Wolfpack share holiday cheer in annual Alumni Game

Best game eva

It’s been a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly throughout the history of the Crested Butte Wolfpack Alumni hockey game. Alumni have taken the opportunity to imbibe prior to the drop of the puck, making for some rather unfortunate circumstances.
Last year things were toned down a bit and the two teams squared off in a classic showdown. In the end, the Wolfpack got the best of the Alumni, skating to a 5-3 win, relying on fitness and discipline to disrupt the Alumni’s chaotic style of play.
This year, while things were relatively civil both on the ice and on the benches, again relatively, the game was not so much a showdown as it was a showcase.
The Alumni team stretched its bench and showed up with a small army 20-strong for the game. Included in the roster of former Wolfpack players were former coaches, as Tim Clark and Phil Martin laced up the skates for the occasion. In addition, there was the usual cast of characters. The elder statesmen of the Alumni team, Jeffery Snyder and Rask Dietrich, will always be there for the game. Former teammates Mo Gillie, John Tharpe, Robbie Holleran and Daniel Hargrove will probably show up for every Alumni game until they’ve lost complete control of their faculties.
Former prolific Wolfpack scorer Sam Evans was out there and in the past couple of years the team got a boost from the likes of Jake Grogg, Collin Dill, Ben Frame and Troy Pike. And then there’s Ben Reaman and Dylan Curtiss. Reaman closed out his high school career two years ago and spent a year in Tulsa playing for the Tulsa Oilers junior hockey farm team before playing for Colorado State University this past year.
Curtiss finished up his Wolfpack career last year and is currently following the same path as Reaman, except in Washington State playing for the West Sound Warriors.
There were others, like I said, more than 20 of them, with fans, siblings, girlfriends and parents pressed against the glass almost the entire way around the rink.
It took awhile for the Alumni train to get running, as current Wolfpack player Ian Dethloff won the opening faceoff and slipped the puck to Sam Reaman. Reaman settled, skated, drew a couple defenders and went cross-ice with the puck to a wide-open Dakota Wiggins for the Wolfpack goal, 11 seconds into the game.
The Alumni settled into their game of dish and dash with solo efforts providing several scoring chances. They had one golden opportunity as the puck fell behind Wolfpack goalie Montana Wiggins (GoPro attached to his helmet) and was set to trickle in before Gage Meredith swept the puck clear.
The Alumni tied it up 10 minutes into the game when a backhand from Ben Reaman slipped to the weak side and David Bright was there to push it home.