Third-year Sun Valley Suns head coach Chris Benson is excited about the team's 24-game ice hockey season that resumes tonight with the 2006-07 home debut against the Park City (Utah) Silver Kings.
Why not? And why shouldn't you spend an evening with the Suns soon?
The Suns have a lot of things going for them—a stable cast of returning skilled players and characters who know the drill, younger legs in the form of new and promising players, a deeper bench, 18 home games, two more road trips to anticipate and two healthy goaltenders.
About goalies Ryan Thomson (2-1-0 with injuries last year, 17-7-0 three years) and Colin Zulianello (8-3-0 as last year's #1), Benson said, "I'll take those two goalies against any two goalies we see. And they're as healthy as they can be."
Benson's preference is skating four forward lines at Sun Valley's nearly 6,000-foot altitude and he's got the players to do it this winter.
"It'll be nice having a deeper bench," he said. "We'll be able to put four strong lines out against any team. That'll keep everybody's legs fresh."
Organizationally, the Suns are entering their 32nd season with a strong supporting foundation—The Suns Foundation Inc. It has reached out to the community and developed a series of benefit nights to improve fan attendance and raise money.
For instance, tonight's game will feature a raffle drawing ($10 tickets for great prizes) between the second and third periods. Benson said the money raised will help the team's operating fund so that the Suns can give more money back to youth organizations in the valley.
And Saturday's game is a benefit for Hailey Ice Inc.
Sun Valley (16-8-0 last year, 511-202-29 all-time) played Park City in last winter's home debut and won rather easily 7-4 and 9-2. The difference this year, besides the refurbished name, Park City Silver Kings, is that Park City has a new rink and the Suns will visit Utah March 2-3.
Benson is hoping the new home-and-home series with Park City means that Sun Valley, McCall, Jackson Hole and Park City can form a little ski resort league that at the very least guarantees each team 12 games each winter. "Maybe we can have a mini-tournament at the end of the season at rotating sites," he said.
The coach thinks this year's schedule is stronger than in the past.
Besides the Jackson Hole Moose and McCall Mountaineers, it features two of the country's best men's senior full-check teams—St. Nicks of New York (here Feb. 16-17), Wright Homes of Minnesota (here Feb. 23-24, the old Bucks Furniture squad).
And the Boston Bulldogs/Tenor Bros. team that wraps up the season schedule March 9-10 will be loaded with Division 1 skaters, he said.
Speaking of Boston, the Suns have a Beantown native who is wearing the George Jacket this week for, among other things, jumping into Payette Lake after Sun Valley's 3-1 and 3-1 sweep at McCall Dec. 1-2.
That's Jon Duval, whose reports you've been reading in the Express the last two weeks. Duval, 28, played at Williams College in Massachusetts from 1997-01 with fourth-year Suns defenseman Eric Demment. Duval skated in New Zealand last year, but said the highlight of his athletic career was skating on the Peewee national champion Winchester (Mass.) Sachems back in 1991.
Duval is a right shot who skated on the left wing with center Paul Cox and alternate captain John Stevens at McCall.
The Suns have a strong defense, in fact, staying solid in its own zone was one of the reasons Sun Valley swept McCall, Benson said. And they've got a good, new addition in 25-year-old Jami James, a 6-2, 205-pound right shot from Vermont.
James, a single parent of an 8-year-old son, is looking forward to fitting into the community after starting this hockey season professionally with the Flint (Mich.) Generals of the United Hockey League. He pulled a groin muscle, found it difficult coming back and found Flint suddenly flooded with free agents. James hasn't yet gotten a callback.
So he headed west. James first played college hockey at Minot State in North Dakota and ended up skating at Castleton (Vt.) State College where he graduated in 2003 with a degree in child psychology. He's a social worker at Bigwood Preschool.
When you're a hockey fan, it's exciting to follow the progress of a new, young line and Sun Valley has one in Ryan McDonald, 23, Adam Swain, 24 and Blake Jenson, 20.
Fourth-year center and local product McDonald is the best passer this side of Snow King's 43 North and he really came into his own with the Suns last winter as the second-leading scorer with 31 points. He's got two good young ones with him.
Swain, from West Simsbury, Conn. in ESPN country west of Hartford, played high school hockey at Avon Old Farms where, coincidentally, McDonald also went to prep school. But midfielder Swain also played four years of Division 1 lacrosse at Denver University, where his team won its league and made the NCAA tournament when he was a senior.
Here in Sun Valley where 2006 DU real estate construction management graduate Swain works for JLC Construction, he is better known as the brother of Wood River High School boys' varsity soccer coach Farrell Swain.
Talking about family ties, Blake Jenson comes from Sun Valley Suns blueblood lines. His stepdad is John "Cub" Burke, the Duluth winger and original Suns skater who these days carries Davis Love III's golf bag when he's not making the introductions for The Suns Foundation Inc.
Born in the old Sun Valley hospital, Blake lived in Warm Springs and went to grade school at Hemingway Elementary before finishing up in 2005 at Northwood School in Lake Placid, N.Y. where he played hockey. He tried Junior Bs last winter in Texas with the Fort Worth Texans but injured his knee and ankle there.
In September 6-0, 200-pound right shot Jenson tired of the six-days-a-week Junior A hockey regimen with the Oswego (N.Y.) Admirals and decided to spend the winter in Sun Valley. Next year, who knows? Maybe Division 3 college hockey back East at Quinnipiac in Hamden, Conn., not far from Avon.
Right now, he's just having fun playing with Swain and "Doogle" McDonald. "It's a fun line," he said.
And it should be a fun season for the Suns. Opening face-offs for the Park City series and every Suns home game are 7 p.m. at Sun Valley Skating Center. Adult tickets are $7.
"It looks promising," Benson said.
The 2006-07 Sun Valley Suns men?s hockey team poses for a pre-season team photo at Sun Valley Skating Center. Front, from left, goalie Colin Zulianello, alternate captain Vilnis Nikolaisons, Paul Baranzelli, Ivars Muzis, Charles Friedman, Caleb Baukol, Ryan Enrico, Ryan McDonald, Jamie Ellison and goalie Ryan Thomson. Back, from left, goalie Mat Gershater, Kevin Burns, Blake Jenson, Rian Timmons, Trevor Thomas, captain Chris Warrington, alternate captain John Stevens, Eric Demment, Jon Duval, D.W. Cook, Adam Swain, goalie Doug Melvin and head coach Chris Benson. The Suns open their home season tonight against the Park City (Utah) Silver Kings.
Photo by Willy Cook
