DENVER – Tuesday night’s Class 4A ice hockey state championship game felt like it may never end. But when it finally did, it was the defending champion Cheyenne Mountain team that got to celebrate.
With 4 minutes, 46 seconds left in the third overtime period at the University of Denver’s Magness Arena, Cheyenne Mountain senior Hank Walsh scored the game’s only goal to deliver a 1-0 victory for the third-seeded Red-Tailed Hawks against No. 1 Glenwood Springs.
The Red-Tailed Hawks’ second straight state title didn't come easy. But in the aftermath of the celebration, the team was deservedly as jubilant as when it won in 2022.
“I’m just astonished at how much work we’ve put in and I’m so proud of the guys,” Walsh said. “We’ve worked all year and we lost, I think, ten seniors last year. We thought it was a rebuilding year but we came back and won that state title. It’s unreal. I can’t put it into words. I just laid there on the ice thinking, ‘How am I this lucky? How do I get to be like this right now?’”
In what could be expected in a scoreless contest, both goaltenders shined throughout.
Cheyenne Mountain (18-3-1) fired 25 shots and Glenwood Springs (17-5) launched 16 before either team could get a puck past either Cheyenne Mountain’s Jeremy Renholm or Glenwood Springs’ Marek Senn.
“That was crazy,” Cheyenne Mountain head coach Erik Austin said. “They were great tonight. The Demons were on fire, flying all over the ice, and we were scratching and clawing to stay in the game for I don’t even know how many minutes. We just kept talking about, ‘Just get something into the net.’
“It was crazy.”
Tuesday’s game was Glenwood Springs’ first ice hockey title game appearance in its program’s history. This year’s breakthrough campaign came on the heels of two consecutive six-win seasons.
This latest victory marks the 16
th ice hockey title for the Red-Tailed Hawks, which is the most all-time of any program in Colorado. Prior to winning back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023, the Red-Tailed Hawks last won a title in 2004.
“Coming into this big of a game, it’s unreal seeing all the fans here and everyone supporting us,” Walsh said. “We just kept thinking about how much work we’ve put in and we made that count there at the end.”
Cheyenne Mountain and Glenwood Springs split a pair of games during the regular season, with Glenwood Springs winning 5-0 in the first contest and Cheyenne Mountain winning 6-1 the following night.