Regis Jesuit hockey coach Dan Woodley wins 250th game with little fanfare
Before the start of the hockey season, Regis Jesuit coach Dan Woodley had spent time figuring out his career record with the Raiders. Not out of self-promotion in any way, but Regis was coming off an undefeated season and he simply added in his win total.
As luck would have it, he was on the verge of a milestone. Whenever he won his fourth game of the year, he would eclipse 250 wins. He got that number back on Dec. 14 when Regis beat Pueblo County 6-0. His team improved to 4-0 and he had hit another career milestone.
And while 250 wins is a remarkable achievement, Woodley was more impressed with the number on the other side of that equation.
“Those all-time win type things are usually associated with longevity and not so much with performance,” he said. “I don’t put a lot of stake in it. When I look at the overall record at the time we won it, it was 250-32-7 and that’s a remarkable thing to think about and more remarkable is the fact that we only have 32 losses. The first year we were 12-8 and the second year we were 13-5 or something like that. So we had 13 of those losses in the first two years.”
There is little doubt that Regis has been a legitimate hockey power with Woodley at the helm. He has so many seasons in which team and personal achievements have come and gone.
He’s enjoyed sharing each of those moments with his players but noted that after the win over Pueblo County – a game in which Kale Lone netted a hat trick – they had a different kind of response to win No. 250 than he expected.
“The kids thought it was an interesting number because they can’t even fathom 250 games,” Woodley said. “With only playing 23 games, and four of those being playoff games every year, one of them came up to me and told me that it’s equal to going 11 years undefeated.”
He said that he would take some time after the season was over to really try and process the feat, but he’s more focused on the team playing well and working toward the postseason. What he’s more impressed with is that a team that looked like it would struggle early has really gelled together and is playing top-notch hockey.
So much so that when win 250 came and went, there was no big celebration. There was no banner or gift presented to Woodley. He’s been so caught up in the season that he honestly thought he would have a hard time down the road picking out which season featured this win.
“I didn’t get a puck that said 250 wins,” he said. “There’s nothing really to denote that achievement other than your story. It’s something that happened and my guess is without something to remember it by, I might forget what year it happened.”
He certainly does have reminders of other feats. Surely he remembers his state championship, but his win total is something that hasn’t been at the forefront of his mind.
The first major milestone win of career was recognized only because the parents of his players were paying attention and wanted to thank him for what he had done for their boys.
“I remember in our seventh or eighth season, we came up to 100 wins,” Woodley said. “One of the parents had recognized it and came up with a puck that said ‘CHSAA hockey 100 wins’ and I was real proud of that. I put that puck up on my mantle piece because 100 wins is a pretty monumental piece and then I hadn’t thought about it since then. It’s one of those numbers that I’ll be most proud of when I’m finished coaching.”
Regardless of how many wins he ends his career with, it’s not the numbers that’ll he remember most. It’s the names and faces of the kids associated with helping him with each and every one of those milestones.
Woodley, like many high school coaches, are in for the kids and he looks back at the ones that here and the ones that have left way longer than he looks at any previous season record.
“I have a roster of every kid that has played for me here at Regis. I go through that roster more often than I think about wins. I try to keep in touch with as many of those kids as I can.”
