Jackson Hole Moose Hockey

Jackson Hole, Wyoming -  It’s late Wednesday night. The internal biorhythmic clock of most mortals has told them to wind down for bed. When assistant coach Bryan Korpi blows the whistle that begins the ‘breakout drill’ for the Jackson Hole Moose, speedy winger Dan Stasny takes pass on his backhand in full flight, dekes a defender, and buries the puck behind the goaltender. The play covers 180 feet in about four seconds. In hockey, there’s a reason it’s called “the rush.”

The indisputable ‘fastest game on earth’ is not for the feint of heart. Players armed with a stick and a grudge skate at nearly 30 mph. Pucks travel routinely at 90 mph. Disagreements in ice hockey are often settled in bare-knuckled fashion on a sheet of ice, while referees stand helplessly by and rabid fans pound on Plexiglas designed to protect them from the violence inside.

Is it any wonder a hockey player is recognized by his smile?

TJ Thomas has donated teeth to the game he grew up playing in Minnesota. Thomas never made it to the end of the Moose intersquad scrimmage Wednesday night. He left the ice doubled over, blood trailing behind him to the locker room after taking a puck to the face. No big deal for the feisty forward whose speed keeps him out of most trouble. Usually.

“The worst game I was ever in was in 2000,” Thomas recalled. A guy from the Minnesota Bucks sucker punched me; cracked my nose open and took me out of the game. He was mad about getting dumped by his Russian girlfriend and took it out on me.”

Like a lot of players, Thomas was put on skates before kindergarten. He helped his high school team win a state championship and headed straight for Jackson Hole in 1993. The Moose were the Grizzlies then, and Thomas pulled on his trademark No. 7 sweater to join Dustin Stolp as one of the original players on the Moose team which began its inaugural season in 1997-98.

The Jackson Hole Moose hockey club competes in the Senior A division of the USA Hockey Association. It is one of the highest levels of amateur hockey a player can participate in without being paid. Most Moose skaters played college hockey at a major school. Some players dabbled in the big time, cashing paychecks in minor leagues like the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) and various semi-pro leagues.
One thing all Moose players have in common is a need for speed and a desire to continue to play the game they grew up on at a competitive level.


Jeff Bloomer became a Moose in 1998. The son of a top level, National Coach-In-Chief at USA Hockey, Bloomer played at an elite hockey prep school (Northwood) in Lake Placid with retired Philadelphia Flyers star defenseman Chris Therien. He studied coaching at Adolphus Gustavus and, after assisting in Great Falls, Mont., eventually landed a head coaching job in Casper, Wyo.
“I inherited a team that was 3-21,” Bloomer said. “We were terrible. The team folded at the end of that year.”

Bob “Howie” Carruth hired Bloomer to play and coach for the Moose in 1998. He anchored the blue line for the Moose for four years before hanging up his skates to coach the team in 2002. In his debut season, the rugged defenseman scored 13 goals in 22 games while leading the team in penalty minutes.

Penalties may be a prerequisite to coaching the Moose. The current Moose coach is Adam Patterson who, during seven seasons on ice before moving behind the bench, racked up an enormous 364 minutes in the ‘sin bin.’

But the all-time instigator and agitator for the Moose is fan favorite Dustin Stolp. ‘DaBizz’ never met a sentence that didn’t need an f-bomb to spruce it up. His on-ice chatter is nonstop and when trouble brews, it’s a good bet Stolp is in the middle of it.

Stolp’s hardnosed style comes in handy at least twice per season when the Moose tackle their archrivals, the Sun Valley Suns. Bloodletting matches with the Suns are always the highlight of both teams’ seasons. The final score is for bragging rights, but hostility marks the time span between goals.

Second-year man Justin Martin sums up the fondness the Moose have for their ski resort nemesis. “I hate those bums,” he said.

