In club hockey, 

Middle schoolers Tommy Lange, C.J. Jung, Mike Croghan and Patrick Heitman have a special position among the 4,000 St. Louis-area boys playing club hockey this year. 

First, they are the only holdovers from the Affton American Pee-Wee team that won the 12-and-under Missouri state championship last spring. The rest of the players moved on to older age groups. 

Second, this season, their team is moving to a new, tougher league. The Affton team will be the only Missouri pee-wee team in the league with others from Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. 

They are all looking forward to the tougher schedule this year. 

Heitman said, “We’ll see how our talent matches up. It will be more interesting.” He is a student at Seckmann Junior High. 

The team got a taste of tougher competition when it represented Missouri in a regional pee-wee tournament last spring. Their experience was mixed. 

Lange is a student at Rockwood South Middle School. He said, “We got killed in the tournament in the regional finals.” 

Croghan, a student at Priory, said that tournament provided him with both his best and worst experience in hockey. 

“My best experience was when we won our way into the finals. My worst experience was the next day when we got beat in the finals,” he said. 

Although the boys are competing in the 12-and-under league, most of them have been at the sport for years. Lange, Croghan and Heitman have been skating since they were three. Jung started later in life; he was eight. 

And the hockey schedule is a busy one. They practice three times a week and may play up to four games on a weekend. Because the Affton rink is so busy, some practices start late at night. A recent one-hour practice started at 8:50 p.m.

Last year, their team played 55 games, finishing with a record of 35 wins, 15 losses and five ties. 

Although the work is hard, all four say hockey is their favorite sport. Some of that is due to the presence of the St. Louis Blues professional hockey team in town. 

Lange said he was at his first Blues game when he was three. 

Croghan’s interest in hockey stems from his father, Mike Sr., who is now the team’s manager. The older Croghan played hockey at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minn. He also was a long-time coach at Affton. 

Mike Jr. said, “My father used to coach a whole lot of teams. And, I’d come to the rink with him.” 

There are 11 club hockey organizations in St. Louis, with some 4,000 players. They compete in five different age classifications, ranging from 8-and-under to 17-and-under. 

But, many kids get started much younger. For instance, the Affton rink has over 100 kids  taking part in their Sunday “learn to play” sessions. Those kids are as young as three.

Mike Sr. said the move by the Affton pee-wee team to the multi-state league “is definitely an effort to upgrade youth hockey in St. Louis.” He said the Chicago teams will be especially tough. 

In addition to the pee-wee team, Affton will have a 16-and-under team in the league. A team from Chesterfield will compete in the 10-and-under category.