Great game; where can you see more?

Following the United States' silver medal finish at the 2010 Winter Olympics, it seems that anywhere you turn, you find a fan of the sport of hockey.

And why not? The Americans had a great run through the tournament before falling on Sunday to the Canadians in the gold medal game on Sunday.

However, with the NHL schedule going again, fans will have a hard time finding the results on their favorite teams.

CONSIDERING THAT games are shown on the cable channel Versus during the week and a Sunday morning game on NBC, there isn't much of a market for the games when you also factor in college basketball, professional basketball or car racing on various other channels.

The Americans' run through the Olympics brought the sport to the top of the SportsCenter lineup for two weeks, where during the regular season, the NHL is reserved for the middle of the show and usually takes anywhere from three to five minutes to go through the entire slate of games.

It isn't due to a lack of big-name players in the NHL as Pittsburgh Penguin Sidney Crosby and Washington Capital Alex Ovechkin are quickly becoming the Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux of their era.

The only difference is, without a strong television following, most fans aren't able to see them play outside of the playoffs.

THE LEAGUE has attempted to market its annual "Winter Classic" in recent years, where teams play games in outdoor settings. Previous games have been played at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, N.Y., Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston.

Great ideas, but considering that those games are played on New Year's Day - right about the time that the Rose Bowl is kicking off - unless you're an absolute fan of hockey, you aren't tuning in for that game either.

see ELLIOTT, B4

Almost a decade ago, you could turn on ESPN and find a hockey game on almost any night - but after losing out to Versus, the league is an afterthought it seems anymore.

Along with the NBA playoffs, which start at the same time of year in mid-April, it's even easier to lose sight of who is winning in the NHL and unless it comes down to a big matchup between Crosby and Ovechkin in the finals of a playoff series, there is a chance that it may not be shown on a channel fans could find to start with.

SHOULD the popularity of hockey start to climb due to the Olympics, it won't surprise me, with a lot of good players within the league.

Watching the Stanley Cup playoffs, I'm not so sure about it quite yet.

Finding it on television is a good start.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by phone at 664-0239 or via e-mail at [email protected].

By JASON ELLIOTT

Sports writer

When Coeur d'Alene High wrestling coach Jeff Moffat started his journey into coaching within the Vikings program, it wasn't pretty.

Nine seasons later, the program is a beautiful sight after Coeur d'Alene won its first state wrestling title in school history last weekend, placing 13 of 17 wrestlers and finishing 36 points ahead of runner-up Highland of Pocatello.

"When I got here, this was one of the poorest wrestling programs in the state," said Moffat, a Coeur d'Alene High grad and former Viking wrestler. "We practiced in the old auto shop classroom and practiced on one mat that was old and grungy."

After they remodeled the school's athletic complex in 2006, the Vikings went from the shop room to one of the biggest practice areas in the state.

Numbers started to increase from 30 in Moffat's final year as an assistant to 50 in his first year as head coach in 2001.

"We were the second-to-last team in the state the year before I became the head coach," Moffat said. "Our numbers started to increase with coaches going out and recruiting kids from within the school. The kids started to buy into the philosophy and it kind of went from there."

Moffat also started the Buzzsaw wrestling club, which is open to youth from Kindergarten all the way to 12th grade. The fall program is geared toward the younger athletes from youth to grade school, with the Greco-Roman and freestyle season in the spring for those middle school to high school wrestlers.

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"The spring session is the more high intensity of the two years," Moffat said. "With most kids, success breeds more success. It's a difficult sport to get kids out because you've got to watch your weight and it's just you out there. It's really a hard sport to sell kids on."

This year's championship team was among those first groups that wrestled when the program was getting going.

"We've had anywhere from 50 to 100 kids out for the program," Moffat said. "It's tough because you only keep a quarter of them throughout their career."

With the freestyle program, Coeur d'Alene already has more than 10 wrestlers committed to compete in the spring.

