GM junior Joe Epler of Chester skates to national hockey tournament

By Greg Hart
Sports editor

Defenseman Joe Epler, a junior at Green Mountain Union High, heads to the national hockey tournament this week in New Jersey. Photos provided. Click to enlarge.

Green Mountain Union High junior Joe Epler and his Keene (N.H.) Cobras (18 and under) hockey team are heading to Wayne, N.J., for USA Hockey’s National Championships.

The tournament begins with preliminary pool play on Wednesday, April 2 . Epler’s Cobra team will be in one of three pools of 16 teams each arriving from all over the country. Teams must win at least two of three preliminary games to make it into the semifinals scheduled for Saturday, April 5 with the winners facing off in the championship game on Sunday, April 6.

Joe and his Cobra teammates’ path to the National Championships began back in September, but Epler’s love for the sport grew from a very young age. “I started skating when I was 2, and started playing hockey when I was 4 years old at PVA” – the Pleasant Valley Hockey Association in Saxtons River. The GM junior has been playing ever since, even collecting a Vermont State Championship with his PVA Bantam (14 and under) team three years ago.

Joe’s bantam coach at PVA also coached a team in Greenfield, Mass., and encouraged him to try out for that team, which he did successfully. That in turn led to an opportunity to try out for the Cobras in Keene.

Up for the challenge and even more hockey, Epler made the team. “I guess I kind of grew up with it (hockey). My older brother played. I just love the game,” Epler said, noting in particular that he enjoys the physical aspects of the sport.

Cobra coach Chris Stroshine notes Joe’s physicality saying, “Joe is considered one of our workhorses. He is extremely strong and has a physical presence, giving 100 percent whenever called upon. He has a solid understanding of his strengths as a defenseman and plays a vital role in our team’s microscopic goals against average.” He adds, “Joe is also the most coachable player on a very coachable team.”

Joe is considered one of our workhorses. He is extremely strong and has a physical presence, giving 100 percent whenever called upon. He has a solid understanding of his strengths as a defenseman … Joe is also the most coachable player on a very coachable team.

Chris Stroshine
Cobra coach

According to Coach Stroshine the team is comprised of a unique group of teenagers who get along well on and off the ice, regardless of their differences away from hockey. “Most of these guys have been playing together in some capacity for the last four seasons.”

The Keene Cobra hockey team. Epler is third player from the right in the back row.

This is also true of Epler, who has been on the team for three of the past four seasons and has had the same defensive partner the whole time in teammate and friend Matt Stone. “We just work really well together,” says Epler.

Stroshine concurs, “Those two have been playing together so long I swear they could finish each others sentences.”

With another example of the close bond of the defensemen, the coach recalls how “Joe took the 2012-13 season off so he could spend more time in the woods. By the end of that season it was clear to me that would be the last time Joe would take a break. He and Matt acted like long lost brothers in the locker room at our first skate of the season the following year.”

Joe’s Cobra season began with September tryouts followed by a schedule of games against regional Midget (18 and under) teams.

The team is a “split season” squad practicing and competing from September through mid-November followed by a break over the winter months, then resuming with various invitational tournaments in the region for parts of March and April. These “split season” teams are essentially all-star teams, with the split season allowing players to join their high school or local club teams for the winter season.

Having won the New Hampshire State Championship back in November with a 1-0 overtime win over Nashua in the finals, the Cobras qualified for the National Championships for the first time after being state runners up the previous two seasons.

When asked about claiming the title after coming up short twice before, Joe said: “We were finally able to say ‘We did it!’ with this group. We’ve won tournaments before but nothing this big.”

Even as champs of a hockey-mad state like New Hampshire, the Cobras face a daunting challenge on the national stage.

A challenge on the national stage

“New Hampshire teams are not considered a perennial threat in the national tournaments,” says Stroshine. “Connecticut and Rhode Island typically send the strongest teams from New England with some of the best nationally coming out of western New York, Minnesota and the mid-Atlantic.” In fact the squad, headquartered in Keene but playing and practicing at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, MA, will be facing the reigning champs, the Ashburn Xtreme from Ashburn, Va., in their very first game of pool play, which starts at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Epler is not intimidated. “I think it’s anyone’s game. We’ll sure find out where we stand right away.” Keene will then face teams from Illinois and North Carolina, needing to win at least two of three to advance to the elimination round.

“We are a compact team with an aptitude for competition,“ Stroshine says. “These kids relish the underdog moniker and have an innate ability to play rope-a-dope hockey for the first two periods and then finish strong. The boys’ skills have progressed since we won the state championship with this team back in November, so I’m optimistic for our chances to advance to the elimination rounds of the tournament.”