Sam Sarver 10 is a Sophomore at Lewis-Palmer High School. He has made the decision to play for Lewis Palmer’s High School Hockey Team for the 2020-2021 season. This is Sarver’s first year playing high school hockey. Him and his family decided it would be best for him to stop playing for the AAA hockey level.

“This is actually my first season playing for Lewis Palmer. I’ve been here in Monument since middle school, but this is the first year I’ve decided to play high school,” Sarver said. “ I played for the Colorado Rampage AAA Organization before. I loved it there and love how they develop players to move on to the next level. I left Rampage because I wanted to play for my high school instead. Rampage is pretty pricey with the season and my family wasn’t too sure about how the season would go for them because of Corona, so I decided to play high school. It was just the right fit for me.”

Although this is Sarver’s first year playing for the Lewis Palmer Ranger’s, he is not new to this sport. With a lot of open spots for this team, Sarver showed that he deserved to play with this school. Sam says that the kids that did make the team are solid and will be a huge part of the team.

“I’ve been playing hockey for 12 years now,” Sarver said. “Most of the years I’ve been playing roller hockey and ice hockey with the Colorado Rampage. Tryouts were good just very short. It was kind of nice because I showed a lot of kids who were looking to try and take my spot that I was better than them. There were about 35 kids who showed up to tryouts. There were only a few cuts since not a lot of kids were there.”

Sarver says the goal for this team is to win a State championship. To win a state championship, the team needs more practice which is difficult with Covid-19 spreading around. They played their first game January 29 against Castle View. Lewis Palmer won 5-4.

“This team has the potential to be one of the top schools in the state if we put everything together and start clicking at the right time we will be a big threat to these other teams. We have a good chance to win the state championship if we want it bad enough,” Sarver said. “This is a good group of guys and I feel like if everyone wants to really win then we will. It was a tight game against Castle View the whole way so I’m glad we came out on top. Since Corona is a thing and we obviously have to abide by all of the rules we only practice Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and play 2 games a week.”

Covid has limited a lot of things since March of 2020. One thing that has been limited is sports. The season will continue for the Lewis Palmer Rangers even with Covid-19 being around. Just with limitations. One of the limitations is not having the Lewis Palmer student section for the games anymore.

“We have to wait outside the rink until 20 minutes before the game because of CoviSd,” Sarver said. “We don’t have to wear a mask on the ice or anything just inside at all times. Coaches must wear a mask on the bench. The rules are nothing too serious like they were when teams started playing in August. I will admit it will suck not having as many people watch our games. That’s one of the reasons why I joined high school hockey was because of the packed crowds every game. This year unfortunately will suck without as many people but I’m grateful I can still play the sport I love.”