While he still loves his Chicago teams and misses the authentic deep-dish pizza pies of his youth, Ricci has become something of an iconic figure in Colorado youth hockey circles. He is probably the most powerful man in the state — and throughout the Western half of the United States — in the development of young hockey players. And for good reason: Colorado’s youth hockey teams are considered among the best in the nation. Promising local players used to leave the area to properly develop in the sport. Now, families from all over are moving here so their kids have the chance to play in the state’s youth leagues. Specifically, for the chance to have their sons play for Ricci.
Ricci’s Tier 1 under-16 AAA Colorado Thunderbirds club team recently lost in four overtimes, 2-1, in the national championship game to Team Wisconsin in Green Bay. His Thunderbirds won the national championship in 2010. In his 11 seasons of coaching at the Tier 1 level, he has posted a 549-114-44 record. Of the 20 players on his most recent Thunderbirds team, 16 already have been drafted by United States Hockey League teams and one, 16-year-old captain Alex Overhardt, already has his major junior rights owned by the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League.
Ricci, a former University of Denver high-scoring forward whose professional hockey dreams ended because of a severe wrist injury, reinvented himself as a youth hockey maven, one who has chosen to remain in Colorado despite numerous higher-paying job offers from all levels of the game, including the pros.
“Why would I want to move away from this?” Ricci said with a panoramic sweep of the hand on a sunny morning last week at a Starbucks, right across the street from his alma mater and the mountains in the background. “I feel like I have a good situation here, personally and professionally. Yeah, there have been offers to go elsewhere, but my wife (Melanie) and I love living here and I just enjoy what I do.”
Ricci’s first coach at DU — Frank Serratore, now Air Force’s coach — isn’t surprised by his success. Well, maybe a little in how it came about.
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“I never would have envisioned Angelo doing what he is now, but I would have envisioned him as some mover and shaker, as some CEO of a Fortune 500 company — Armani suits, Rolex watch, the whole deal,” Serratore said. “I would have pictured him as a legal look-alike to a John Gotti or something. He’s the Don of youth hockey in the Western United States. There’s not a rink that guy walks into where people don’t know who he is. But it’s a good thing. They know him because of how hard he works and what his reputation is.”
More than 100 players who have played under Ricci have gone on to play at higher levels of the sport, including three players — Seth Jones, Nick Shore and Gustav Olofsson — in the past two years who have signed NHL contracts.
“I can definitely say that Coach Ricci greatly helped my development as a player, to where I am today,” said Shore, a former Pioneer who spent this past season playing for the Manchester Monarchs of the American Hockey League and likely has a future in the NHL. “To see where the Thunderbirds program is today, just from when I was there, it’s amazing. Colorado is the place where tons of quality players are developing and I think it’ll only get better.”
Credit an assist to Big Bill
Ricci was the top-scoring player (20 goals, 27 assists) as a senior for the DU squad in 1994-95, which advanced to the final eight of the NCAA playoffs. He was a brash player and person, “definitely not lacking in confidence in himself,” Serratore said. But in those days, his 5-foot-7, 172-pound frame was a big strike against him and he wasn’t drafted by an NHL team.
He signed on with the Toledo Storm of the East Coast Hockey League in 1995-96 and posted 18 goals and 40 points in 36 games, making $500 a week plus free housing. He also played professional roller hockey in the summers with the Chicago Cheetahs and the Denver Daredevils, posting well over two points per game with both squads. He wasn’t in the NHL, but he wasn’t ready to give up on that dream, and, hey, he was still getting paid to play hockey.
Then came a night in Vancouver, British Columbia, with the Daredevils. Ricci was checked into the boards, and wound up breaking bones in his right wrist. He tried to keep playing after a lengthy rehab, but his game never was the same. Depressed and out of work, Ricci had a “rough” year or so, not knowing quite what to do next. He might have moved out of Colorado if not for a man he calls a father figure: Bill Ficke, the owner of Big Bill’s New York Pizza.
“When I was injured, I lived with Big Bill. I was thinking of leaving, but he let me stay at his house when I was rehabbing and he just said, ‘Stay here while you look for a place.’ He really helped me along,” Ricci said.
Ricci decided to put his full effort into teaching hockey. He looked around for somewhere he might be able to coach full time, and scored a job as a skills coach with Arvada Youth Hockey in 1997. After a year there, he got to know the Avalanche’s Claude Lemieux, who had invested in the Family Golf Center — now known as the Avs’ practice facility, the Family Sports Center. Pam Walters of Family Golf hired Ricci away from Arvada to coach kids at the facility, which housed the games of the Arapahoe Youth Hockey program.
“Angelo has a big heart”
Only five youth teams played in the league in 1998, with about 100 players overall. Now, there are more than 1,000 kids playing on more than 50 teams. In 2002, Serratore started a club team at the Air Force Academy, the Colorado Thunderbirds.
“At that time, all the good young hockey players in Colorado, including my own kids who were coming up in hockey, felt they had to leave the state once they got to a certain age,” Serratore said. “And I’m sitting there going why? Why can’t we have a real good program in Colorado, so kids don’t have to move away? So I got a program started, but after a couple years or so (in 2009), we just turned it over to Angelo, and he’s taken it another five levels.”
After eight years coaching in the Arapahoe youth system, Ricci took over as director of the Littleton youth program and in 2009 took over as coach of the Thunderbirds team, which has about a $3 million annual budget.
In his first season as coach, Ricci led the Thunderbirds to a national championship over a team from New Jersey. His captain from that team, Landon Smith, has been invited to the Avalanche’s prospect camp next month. If not for a tough bounce in the fourth overtime in the title game last month against Wisconsin, he’d have gotten another title.
“He’s really serious about what he does. He’s not like a lot of youth hockey coaches, where they kind of blow smoke at their players and don’t really care,” said Alex Overhardt, whose father, Kurt, is an NHL agent. “He literally demands perfection, but he also cares a lot about his players and teaches you a lot about life.”
Ricci admits: “I’m a tough coach. But I know that it’s not just about winning with the kids I’m coaching. It’s about player development, player advancement and good character-building, on and off the ice.”
Parents pay, on average, more than $10,000 a year for their kids to play on teams such as the Thunderbirds.
“He won’t tell you this, but I know for a fact that Angelo personally has written many checks on behalf of some kids who couldn’t quite afford everything at the time,” Serratore said. “Angelo has a big heart. People who meet him for the first time might think, ‘Oh, this guy is just an arrogant this and that,’ but Angelo has a good heart. He’s a pleaser. He’s got a good feel for people. He knows everyone, it seems like. He has a million friends.”
And coaching young hockey players has its rewards for Ricci. “Kids keep you young,” he said. “To be able to make a difference in a kid’s life? Hey, I’ll take that anytime.”
Ricci file
Angelo Ricci, 42, is coach of the Colorado Thunderbirds, a Tier 1 under-16 AAA club hockey team. Here are some of his and the team’s accomplishments:
Has a 549-114-44 record in 12 seasons as a Tier 1 coach (Thunderbirds, plus in Arapahoe and Littleton programs).
Has coached more than 100 players that have gone on to higher levels of hockey, most in the major junior, college and pro ranks. Included are NHL players Seth Jones and American Hockey League top prospect Nick Shore.
His Thunderbirds team of 2009-10 won the Tier 1 AAA national championship, a first for a Colorado team. This past season’s team lost the championship game in four overtimes to a team from Wisconsin.
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