• Slug: Sports-Pinnacle hockey desert, 900 words
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By JOEL VISS
Cronkite News

SCOTTSDALE — It still seems odd to some that ice hockey is played in the desert, where the temperature has been known to eclipse 120 degrees. It may be more ridiculous for a team to have national success there.

Yet Pinnacle High School’s ice hockey program has, winning the last two state Division I championships and growing into a national contender, competing in the high school USA Hockey National Championships.

The program is in its 18th season but hasn’t always been challenging for titles.

“In the last six years we’ve kind of broken through,” Coach Glenn Karlson said. “Before that, we’ve gotten to the state championship game three times to lose them all three times. I think just our sheer numbers and the talent pool that we’ve seen of players coming into our program, from seven years ago, has grown immensely.

“The quality of coaching that we’ve gotten into our program has helped with the success. I would say over the last couple of years it was just kind of the right recipe of players will, desire and coaching staff, and everyone involved, that led to the success we’ve seen the last two years.”

Karlson credits much of Pinnacle’s development to luck and how Pinnacle is just in the right spot in the Valley.

“The fact that we’re located in the North Valley, where most people that play hockey already live, we’re very fortunate,” Karlson said. “That’s the luck factor, we’re just in the right place. If Horizon was where we were at, or another school minus the Catholic schools like Notre Dame and Brophy, you’d be talking to them and maybe I’d be a coach there. I don’t know.”

Another factor that has contributed to Pinnacle’s rise is the open enrollment for freshman students. Freshman across the state, no matter where they live, can enroll at Pinnacle without penalty, leading to acquiring players that they would not have had the chance to obtain without the rule. The success of the program in the past has led to players choosing Pinnacle over private schools Notre Dame and Brophy.

“There’s always that one team that stands out,” graduate Sam Hinnant said. “I was supposed to go to Cactus Shadows but I chose Pinnacle because I knew they cared about hockey. There’s no real other school like it. Notre Dame can try to come close but there is no other school like Pinnacle.”

A team at every level is also appealing to players that may not make varsity until their senior season but will still have a chance to play. Pinnacle has four different hockey levels: Divisions 1, 2, 3 and junior varsity.

“We do have a team in every level,” Karlson said. “That means even if you get into our system as a freshman and start at the third level down, which is called D3, Division 3 varsity, by the time you’re a senior you can play on the top team that we have. Other schools don’t have that. It’s a draw to us, sometimes, is the fact that they know they have a chance to play at the top level.”

“I started on JV and even then D1 was a really big deal,” senior Sarkis Arabyan said. “I’m trying to go for that third (state title) in a row, going into the D1 tryouts.”

The success of Pinnacle hockey may have also had an impact on the growth of Arizona State’s Division I men’s hockey program.

“I think we contributed to ASU having an NCAA hockey team,” Karlson said. “I really honestly think that because we built the hockey bed and pushed for it. Because there is so much hockey growth at the youth level, a lot of these guys were coming in and wanting to stay home, so they were going to ASU.

“Then eventually a couple of the former players and parents had deep pockets and decided that they wanted to go NCAA and got what needed to be done. I really truly believe that because the Valley already being such a strong hockey bed, that really helped catapult ASU’s program.”

Karlson coached ASU’s ACHA hockey program for several seasons before it became an NCAA program. Now Karlson’s biggest focus is getting over the hump at the USA Hockey National Championships and bringing home the title.

“We’ve just started implementing an off-ice program this summer,” Karlson said. “We’ve realized that if we are ever going to compete at the national stage like that means that we should be able to compete and win at our stage. We recognize that two-thirds of our players, are what we are really gearing for. It’s not the top two-thirds, it’s the bottom two-thirds because we believe that if we can develop those players that’s just going to elevate the depth of all our teams, and that’s what’s important to us.”

For the players, it’s about knowing what the task ahead is.

“If everyone kind of just chips in to get the job done together as a team and is more focused on the goal ahead …” Hinnant said. “In high school, sometimes, it’s just to mess around but it’s pretty serious now and we need to take it pretty serious.”

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