The 32nd Edition of the Westminster Rocky Mountain Regional featured three Fremont Ice Association (FIA) teams and two of them ended up as champions in the 10UA and 14UA divisions.

But the tournament also marked the first time all three travel/representative teams were able to attend the same tournament on the same weekend. This was something that was building since several years back when individual FIA teams trekked across Nebraska to Colorado for the annual tournament.

“I remember when we went with peewees back in 2022, we looked around and saw the Colorado associations have multiple teams participating and thought ‘That would be cool for Fremont to do as well,’” said FIA VP Jason Buzzell.

The team back in 2022 ended up winning the International Silver Stick Tier 2 12U/U13 Championship in Ontario, which turned many heads up in Canada. That team had only had a couple players who had played travel hockey before the season, and featured eight first-year peewee players who had only played House Select in squirts.

“We learned a lot that season,” Buzzell said. “We spoke with the Canadian teams we played against, and Colorado teams, and most of the associations have at least 60-70 kids at each level, sometimes as many as 200, to our 25-35 kids.

“To play the Arapahoes and Litteltons, or the top teams from New Mexico and Utah is a testament to the association’s development model.”

Fremont Ice Association plans to continue sending its travel/gold teams to the tournament in years to come (See our program comparison for more info on our team types). It also gives them an opportunity to play different teams as during the season you see a lot of Midwest Hockey League teams even at other tournaments within a few hour radius. The amount of A teams in the Midwest is very limited, so a weekend like this gives them competition they, for the most part, won’t see again.

The 10U Warbirds group went 4-0-1 including a tight 2-1 semifinal victory over Omaha and a 2-0 championship win over Arapahoe. The 12U Flyers fought valiantly playing both of the eventual finalists in pool play and scored the only goal, two of them actually, of pool play that Arapahoe gave up. Last year’s 12U team qualified for the Forest Finals tournament in Ontario, Canada.

“There’s just very little margin for error at these tournaments,” said 12U coach Kent Johnson. “We tied one and lost the other two against the finalists by just one goal each. We were right there with the best teams.

“I’m proud of these kids.”

The 14U Warbirds had a late finale for their championship win over Littleton Sunday afternoon. The wait was worth it, however, as the team is developing rapidly, rebounding from disappointing Albert Lea Bantam A weekend which saw them go 2-2 Nov. 15-17, to a 6-0 weekend in Denver which culminated with an 8-3 win in the final - the first Silver Stick Regional for a few of the players on the team.

Both the 10U and 14U Warbirds now head to the International Silver Stick Finals in January where competition will really ramp up. The 10Us head to Sarnia, Ontario Jan. 16-19 while 14U heads to Port Huron, Michigan Jan. 23-26.