Veterans take center stage prior to Winter Classic

SEATTLE -- Veteran pride was on the line Thursday at Kraken Community Iceplex, where teams representing the Vegas Veterans Hockey Foundation and Pacific Northwest Veterans Hockey met for the Pacific Northwest Veterans Classic.

"I think it will be a highly contested battle," said Greg Savage, a former data systems technician who served in the Navy aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. "I just hope everybody has a good time, though, and nobody gets hurt."

The two teams came together in conjunction with the 2024 Discover Winter Classic, which will be played between the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken at T-Mobile Park here on New Year's Day (3 p.m. ET; MAX, TNT, truTV, SN, TVAS).

Although the team from Vegas cruised to a 10-3 win, the final score wasn't the goal of the event.

"Obviously on the ice, we all want to win," said Beth Diehl-Griego, who helped found the VVHF with her husband, Jason Griego, a retired Air Force loadmaster. "But there's a big community building and camaraderie between all the teams."

The two organizations, which operate independently of one another, share a common goal of helping local veterans find a community and to bring back the camaraderie that service members often lose when they exit the military.

Jake Gerhardt is a former aircraft fabrication technician for the Air Force. He was in Vegas when he separated from the armed forces and saw an opportunity through the VVHF to regain some of the fellowship that he enjoyed while serving.

"You have two great organizations combining for a great cause, and growing the game of hockey through the veteran community," Gerhardt said. "When you become a veteran and you're no longer wearing that uniform, you can lose that camaraderie through your everyday life, and this kind of reignites that."

Suman Chakrabarti is not a veteran, rather a software engineer in the Seattle area. But he saw what the Vegas organization was doing and wanted to replicate that for veterans in the Pacific Northwest. He teamed up with Bill Stillwell, a former Marine, and Nate Gallery and Amanda Stanley, two Navy veterans. Together, they created Pacific Northwest Veterans Hockey. They later added Matt Norman, a civilian with experience in non-profit organizations, and Navy veteran Greg Savage as members of their board.

"Over the years, as Vegas started their Veterans Hockey Association, I was like, 'I want to do that here,'" Chakrabarti said. "Part of this story is anybody can go and do this and serve our veterans, so that just became a little bit of a passion for me."

Norman said, "What a great way to get vets involved and be part of this community that we're building. So, yeah, we're one year in and we're doing pretty well."

Having the two teams come together prior to the Jan. 1 outdoor event felt like destiny for Chakrabarti.

"We just had this coincidence of the Winter Classic coming," Chakrabarti said. "We said, 'Hey, we've got to do something [with Vegas],' and it just all came together. … We started talking about it right after the announcement of the Winter Classic (coming to Seattle), and it just happened so fast."

Now five-plus years into its existence, the VVHF is sharing its knowledge and experience with PNWVH to continue growing the cause in the Pacific Northwest. The teams and their families came together for social events on Wednesday night and Thursday after their game, celebrating the accomplishments of all involved.

Each organization hopes to see this type of initiative expand nationwide, and they are seeing positive signs. Through tournaments like the USA Hockey Warrior Classic, which hosted 36 teams and 800 players from 15 different states Oct. 6-8 in Denver, and the monthly events these local organizations are putting on, the veteran hockey community is growing.

"This event is going to be huge for veterans all around the country," said Drew Jerger, a former Marine Corps crash fire rescue specialist from Vegas. Jerger is also the president of hockey operations for the VVHF. "There's a huge veteran community, we all love the game of hockey, just like the pros do, and we just want to get out there and show what we're capable of and bring everybody together.'"

Norman sees growth in the Pacific Northwest as well, and hopes the Seattle-based organization can even reach veterans that have never played the sport before through its Learn To Play program.

"We actually played a game about a week ago against the Coast Guard, and now we're playing Vegas veterans," Norman said. "And there's a whole bunch of other veteran teams coming out of the woodwork; they all want to play. So, we're pretty excited about the opportunity to build a nationwide community of veterans."