The USA Hockey Warrior Classic is the signature annual event of USA Hockey's Warrior program, which provides hockey access to nationwide teams of military veterans with VA-certified disabilities of at least 10 percent. Founded in December 2018 and adopted by the Flyers as official affiliate two months later, the Flyers Warriors are coached by Brad Marsh and Rob Baer with an assist from Bob "the Hound" Kelly.
In October 2019, the Flyers Warriors won the Tier 3 national championship at that year's Warrior Classic in Las Vegas. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, no tournament was held in 2020. The tourney returned this year with the Flyers Warriors as the host team.
Over the two years since the 2019 championship in Vegas, the Flyers Warriors program has grown from one roster, to two to three with nearly enough additional players to form a fourth squad. Players are internally slotted into Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 according to their levels of hockey experience and ability.
The Flyers Training Center (FTC) in Voorhees and the Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell as the venues for the round-robin games at the 2021 Warrior Classic. The championship matches were held at the FTC on Sunday.
To begin the day, the Flyers Warriors Tier 3 team skated to a blowout victory to capture their USA Warrior Hockey bracket (Tier 7 by USA Warrior Hockey classification) championship. Next, the Flyers Warriors Tier 2 trailed early but came back to win their championship game (USA Warrior Hockey Tier 4).
That set the stage for the main event: the USA Warrior Hockey Tier 1 national championship game pitting the Flyers Warriors against the Colorado Warriors. The teams had already played a pair of hotly contented, physical and feisty games earlier in the weekend with each side winning once.
"Today was a great day. It was a reward for the hard work that all of our players do. The message to all three teams was the same from Rob and me. We do a lot of skating at practice for a reason. We were going to win the tournament with our legs," Marsh said.
"We are so proud of all our squads, but I want to make special mention of our Tier 3 group. Many players had never skated or played hockey before our first skating clinics. But they were all very enthusiastic and 100 percent committed. They took instructions to heart and we watched their confidence and skills grow before our eyes. In some ways, they are our most fundamentally sound group, and it showed on the ice. At the higher levels, we had a lot of players back from the 2019 championship plus some talented newer additions who really embraced the team concept."
