Only six weeks since the Doughboys football season ended and the Fort Benning Knights basketball season began, the Fort Benning Sports Office wants to make ice hockey the platform for its next post team.
“If the Soldiers want it and it’s within our means to do it … we’re going to expand our program to all types of athletes,” said Ken Wetherill, Fort Benning’s sports director.
Columbus Cottonmouths head coach Jerome Bechard said he approached Wetherill with the idea for a post hockey team when he noticed many players in the Columbus Hockey Association’s adult league were Soldiers. “We saw there was enough hockey players on Fort Benning that we needed to put together a team,” Bechard said. “I think there’s 15 players in the men’s league that are from Fort Benning and probably even more on post that don’t know there’s a team.”
Open tryouts for the team will be held Jan. 12 and 19 from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Columbus Civic Center. The selected team will play games against the Columbus Cottonmouths Legends team and a U.S. Marines team Feb. 11 and 12 at the civic center. The Legends team, which will be coached by Bechard, features former Snakes players, and Wetherill said the Marines are comprised of service members from Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Those games will be only a part of a weekend filled with sports at the civic center. Fort Benning’s game against the Legends will precede the Feb. 11 game between the Snakes and the Mississippi Surge. The Columbus Lions will host a youth indoor football skills clinic Feb. 12, followed by Fort Benning’s game against the Marines, the Georgia vs. Alabama high school arena football game and an arena football game between the Doughboys and the Marines.
“It’s a weekend of the partnership we have with the Cottonmouths and the Lions,” Wetherill said.
Bechard said despite coaching against the Fort Benning team Feb. 11, he is willing to help and instruct the team in any way he can.
“I would definitely be involved in putting them through the drills,” he said. “I would love to get involved with them against the Marines and help them.”
Ken Porter of the Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, recently signed with the Snakes to fill in for injured players. Bechard said he noticed Porter’s talent while playing in the CHA and thinks there are other Soldiers in the league who are almost as good.
“There’s a handful of players that are of that caliber,” he said. “You’ve got 15 guys who never practice and put their skates on just once a week. If you put a little structure to them and get everybody on the same page, I think you would have a nice little hockey team.”
If the games on Feb. 11 and 12 go well, Wetherill said he hopes to be able to play more games in the future. He and Bechard want to schedule games that will precede Snakes games at the civic center to give hockey fans two games for the price of one.
“I think we could get ourselves a mini-season going,” Wetherill said. “I don’t want it to be a one-and-done.” Just as Columbus Lions head coach Jason Gibson coached the Doughboys, Bechard said he has a high interest in coaching the post hockey team.
“(I would coach) as much as I possibly could,” he said.