"(A.J) Konda, (Steven) Price, (Johnny) Peregrina are just some of them that are coming in already," Moffat said. "We had over 10 that came from the program on the team."

Moffat added it's the solid group of coaches and volunteers that have helped bring the Vikings to this point.

"If you don't have the infrastructure, it won't happen," Moffat said. "There's a lot of time involved and some people just don't want to spend it. I'm more of a hands-on coach, so I want to take the time to get to know the kids."

Coeur d'Alene has started to see some of the rewards of the Buzzsaw program in recent years, placing third in the 5A state tournament in 2005.

"Our success has started to grow over the years," Moffat said. "We've been with the top teams the past couple of years. Those guys in '05 were the one's that paved the way for this group."

Coeur d'Alene also placed fourth in 2007 and was 20 points away from finishing in the top four in 2006, but missed out due to injury.

"We've been knocking at the door in recent years, but didn't quite have the numbers," Moffat said. "In 2006, we missed out on 20 points in that tournament because Braden (Mowry) was hurt. If he would have wrestled, he could have gotten us 20 points."

Coeur d'Alene was also the top-ranked team in the 5A level throughout the season according to IdahoWrestlingNews.com.

"I don't think the kids paid a lot of attention to that," Moffat said. "If there was any pressure on them - the kids wrestled with a lot of confidence and it never seemed like there was any pressure on them throughout the year."

Coeur d'Alene qualified 17 wrestlers to the state tournament, but knew that Highland qualified 22.

"When you get to the tournament, it's one thing to qualify large numbers," Moffat said. "But you need to have quality wrestlers."

Once they took the mat last Friday, each one of the 17 qualifiers had a role in bringing home the state title.

"Each guy contributed," Moffat said. "Alex (Kastens) was our third-string guy at 215 and goes down and places. Our guys stepped it up big time. They fed off each other. It really could have snowballed either direction."

Coeur d'Alene qualified eight wrestlers for the semifinals, with five of them advancing to the finals on Saturday night.

"Our kids learned a lot last year," Moffat said. "Once we got through the semifinals, we knew that we'd done it."

Despite going 0-5 in the finals, Coeur d'Alene knew it had done enough to wrap up its first state wrestling title in school history.

"It was kind of a weird feeling," said junior Kenny Staub, a runner-up at 130. "It was a good/bad feeling. It was nice to win a state title as a team - but losing as an individual didn't feel good. We knew no matter what happened in the finals, we had won."

Junior Johnny Peregrina, who placed second at 160 pounds, added that the team's strong start on Friday added to the team's momentum on Saturday.

"As we were getting pins on Friday," Peregrina said, "it kept the momentum going and helped get us off to a good start."

"We were close last year, so it definitely was good to win it this year," said Staub, who placed fifth his previous two trips to state.

Senior Kevin Moore, who hadn't placed at state in his high school career, closed out his Viking career with a second-place finish at 171 pounds.

"It felt pretty good," Moore said of the win. "Everyone was doing well and we had a lot of pins on the first day to get us going."

Moore missed out on placing at state his first two years, and then had his junior year cut short due to a torn LCL (lateral collateral ligament) last season.

"I wrestled a little bit last year, then got hurt," Moore said. "I didn't think we could be state champions. That's what our goal was - to go undefeated and be state champions."

"It felt pretty good to bring a state title to Cd'A," said Peregrina, who has been competing within the Buzzsaw program since he was 10 years old. "I guess I learned just how strong I was."

Peregrina added that he trains over 10 months out of the year for the sport, including the last seven years within the Buzzsaw program.

"Wrestling within the Greco/freestyle club helps," Peregrina said. "I've done that each year and dedicate a lot of time to it. It was a really good season."

The Vikings are already looking to next year, when seven of their 13 state placers return.

"We're going to be doing a lot of weightlifting in the coming weeks," Moffat said. "We're going to be looking to develop some of the younger kids and put together a competitive lineup for next season."