exchanged phone numbers over post-game pizza.

U14 player Hank Haley said the European-style hockey, which emphasized less individualism and more passing, rubbed off on him. “It makes me more aggressive,” he said.

“Normally back in Vail, when the kids come down, they cut out and try to get it behind the net, but now (these players) are trying to get it in front of the net. So you have to be more aggressive, you have to squeeze them harder, you have to use your body more. If you just try to use your stick, they’ll just pass it by.”

“I’ve gotten a lot faster and just better overall,” Grayson added.

The team’s goalkeeper Sebastian Sailer echoed the sentiment. “When I get home, I’ll probably be really used to fast hockey,” he said. “It’s very fast here.”

Weaving history into hockey

Merv Lapin founded Vail International Hockey in 1985 after traveling to Asia himself.

“He saw the writing on the wall, the rise of China and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the significance of everything that happened in World War II and the Cold War and how it was going to shape our future,” Eves said.

“Thirty-five years later, we were now walking through history on these trips.”

The tension caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was palpable. The team’s visit to Poland was canceled because the rink typically used was housing refugees. Eves said there was “a lot of political undertones and undertones” as the group, which also included about 20 parents as well as a doctor and team coaches, made its way through Latvia and the Czech Republic.

“No one knows what will happen next,” he said, adding that the group came within 50 miles of the Russian border during their stay in Finland. The literal proximity to history, even potentially future significant moments, is intentional.

“History is going to happen, there’s going to be something that happens in Prague or Reykjavik, a meeting or the UN General Assembly, and they can say I was there, and that separates them from the traditional American story,” Eves. said. Typically, the focus of these trips has been specifically the Second World War.

Asked why, Eves said: “History repeats itself, it just shows itself differently,” adding that athletes choose a topic from perestroika to the Velvet Revolution to research beforehand.

“We didn’t go to Russia, but we went really close to where they really saw and appreciated freedom and democracy. It takes a while for a lot of players to connect the dots and soak it in.”

For many players, big off-ice highlights were visits to museums, old cathedrals and other historical sites.

“The Holocaust Museum was very powerful because of the children’s drawings,” Grayson said.

Vail’s Mason Darnell was fascinated by “all the culture and seeing how all the different countries worked” and learning about the political and social effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the surrounding nations.

After seeing the impact of the trip over the years, Eves has seen children grow up to be lawyers, historians and learn a second language or even live abroad, the director is motivated to work with regional coaches and clubs to make the event twice a year and enable reciprocal exchange.

“We’ve been talking to all these clubs here about how we can bring back what we had before, which is the Vail International Hockey tournament, and then create a sister club,” he said. “It’s been very well received.”

Eves is sure of at least two things: the athletic and intellectual traces left on the players.

“We tried to give a global perspective and use hockey as a connector,” he said.

“Seeing our players with these kids and playing against them, they started to change their style. The best hockey coaches in the world will tell you that the best players in the world are the most creative. And you can’t teach creativity, it has to become instinctive. You have to feel it.”

“The coolest thing I learned on the ice was just learning about the history and culture of the places we went and how it was different from America in a lot of ways,” Henry Mellenthin said.

“All the cultural differences that they have (compared to) Aspen, and there’s a lot of similarities, it’s also great to see all of that,” Ihnken noted.

“Some of the (places we visited) are very similar to the United States, but there’s always a little bit of a cultural twist,” Sailer added.

Darnell struggled to place how he had grown specifically as a player, but his answer perfectly summed up the goals of the trip.

“I just keep my eyes more open on and off the ice,” he said.

Another assurance from Eves: the memories related to the trip to Sinaloa will be talked about for a long time to come.

“I talk to men in their thirties and forties and they say it’s a talking point at their weddings,” Eves said by phone late at night during one of the final stops. As he spoke, all the boys had, on their own initiative, started a game of hockey (what else?) on a field they had found near the hotel. As the friends played under the stars, Eves let out a contented sigh.

“That’s a pretty impressive deal.”