“They have the worse rink we play at because of their fans,” Thomas said. “This one year, a wife of one of the Suns grabbed a two-by-four that was used as a barricade and wonked one of our guys  with it in the back of the head when we were heading for the locker room after the game.”

This year, the Moose may be in for a tumultuous season. Turnover is the problem. The hometown hockey club has lost the brothers Hannafin (Brian and Sean) back to their hometown of Boston and longtime mainstay defenseman Chris DeMarco told the team he would not be able to play much this year because of work commitments. The team’s top scorer, Greg Gripentrog, who has battled serious head injuries, has also called it quits.

Last season’s rookie crop was deep, led by stellar net-minder Nick Aulich. Dan Stasny and Justin Martin provided much-needed scoring punch in ’07-’08 and will be called upon again for offense. Grinders Chris Simpson and Dominic Sereno have moved on, so the team will look to Alaska native Bryan Upesleja – just call him ‘Oops’ – to continue the physical play that marked his rookie campaign last winter.
Assistant coach Korpi said while turnout for the team’s first practice was light – 18 players when 35 or so were expected – he expects the roster to fill in with late walk-ons as they are cut from semi-pro leagues back East.

“This will be an interesting year with all the turnover,” Thomas admitted. “The new players coming in will make the Moose exciting. The one thing that always stays the same is the great support of the town and the fans. Our fans are the best.”
The Moose play the Missoula Cuttroats, 7:30 p.m., Fri. and Sat.

Back outside where it all began
The year was 1976. Firewood was $65 a cord. Disco night was all the rage, though not at the Stagecoach; rather Dietrich’s Discothèque at the Alpenhof and the mirrored ball was brand new. The Happy Hound served the best burgers and malts in town and a three-bedroom house on Deloney listed for $49,000.

Enter a band of hooligans who couldn’t sit still for the winter. A few of them are still around. Guys like Paul Rice, Paul Gilroy, Mike Evans, Porgy McClelland, Phelps

Swift, Larry Anderson, Bill Resor and Jeff Huit. Led by the undisputed godfather of hockey in the hole, Skip Wright-Clark, and self-admittedly fueled by Bud and Big Macs; they didn’t know it then but the wild bunch Zambonied the way for the slick skating stars of the current Jackson Hole Moose hockey team.

“It all started in 1976,” remembered Wright-Clark. “I was on the Rec board and I begged them for $400 to build a rink, which they finally gave me. II then went to Jackson Lumber and conned free wood out of them for the boards and used the money on jerseys.”

Next, Wright-Clark went to the town and asked to build a rink at the site of the current Parks & Rec swimming pool. When asked by then-mayor Ralph Gill what he would need, he responded: Four shovels and two pieces of fire hose.

“Well, you would have thought I asked for the Golden Goose,” Wright-Clark said.

“But we built it; under budget and ahead of schedule. The county never did anything like that then and hasn’t since.”

That began the Stampede. Jackson’s first hockey team, although some old-timers remember loosely organized attempts at an ice hockey club in the ‘50s.
After a few years, the rink was moved to Wilson where the Stampede tried to coax teams from Casper, Salt Lake, Boise, and Sun Valley to come play.

“We just couldn’t get many teams to come here and play us because we never knew what the weather was going to be like,” Wright-Clark said. “Sun Valley would always come because they didn’t care if we couldn’t play, they would just hang out and drink.”

Wright-Clark’s teammate and roommate on the road, Dick Rice, also recalled the tribulation of playing on an outdoor rink. “I remember the time we shoveled the rink off four times it was snowing so hard. We never did get to play that night.”
Rice said the Stampede groomed the surface not with a Zamboni but a tractor. “Our original tractor was a Ferguson. This was made even before Massey-Ferguson. We borrowed it from the Resors. Jane Pillsbury Resor was a big hockey nut. She played goalie for us all the time in Wilson.”

