Birth dates are missing beside Air Force hockey players’ names for a reason, but no, it has nothing to do with hiding “old” age. It is classified information throughout the military, from an Army general to an Air Force cadet.
However, the Falcons had no problem releasing the average age of their 25-man roster, a figure that reveals one of the secrets behind the program’s All-American success.
Average age: 23.6, and nobody under 20.
“It’s the way we recruit, because that’s the culture that fits our program. We have a culture now,” Air Force coach Frank Serratore said. “Every kid plays two years of junior-A hockey, and we get four good years out of them. They’re ready to compete at this level, and they’re all on the same page.”
Indeed, everyone knows the end of their hockey careers are in sight.
“They’re here to win hockey games before graduating and serving a five-year military commitment,” Serratore said. “Nobody is going to the NHL. We don’t sell people about playing in the NHL.”
By comparison, the NHL breeding ground that is the University of Denver program averages 20 years, with six teenagers, including two 18-year-olds.
The tenth-ranked Pioneers, who have nine NHL draft picks, host No. 11 Air Force on Saturday at Magness Arena.
“I don’t want boys,” said Serratore, whose 12-0 squad hosts No. 3 Colorado College tonight. “We can’t play against teams like these with boys. We need to be deep, and we need to be old.”
That culture runs opposite to what CC, DU and other national powerhouses affiliated with the “Big Four” conferences are using. The top programs are signing NHL-bound players — some straight out of high school — and expecting them to sign professional deals before graduation.
Roster turnover is heavy, keeping those teams younger, and mid-major squads like Air Force are taking advantage of that by bringing in 20-year-old freshmen who accept the fact their careers will end after college.
“The cream of college hockey is getting plucked off the BCS-type teams, and Air Force is playing against NHL draft choices, but we’re playing against under-developed NHL draft choices,” Serratore said. “We’re older and stronger, and that can be a big advantage.”
Against Minnesota in the 2007 NCAA Tournament at the Pepsi Center, then-ESPN commentator Barry Melrose noted that the Gophers had 16 NHL draft picks, Air Force zero and Minnesota outweighed the Falcons 16 pounds per man.
Melrose was surprised that Air Force was leading 3-1 late in the game.
“Not once did he mention that, man for man, we were almost two years older than Minnesota,” Serratore said. “We were a men’s league team playing against mostly boys.”
Air Force barely lost that game to the Gophers, who scored three goals in the final 10 minutes to win 4-3, but it reinforced Serratore’s thinking that his program can compete with the big programs with specialized recruiting.
Nonmilitary schools are limited to 18 scholarships and a 28-player roster. Each of Air Force’s 25 players — all U.S. citizens, of course — are on a free ride, in exchange for a five-year postgraduate service agreement.
“Service academies have no control over the top-end of their roster,” Serratore said. “We’re recruiting second-level players. But we do have control over the bottom end. We have no bad players, and we’ve been blessed with some very good second-level players that evolve. We hit on some of those players.”
Will those players be able to compete with the blue-chip-laden teams this weekend?
“Maybe they’ll whip us, maybe they won’t,” Serratore said of the Tigers and Pioneers. “But you won’t see a player of ours out there and say, ‘That guy can’t play.’ We don’t have a bad player.”
Career cut short
A year from now, CC’s Chad Rau and Richard Bachman and DU’s Tyler Bozak likely will be playing in the NHL, or at least beginning their professional careers in the American Hockey League. And Pioneers freshmen Patrick Wiercioch and Joe Colborne are NHL-bound prospects that will probably leave school early.
Air Force is immune to that. The Falcons don’t look ahead when it comes to hockey.
“I came to the Academy for a reason, and that’s to become an officer in the Air Force,” Falcons goalie Andrew Volkening said. “If I had other things in mind, I might have picked another school. But I’m happy where I’m at.
“If I really tore things up and I was really that good, I could sign a contract after this and Air Force might let me go. But we really don’t think about that.”
Giving up a chance to play professionally was a big decision for sophomore defenseman Brad Sellers of Centennial. Sellers turned down a walk-on opportunity at DU to play for the Falcons.
“It was the hardest part for me, because I would love to just play hockey for as long as I could,” Sellers said. “But the reality is, I’d probably be done after college anyway.”
Dominant so far
Air Force has scored an NCAA-high 62 goals and leads the country with 5.17 goals-per-game. No other team averages more than four goals.
The Falcons also have the country’s top-rated power play (27.7 percent) and a handful of the top point producers. Linemates Brent Olson and Jacques Lamoureux are tied with a NCAA-best 21 points, and defenseman Greg Flynn is tied for fourth with 19.
Air Force’s defense is similarly dominant, ranked No. 3 nationally at 1.25 goals per game. Volkening (12-0) has a 1.24 goals-against average and .944 saves percentage.
The Falcons, however, have yet to beat a team with a winning record.
“I don’t care who you’re playing at the Division I level, when you’re winning by five, six, seven, eight goals, that’s really impressive,” DU coach George Gwozdecky said.
“They’re a great team and, hey, I don’t recall the last time when Denver was the underdog going into a game like that, but we are certainly the underdog (Saturday).”
The Falcons are eager to finally beat CC and win their second straight against DU. They ended a 19-game losing streak against the Pioneers in January, winning 5-2 at the Academy en route to their second consecutive Atlantic Hockey Association playoff title and NCAA Tournament berth.
“As players we don’t have control over our schedule, we just show up and say, ‘We have something to prove tonight. We have to go out and just hammer teams,'” Lamoureux said. “We know we’re good, we know we can play the game, and we think we’re for real. We just want everyone else to know we’re for real.”
Mike Chambers: 303-954-1357 or mchambers@denverpost.com
