Hockey academy eyes Whitefish

A new hockey academy is looking to open in Whitefish and is interested in partnering with the Whitefish School District.

Parry Shockey presented his proposal for the privately-funding academy Oct. 11 to the Whitefish School Board. The academy could bring 20 to 25 male hockey players between the ages of 15 and 17 to Whitefish to play in the AA Midget hockey league as part of the South Central Alberta Hockey League.

Shockey has been involved in coaching and managing hockey in southern and western Canada for the last 30 years and has coached 35 players who went on to play in the National Hockey League. He is the vice president of sales at Maverick Oilfield Services in Calgary, Alberta, and last year coached the Foothills Bisons AA Midget team, which plays in the same league he proposes for Whitefish.

“Hockey is my passion, and I’m at a place in my life where I want to give back to the game. Mainstream hockey is more and more streaming to academy-type hockey,” Shockey said.

Shockey said the plan for the Whitefish academy is for students to enroll at the high school beginning next fall, and their time would be split between attending school and practice. When the season concludes in March, the students would have the option to finish the school year out at Whitefish or return home. The Whitefish team would play with roughly 20 away games in Cranbrook, British Columbia, and another 20 at home at Stumptown Ice Den.

The school board seemed receptive to the idea, which is similar to junior hockey leagues that have existed in Whitefish in the past.

School Board Chairman Shawn Watts said the school district will speak more with Shockey about the plan.

“It sounds like there’s a possibility that we have a model and that it works, so the next step is to flesh it out,” Watts said.

The academy would pay for a “school liaison” to work with keeping the players on track with their coursework, Shockey said, and the players would be held to the same academic standards as any other student. He noted that because other groups use the ice rink in the evenings, players from the academy would be practicing during school hours.

“The education is a huge component of this. In Canada there seems to be a tendency for players to go play junior hockey, where academics become kind of secondary,” he said. “To me, the academy is the direction to go, where you build a complete person. Not only a player, but a person. They have a chance to go on and pursue goals, but if nothing else they move on to be good citizens in society.”

The timely proposal came just as the Whitefish Wolverines, a junior hockey team, announced they would not be returning for a third season in the Western States Hockey League. The Wolverines played at the Stumptown Ice Den and were owned by Josh Steel, who has not spoken on why the team has been shut down.

The school board would still have to vote on a formal proposal before entering an agreement with the academy.

Superintendent Heather Davis Schmidt said she’s been meeting with Shockey for the last year to shape the school district’s vision for the academy. While she asked Shockey to bring a more fleshed out proposal to the board in December, she said nothing is yet set in stone.

“Many details need to be determined before a formal agreement can even be drafted for the trustees to consider,” she said.

Activities Director Aric Harris did express concern over the program funneling students away from existing sports at the high school.

Shockey said multi-sport participation is encouraged for the athletes and he would hope that the school would reap the benefits of better hockey resources for local kids. He is also looking into partnering with the Montana Amateur Hockey Association to bring players into the academy.

“If you have a great program, you don’t have to recruit. They will come, because people know when their kids are being taken care of and their best interests are there,” Shockey said.

School Board member Dave Fern asked where the 25 students, recruited primarily from the Northwest United States and California, would live during their time in Whitefish.

Shockey proposes a billet system, where students could stay with residents and parents of current students during their time in Whitefish. He also briefly mentioned constructing housing, but did not discuss the details.

The plan calls for beginning with one boys team, Shockey said, however, a future girls program could be part of the academy.

Fern said the school board would need to see a predictable plan for how the academy would progress to ensure that the program will be sustainable for multiple years, and that the board needs to be wary of any unexpected outcomes caused by the academy.

“I’d like to see a degree of predictability from year to year. For example, starting this off in year one with one team just to try and see how it goes,” Fern said. “And we need to always examine our carrying capacity. It sounds like this has great potential but also we need to look for unintended consequences.”

After one team can prove to be successful in Whitefish, Shockey said he would add another team and see how things go, and in a year or two he’d look into adding girls into the program.

Shockey said he is very optimistic about his chances with the academy, and there’s no better place for the program than Whitefish.

“My son specifically moved here because of the schools,” Shockey said. “Whitefish High School is a great fit for this concept.”