“Jane was so into hockey,” Rice said. “I remember these figure skaters came out one time and were down on one end of the ice crowding us into half the rink. That was OK. Then they told us to get off because they wanted to skate and Jane got right in their face and said this is a HOCKEY rink.”

Wright-Clark grew up playing hockey during World War II in Rye, NY; a stone’s throw from the Connecticut border. At age 39, he played mostly in goal for the Stampede, who won four out of five state championships in Casper tournaments from 1976 to 1981.

The Stampede was formidable then, usually getting the better of teams like the Casper Lynx, Salt Lake Flyers, and the Boise Blades. Their toughest foe then, as it is today, was the Sun Valley Suns. Self-proclaimed ‘Kings of amateur hockey,’ the Suns were nasty on the road and simply miserable to play against in their own building.

“I remember playing the Suns in 1980,” Wright-Clark said. “It was my first road trip with the team and Tom Evans was our new rookie. Tommy scored five goals that night and I ran into some giant of a guy named Steve Haney. Used to play in the LA Kings organization. He put me on my ass. Man, I loved it.”

The Stampede eventually gave way to the Grizzlies, who were part of a short-lived, eight-team league called the American Frontier Hockey League. For four years, the Grizzlies underwhelmed crowds with a mucking, penalty-filled style until the league folded in 1997.

Bob Carruth announced the new Jackson Hole Moose team in 1997, promising, “You’re going to see some great hockey here. This is the closest thing to a minor league pro sport this town will see.”

The club was coached by North Dakota College standout Tom Evans and featured Scott Gentry (now a referee for Moose home games), Todd Crabtree (a Maple Leaf draft pick out of high school), and former Sun Valley player Bryan Korpi (now the Moose assistant coach). The club went 8-13-1 in their inaugural 1997-98 season; their only losing record in 11 years.

Skip Wright-Clark still remains tied to the Jackson Hole hockey. He handles business affairs for the Moose and is the team’s president, although he expects to be stepping back some this year. Every November finds Wright-Clark and the old gang at the Wilson rodeo grounds, setting up that ancient rink where it all began.

“Pastries and coffee are a tradition,” Maggie Hagen told one newcomer last weekend at the annual volunteer rink assembly in Wilson. “Someone always brings those right after it rains … which is also a tradition.”

“One of these years we’re going to resemble the old-timers’ barbeque out here,” Dick Rice told no one in particular while the rain drizzled through his beard. He took extra care mating two ends of tattered board sections plastered white and pocked with puck scuffs. “God, I miss bashing into these things.” PJH

Moose Hall of Fame
The Jackson Hole Moose hockey club has had their share of brushes with fame beginning with Wade Clarke. Son of hockey legend Bobby Clarke, Wade played five seasons with the Moose from 1998 to 2003, collecting 83 career points.

Minnesota Golden Gopher standout Nate Miller made a brief stop with the Moose. He played for only a weekend in the 2003-04 season, netting four goals. He did the same in 2004-05. Miller worked his way up the ranks in the LA Kings organization, playing two full seasons for the Kings’ AHL affiliate from 2000 to 2002. He appeared in only a few preseason games in the NHL during that span.

Miller is probably best known for playing the role of John “Bah” Harrington in the movie Miracle. The 2004 film starring Kurt Russell told the true story of Herb Brooks (Russell), the player-turned-coach who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to victory over the seemingly invincible Russian squad.

Joe Casey parlayed his Moose career into a shot at the big time in 2006. The team captain and all-time leading scorer decided to follow his dream of getting paid to play at the ripe old age of 31. He accepted an offer from the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees squad of the Central Hockey League. Casey played half the season for the Bees before an injury forced him to retire from pro hockey forever.
He has since returned to the Moose to pile up yet more career numbers for the team he joined out of college at the University of Denver in 2000.

Catch Casey doing his best 40 Year Old Virgin imitation for a waxing spa in Hidalgo, Texas at www.killerbeehockey.com/videos/index.php?m=video&v=31. It’s classic.