Hockey team set for challenge

A team of local youth hockey all-stars is on its way to Edmonton to play in the Canadian AAA Hockey Challenge.

The Las Vegas Outlaws hockey club, founded in July 2000 and playing out of the Las Vegas Sportspark in Summerlin, assembled a squad of 9- to 11-year-olds to travel north and represent a city not necessarily known for hockey in one of the largest national open events in Canada.

The Outlaws will be playing in the tournament's ATOM division, a five-game, round-robin format with NHL regulations. Las Vegas coach John McNicholas, also one of the founders of the Outlaws club, said his team is not used to playing three 20-minute stop-time periods like they'll be skating in Edmonton, but he is confident.

"Our kids are intimidated, but we'll have one of the oldest teams in our division in the tournament so I'm hoping that experience will come into play," McNicholas said. "Some of our guys have been playing forever, and we have two really strong goaltenders. I really believe we'll be competitive."

The Outlaws' roster consists of John Paul McNicholas, Nicolas Peterson, Ryan Zamora, Tyler Fikes, Nick Adimey, Stephen Chaires, Ryan Bowman, Kleighton Westphall, Eric Drury, Christian Bryan and Chris Rial.

McNicholas, whose two sons John Paul and Michael are both avid hockey competitors, formed the Outlaws club and this year's traveling squad in order to strengthen the Las Vegas youth hockey scene for his kids' sake. Since the club started, its house league has grown to 150 kids and is expected to be the largest local club by the end of the year.

"Hockey is kind of primitive here," McNicholas said. "People are looking for better options. We tried to bring high quality coaching, extra ice time for the kids and some social aspects that other clubs didn't offer."

McNicholas said it was difficult to form a team of the city's best youth players because of club competition, but that the organizers of the Canadian AAA Hockey Challenge were eager to include a Vegas team in the event.

"If we do well up there, maybe it will provide incentive for other players and volunteers to help our program," he said.

The Las Vegas Outlaws will be playing the Manitoba Selects team in Edmonton Thursday, Canada West on Friday, Vancouver Selects on Sunday, the Montreal Vipers on Monday, NASH Alberta on Tuesday, and the division's playoffs will begin July 4.