Put It On Ice

Mike Berger now finds himself in the middle of Indiana, still talking with a noticeable northern tone in his voice. He has come a long way. Now the head coach of the top team in the Hamilton Southeastern hockey program, HSE-A, Berger followed a winding road that guided him toward the Indiana high school game back in 2001. But the Canadian native who was drafted into the National Hockey League (NHL) at age 17 was a bit surprised at what he saw after accepting the position. "I came up to a game and sat on the glass and watched, and I wasn't impressed with what I saw," says Berger, who played 14 seasons in the minors after breaking his foot and blowing out a knee in the same NHL game at age 20. "The skill level six years ago was low. I had heard nightmares about high school hockey - just a bunch of fighting, only one good team out of however many - so I knew I had to come into it with an open mind." And that was quite a realization and reality check for a man who grew up in northern Alberta. Hockey is different up there, and to take the context of a notable line from "The Wizard of Oz", he's not in Canada anymore. "Where I grew up, we're under snow for 10 months a year. It's hockey, that's what we have," explains Berger, adding that the pond in his yard was as common as an Indiana boy putting a basketball hoop on his driveway. "Every year my dad and my uncles would go get the front-end loaders, clear off the ice and put up boards - it was an outdoor rink in the front yard. Whenever you got cold you just went inside the house, but my dad even built portable locker rooms with space heaters." It goes unsaid that Indiana kids don't have quite that experience with the game. Yet for Berger, who played his final season as a player-coach with the Indiana Ice in 1999-2000, he's seen vast improvements during his time as head coach and general manager at the Forum of Fishers. Berger says that the skill set in the high school game has improved "leaps and bounds" since he sat on the glass and watched that first game. But it's not just the quality of the game that has improved; it's also the atmosphere around the game on just about any Friday or Saturday night at the Forum. "It's mayhem," he says. "The high school hockey atmosphere up here, on our rink on a Friday or Saturday night, this place is packed. We get great support from our student body. Everybody comes out, it's a high school atmosphere and it's really cool." High School hockey isn't terribly new to the area, as the Indiana State High School Hockey Association (ISHSHA) was officially formed in 1982 as a nonprofit organization. Even with all the support and growth in terms of both the quality of the game and attendance, there are still many prep sports fans that don't even realize that hockey is an option to play or to watch. In all, there are 38 teams in Indiana that will participate in this year's state tournament in early March. The state is broken down into four leagues, with 18 teams composing the biggest - the Hoosier League here in Central Indiana and spreading south. The other three leagues are Fort Wayne, Michiana (South Bend) and Illiana (Valparaiso area). Although the sport is not sanctioned by the IHSAA, the ISHSHA has been granted permission to use its bylaws as a tool for things such as grade requirements. And the league set-up is about as fair as you can get. In breaking things down for the state tournament, there are classes 1A through 5A. In short form, the four leagues play their regular season games, including crossover tournaments against each other's leagues, in order to get a reasonable view of every team's record against like opponents. Then, the top 4 teams are put into 5A followed by eight teams in each class below. The two teams with the worst record are left out of the tournament. "The composition (of the state tournament) will change almost every year," says Jon Parmalee, president of the Hoosier League and assistant coach for his son Justin's team, the Lawrence Bearcats. "I think it makes things fair with the wide array of ability levels we have in the state." For instance, the Bearcats in recent years have fielded one team and have battled for position in either 3A or 4A on a consistent basis. The past four years, Lawrence and North Central have played at the end of the season with the outcome sending the winner to 4A and loser to 3A. Funny thing is, the loser of that game who went to play as the No. 1 seed in 3A has gone on to win that title, while the winner has lost in the 4A bracket. Other programs, such as HSE, Perry South Stars and Carmel, field 'B' and 'C' teams. Generally speaking, the 'B' teams wind up in the 3A bracket for the state tournament, maybe with shot at 4A. Meanwhile, other 'B' teams might play in 2A when the regular season is all said and done. Noblesville head coach John Moore, who moved to the area 11 years ago with his family, has seen the sport take some positive strides during those years. His son played travel hockey in the Chicago area before moving here and played for HSE since the Noblesville club did not yet exist. "I think what you're seeing is that there's a lot more players looking at the high school game as a viable option. It's really a great product for kids that age," says Moore. "The traditional travel programs, you're playing 80-90 games a season, travelling at least three weekends a month. It's a serious commitment with time and money. The high school game offers an alternative in that you play about half as many games, it's becoming more and more competitive and for a high school kid that wants some balance in his life, it's a great way to stay involved in the sport and have a real quality experience." But some say that cost is still an issue, even though playing at the high school level is noticeably cheaper than a rigorous travel schedule with hotel bills and restaurant checks. It's all relative, of course, but the prevailing realization is that hockey is expensive by nature. "There's nothing you can really do, it's just the way it is - you have to buy a helmet, you have to buy skates, you have to buy all the pads, a stick - and that just gets you ready to go on the ice," Parmalee says. "Then the ice is 240 bucks an hour to rent and it goes on." Berger says that the board of directors is trying to do a better job of trying to bring the cost down for all the players, possibly looking to corporate sponsorship as one way. The notion that hockey is a country club sport, argues Berger, isn't true. "There are people that think hockey is a rich kid's sport. It's not," he says. "There are parents who sacrifice a lot of stuff so their kids can play hockey because that's the sport they choose. I see kids choosing hockey every year, parents will tell me their kid quit baseball because he wants to concentrate on hockey." Yet Berger says he knows that cost works the opposite way in some cases, especially when a parent has three or four other kids involved in activities. That's why there's a movement to help subsidize the league. For the people involved with high school hockey, playing or coaching, the hard numbers take a back seat when discussing the benefits of keeping the game alive and well. With these club teams bringing together athletes from all different schools and areas, divided by districts, the hockey community is about much more than the name on the chest. While the private school teams (Brebeuf, Cathedral, Park Tudor) draw from only their own student base, teams such as Lawrence and Perry have representation from nearly 10 different high schools. "We've got a lot of different kids from different areas and it really brings us a lot closer," says Perry coach Andy Bauermeister. "That time we do have at practice isn't taken for granted." And essentially that time together is what the high school game is all about. Perhaps that's why the hockey community and student bodies have embraced it. "I sit back sometimes and shake my head," says Berger, almost remembering the first time he sat against the glass and watched that first game with disappointment. "High school hockey is huge, it really is."