In between fly fishing Saturday afternoon and golfing Sunday, benefactors and supporters of the Stirling Cup fundraiser for Aspen Junior Hockey congregated at Woody Creek Distillers.
Some of them have enjoyed the Stirling Cup as their preferred means to support AJH for the entire 21 years of the event’s existence, named for Stirling Cooper after his passing. More than two decades later — and as AJH celebrates its 50th anniversary — Stirling’s widow and cup organizer Jody Cooper, the cup and AJH are hoping to rebound from COVID-19 to when the fundraiser’s contribution eclipsed six figures, capitalize on the success of professional hockey in the state and continue to carve out the sport’s corner within the community by increasing access.
“One of the biggest impacts — one of the things we wanted to make sure of — is that if somebody wanted to play hockey, they got to play hockey,” Cooper said.
It’s now Executive Director Harlan Pratt’s third year at the helm of AJH. He’s learned that his initial goals of trying to take major steps forward, like vastly increasing registration rates, just aren’t as feasible as he once believed them to be. Coming from a market in Nashville — which is seeing extensive growth — the mountain community simply can’t offer the same quantifiable growth in its youth hockey organizations.
He said this year’s early registration numbers enjoyed a bit of a boon thanks to excitement around the Colorado Avalanche’s win of the Stanley Cup over the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier this year — a complicated moment for Pratt, a former player in the Lightning’s minor leagues along with his brother Nolan, who is now an assistant coach with the Avs.
“I remember thinking I wanted to grow it, quadruple our numbers and maybe we’re offering a higher level of hockey,” Pratt said. “But as you learn the dynamics of the way things operate in the mountains, you realize that might be a little too far fetched to get to. … At the end of the day, I just want kids to love it and get as many kids as we can. I think if I can provide it as low cost as possible, then that might open a lot more doors for those kids that want to play, and who knows where it takes them from there.”
For Pratt, it’s still about capturing those newcomers to the sport and building a foundation while trying to create next-level opportunities. The higher-skilled players have the option to join teams with players from neighboring communities on “mountain” travel teams, as he described them.
For the younger teams, he’s dropped tuition rates by more than half, as those groups see the most introduction-level players. For 6U players, an early-bird registration would run a player — specifically their guardians — $200 for a season; the price used to be above $500.
The cost, however, has been deferred to some other programs. Pratt said that for the first time since he’s arrived, rates from some of the older players have gone up to balance out the reduction for younger players.
That’s where fundraising events such as the Stirling Cup have come in. Pratt said that the direct impact of community support is unquantifiable because it not only goes to specific fees and gear scholarships for players, but plays a role in general expenses payments as well, which in turn allow them to control price rates to a greater degree.
Over the course of the Stirling Cup’s history, its high-water mark has been above a $100,000 contribution, generally sitting somewhere in the $60,000-$70,000 range, AJH Administrative Assistant Jackie Ayers said. She added that there are 15 scholarship recipients this year.
After Week One of the Stirling, she predicted an uptick from the average. She estimated the number of supporters participating in the fly-fishing event doubled from a year ago and the number of golf teams increased from 24 to 28.
“COVID knocked us out for a couple years,” Ayers said. “We didn’t even have the Stirling Cup a couple years ago. … So it’s building. It’s amazing, these events, Jody allowing us to do the Stirling Cup. We couldn’t do it without it.”
This year, two different kinds of hats were given out: one with the Stirling Cup logo on a black-mesh trucker hat and another laced with gold for the long-time contributors to the annual fundraiser.
Cooper was reminded of another who had taken part in all 21 golf tournaments in a passing conversation from a local real estate agent who happened to move to the valley just ahead of the first iteration, he said, and has come ever since.
To her, that continuing lineage — beyond just helping the kids — has been a highlight.
“It’s truly become a community event,” Cooper said. “This is my year of really trying to thank people because it’s really amazing. Some of these people have been with us for 21 years.”
The Stirling Cup was once a crammed-into-one-weekend event but has now been spread out into two. The September events include the fly fishing and golf tournament as the weather is more likely to permit, but it’ll move to the rink on Dec. 10 with the Colorado Avalanche’s alumni game and youth skills challenge. Cooper said admittance is free to the public.
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