Area girls’ hockey finishes season at state tournament

Two teams reach finals

Gunnison Valley area girls’ hockey teams competed against 24 of the state’s best teams this past weekend at the Edge Ice Arena in Denver.
The U19 AA Division was exciting to watch with the high speed and highly skilled caliber of play. Leading up to the championship game was the powerful Steamboat Skier team playing the fast-skating Gunnison Blade squad on Saturday night before a packed Edge Ice Arena crowd. Skiers took the game 3-2. The U19 AA championship needed two overtimes to decide the winner, with Steamboat edging out the Blade team 3-2 to claim state championship honors.
Turning to U16 AA play, the West Elk Panthers played very strong throughout the tourney. Reaching the championship game on Sunday, the Panther team played a very hungry Aspen Leaf squad. Again, two overtimes were needed to decide the championship with the hard-skating Leafs edging the Panthers 2-1. Both the Gunnison Blade U19 and West Elk U16 teams are comprised of Gunnison and Crested Butte girls.
In the U14 AA Division your West Elk / CB Panther team fought hard but ran into some great competition. The Aspen, Summit and Arvada teams all brought their AA games and showed why this division was tough to play in.
The Panthers fought their way back to capture third place over a feisty Leaf team 2-1. Arvada easily won the championship by defeating Summit 5-2. The U14 Panthers finished the season with a very respectable record of 18-5-3.
The Gunnison U14 team skated to the U14 A championship by defeating Colorado Select 4-0 on Sunday. The Blades squad had been improving all season and came to play in the tournament. This is Gunnison’s first U14 girl’s championship.
A big shout out again to all of our youth hockey sponsors. A special thank you to Eric Roemer and the Wooden Nickel Fall Classic Golf Tournament for their generous support to youth and girls hockey programs. Our girls compete very well against the big ski area and city teams. All the girls are looking forward to skating hard again next season. Congrats to all the girls for a great hockey season.