The Durango High School hockey team is more than a year removed from its first state championship, and a lot has changed in the program.
After Brian Ensign led the program to its first state championship in March of 2024, Ensign retired from coaching the team, and Will Daniels took over. Daniels is back for his second season leading the program after the Demons finished 11-9-1 overall last year and lost in the 4A state quarterfinals.
Another change this season is that Durango’s team is smaller because of the lack of Telluride High School players. Since Durango hockey joined Colorado High School Activities Association for the 2022-2023 season, Telluride High School’s hockey players played for the Demons.
This season, the Telluride school board approved a hockey team for the high school. All of the Telluride players will be playing on a team that competes at the junior-varsity level.
Despite the changes to the program, the end goal remains the same: make the state playoffs and see what happens.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Daniels said. “It was a huge change since last year, with losing more than half our roster, partially to seniors, and partially due to the breakup with Telluride. It's exciting to know that this year, we're an all-Durango team. It all grew out of the youth program, and I'm very pleased to see how much these kids have been working over the offseason.”
Durango started practice on Nov. 10, but the Demons had been training twice a week in the preseason for six weeks before then. Daniels knows that conditioning will be critical for the Demons because they have a smaller team this year. He said his team is a full line shorter than last year.
The Demons do return two of their top four scorers from last season. Senior Wynn Daniels is back after leading the team with 17 goals and third-best seven assists for a team-high 24 points. Telluride junior Baker Blount is gone after leading the team with 16 assists and finishing second with 22 points (six goals, 16 assists) last season. Senior Sawyer Jones is back after finishing with 18 points last season (10 goals, eight assists), and Telluride senior Leyton Holbrook after finishing last season with 14 points (10 goals, four assists).
Daniels has said his son, Wynn, isn’t a big player, but has gotten stronger. Daniels wants his son to step up, be a leader, set the tone for the team and make sure the Demons establish a good reputation. Daniels said Jones is a passionate player who will have to control his fire to be the teammate and leader the Demons need.
Freshman Ben Blanchard and Milo Martin are two forwards Daniels thinks can step up to replace the lost Telluride players. Junior Cooper Linn will be a leader on defense.
Two new faces will be behind everyone in the goal. Multiyear starters Luka Remec and Evan Brock have graduated. Junior Dante Devitre and sophomore Shea Morrissey are going to split time to start the season.
“Dante is extremely talkative, a positive teammate and guy on the bench and just all-around good guy to have in the room,” Daniels said. “His technical skills are pretty awesome; he’s grown a lot and gotten a lot stronger … Shea’s improvement since last season has been phenomenal.”
The Demons started their season in Gunnison with a 3-1 loss against Colorado Academy on Thursday and a 4-0 loss against Cheyenne Mountain on Friday.
Durango will begin 4A Mountain League play against Glenwood Springs, the state runner-up last season to fellow league opponent Steamboat Springs, at home on Dec. 5. The Demons have eight home games to end the regular season.
Before that, Daniels wants his team to take it one game at a time, before what he hopes is another playoff run.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
