USA Hockey Adult Hockey

Wednesdays and Thursdays are tough, Jeff Cover admits.

Cover, a police officer in southern California, works both of those days from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. In between, the new routine is simple: He leaves work, tries to have a quick bite to eat, then heads to his weekly game in the Yorba Linda Adult Hockey League.

Cover is in the rookie league—at age 32, he is a goalie attempting organized hockey for the first time—and ice time is hard to get. As a result, his games routinely start after 10 p.m., and it’s common for his head to hit the pillow well after midnight. That makes the 4:15 a.m. wakeup the next morning brutal, except …

“I feel so much better doing it, even with a lack of sleep,” Cover says. “It’s totally worth it.”

That’s a sentiment often expressed nationwide by USA Hockey adult players —a number that topped 160,000 for the 2012–13 season. Often with non-prime game times due to crowded rinks and priorities rightly given to youth players, the late-night warriors soldier on because of a love of the game.

Brad Sherrick, Yorba Linda’s Adult Hockey Director for the past six years, says adult registration there is at its highest level in the past 10 years with more than 300 players slated to hit the ice in the fall. It’s part of a hockey boom in Orange County helped in part by the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, who have purchased several rinks in the region and offer multiple programs aimed at helping grow the sport.

Games at the Yorba Linda Arena can start at 11 p.m. and some players may not leave the rink until almost 2 a.m., Sherrick says. While some of the more experienced players offer good-natured gripes when stuck with a late start time, most realize it comes with the territory.

“We can’t make Sunday last more than 24 hours, I don’t think,” Sherrick says with a laugh.

Sherrick speaks not just from scheduling but from playing experience. He has played in every level of adult hockey in the system he oversees.

“Especially when you are one of the newest teams, you don’t care when you play,” he says.

Traver McLeod, commissioner of the Glacier Hockey League in Missoula, Mont., echoes those sentiments. At one point last year, he said there were more than 1,200 USA Hockey adult players in the area—impressive considering the city itself has fewer than 70,000 people. When they play seems less important than getting to play, he says.

Adult games during the busiest season starting in November can have start times that push midnight, McLeod says, meaning games don’t end sometimes until 1:30 in the morning. Even with two sheets of ice—the second was added in 2006—the rink is running virtually non-stop from 6 a.m. until those wee hours.

“The thing that surprises me the most is that even the players from the 9 and 10 o’clock games are still hanging out watching the next games,” McLeod says. “It’s a real social atmosphere around our league, and I think that’s what helps us in that respect.”

Still, it can take a toll on the body – and sleep cycles.

“It’s not unheard of to hear guys saying they had adrenaline going so much that they couldn’t get to sleep until 3:00 or 3:30 a.m. and then had to get up the next day for work,” McLeod says.

Back in California, sleep is usually the last thing that Cover is concerned about. The former offensive lineman in football checks in at 6-foot, 3-inches and 300 pounds—making him an intimidating presence in the net. He took up hockey as a means to overcome numerous health issues, and he says he lost 80 pounds as a result.

His rookie team hasn’t won a game yet, but he does have a shutout as a result of a 0-0 tie. The puck from that game sits proudly in his office, and it matters not when the game started or ended.

“You take ice time when you can get it,” Cover says. “When it gets in your blood, you just want to play.”