Two Sundays ago, Chris Collins was on the ice with his team — Tahoe Prep Academy — waiting on a 5 p.m. update on the Caldor Fire that had been threatening the area.
The update turned out to be more than he’d bargained for: namely, an immediate evacuation notice.
“All the sudden, everyone comes and goes, ‘You’ve got to get off the ice. You’ve got to leave — you’ve got to pack up!’” Collins recalled. “So all the players, we got everybody off, they all got in cars, went to the dorms and basically they had five minutes to get their things out and get out. And mind you, we’re looking over the hill, and you just see an orange glow.”
The 32-year-old hockey coach spoke though he had only just recently found an opportunity to exhale — if you count managing an evacuation of your 18-and-younger hockey players from South Tahoe to Aspen and then immediately picking up an on-ice practice regimen with the team at a new rink, about a week ahead of competition in Minnesota, as an opportunity for an exhale.
One feeling that has emerged in the chaos? Gratitude, Collins said.
“The kids got all their stuff packed, got all the way out, and then there we were sitting at the rink going, ‘What’s next?’” he recalled. “I want to say a day later, [Aspen resident] Bob Bowden gave me a call … we just had a pow-wow to discuss, what are our options?
“This is probably the nicest thing, personally, that has ever been done for me and for these kids, by allowing us to kind of save these kids’ years. These kids, after COVID, thought, ‘OK, we’re out of the woods.’ And then the next thing you know, fire comes into the town and these kids might not have a year,” Collins continued.
Bowden, for his part, has a son who participates in the North American Prospects Hockey League team and was on scene during the emergency evacuation — Tahoe Prep Academy does not hold try-outs, Collins explained, but rather relies on recruiting efforts to build the team. The proprietor of Bowden Homes has a few properties in town and offered to house the young players.
“It became black — not black as night, black as soot,” Bowden said. “Like the inside of a fireplace. It was black fire covered in white hash, it was like a hushpuppy.”
Bowden gave credit to the firefighting team — which includes some firefighters from the Roaring Fork Valley offering mutual aid — but acknowledged that the flames overtook those efforts that Sunday (Aug. 29).
“Apparently they set up a control burn,” Bowden said, drawing comparisons to when local firefighters successfully implemented a similar technique to save El Jebel’s mobile home park during the Lake Christine Fire in 2018. “They were struggling, but they were trying to save the entire community. It went from nothing to, in four days, it was huge. Then huger; it was biblical. Floods, fires. I’m expecting locusts any second.”
But when chaos reigned, Aspen offered refuge. Heather Hart, acting general manager for St. Regis Aspen, also has a 16-year-old son who plays for the 18U team. When Bowden contacted her about supplying much-needed linens and towels for the roughly 50 new guests between players and administration, she said the resort’s housekeeping staff was at the ready within hours.
“It’s not a huge ask, especially given the circumstances. I think everyone is busy and whatever we can do to help our community and our neighbors is not a big ask,” she said, adding, “We have a pretty amazing team at the St. Regis.”
It was perhaps the most meaningful aspect of the trip, as far as not losing momentum during an already difficult year coming off the pandemic.
“We were kind of in limbo because the hockey rink was also evacuated, so they didn’t have any place to play. I believe the coaches checked into Reno, Nevada, and there weren’t any places available,” Hart said Monday. “Bob, when he reached out to the [Aspen Recreation Center], the ARC was super supportive — very giving — and helped secure ice for these boys.”
Now, both the Tier 18U and Tier 16U teams each practice two to three hours a day at the Lewis Ice Arena at the ARC, she said.
Jasper Korican, assistant coach who spearheads strength conditioning for the teams, called having access to the ARC and housing in Aspen in the midst of an emergency nothing short of a “blessing.”
“It definitely brought these guys closer together. It was cool to see them have each other’s back and get through it. We were able to be out on the ice, and I think that was the best part about it. Once we got on the ice, the fire became in the back of our minds, and we just focused on hockey,” he said.
The entire ordeal has been a bonding experience for Collins, and Korican, too. Korican joined the Tahoe Prep Academy coaching effort after coaching under Collins as a college player at State University of New York-Fredonia.
“I was born and raised in Oakland, California, which is like three hours [from Tahoe]. Then I would train in Tahoe in the summers — I played college hockey. So I would train with Chris,” he said from the ARC ice rink Monday. “Last year was my senior year, and it got canceled because of COVID. So I was training with Chris to try to figure out what I was going to do next, and then I decided to get into coaching. It kind of all just came together.”
Neither Collins nor Korican had been to Aspen before the evacuation last week forced the issue. While the circumstances weren’t expected, they both commented on the natural beauty and welcoming nature of the city. Both felt that the situation will be a learning experience for years to come.
“Having to literally pack up, not knowing what’s going to happen, to then showing up in a foreign town in the middle of the night and then getting on the ice … kind of going through it together — that’s the kind of culture we try to breed here for these kids,” Collins said, calling Aspen a “sister city” to Tahoe.
“You do the right things, you play the right way and you celebrate the right things. So here we are, celebrating being in Aspen, working hard and just trying to do the right things here.”
They won’t be here long, however. The two teams will be off to Blaine, Minnesota, on Sunday.
“That’s kind of our home rink, where we play all our games,” Collins said. “It’s top-end, quality competition: NorthStar Christian Academy, New Hampshire Avalanche, you’ve got Minnesota high school teams. …It’s going to be tough. We’re excited.”
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After emergency evacuation, Tahoe hockey team finds refuge in Aspen - Aspen Daily News
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