A little more than two years ago, Riley Miltko was considering leaving hockey for good.
Miltko was playing at a high level as part of the Connecticut Chiefs 16U Tier 1 program, but he wasn’t happy.
After leaving the Chiefs and finishing out the remainder of the season with the Colorado Springs Tigers, he was unsure of his future on the ice.
Encouraged by a few friends, he came out for Pine Creek hockey in winter of 2024.
Two seasons later, Miltko, a senior, led the Eagles in points (39) and assists (24) to help Pine Creek capture its first state title earlier this month.
But beyond the numbers and hardware, the two most valuable things Miltko gained at Pine Creek were a reignited love for the sport and a lesson he’ll never forget.
“I am able to overcome big circumstances,” he said.
Miltko is the Gazette’s Peak Performer of the Year for ice hockey.
In his first season at Pine Creek, both Miltko and Eagles coach Chris Moses were at a crossroads with the former trying to find his love for the sport again, and the latter taking over a program that hadn’t had a 10-win season since 2019-2020
Turns out, they were exactly what the other needed. Before the Eagles’ first win, even their first goal, Moses set a standard.
He wanted his players to have fun and work hard.
“I stopped playing collegiately in 2019 and I really just wanted to bring some of those dynamics to the high school level. I think it gets lost in the shuffle too often, where the pressure consumes these kids or outside factors really force the kids’ hands one way or another,” Moses said. “In my opinion, I think that with hard work comes a lot of fun and it can also be vice versa so yes…we do try to have a lot of fun in our practices but the fun, again, really is a direct result of the hard work that the players put in.”
Miltko regained his passion one day at a time. He appreciated the high energy and tempo Moses brought to practice. He was able to learn and grow because the Eagles coach corrected mistakes but didn’t dwell on them. Slowly but surely, Miltko started to enjoy the little things about hockey again.
“Just being around Henry (Hoghaug) all year long. He’s just one of those guys who’s able to motivate you just by his play on the ice, whether it’s laying a big hit or scoring a goal,” Miltko said. “He’s one of those big energy guys that every team’s going to need.”
Miltko’s teammates bought into Moses’ style of coaching as well. Pine Creek won 13 games last season but fell a win short of the state title game with a 3-2 double-overtime loss in the 4A state semis.
The Eagles used the loss as motivation for this season.
“Our goal the whole year, from first day of tryouts to March 2nd state championship, was to win state and to do it against Steamboat to get revenge,” Miltko said. “As a senior myself with all the other seniors on my team, it was perfect revenge and wouldn’t have done it with anyone else.”
To exact that revenge, every person on the team had to do their job on a game-in, game-out basis. Riley viewed his job as being able to turn the tide. He strived to be someone who could flip a game on its head with a single shift. He was a part of an upperclassmen line with junior Conley Polsgrove and Hoghaug, a senior, and at times, played alongside leading goal scorer Jack Smetana.
Miltko and his linemates sought to set the tone for the Eagles.
“Being a senior and obviously having the two other seniors on my line, Henry and Jack. Obviously, we were on the team together last year and we knew our line, especially, would have to lead by example this year,” he said. “We took great pride in that from Game 1 to the state championship. We really wanted to lead and we all wanted to just set an example for the rest of the team.”
In terms of the box score, Moses said that the team was able to unleash Miltko’s creative freedom as a playmaker this year, leading to his slew of assists.
“I think last year we did rely on him more in a scoring capacity. I think that some of his creativity was taken away with that pressure to ultimately provide the goal scoring,” Moses said. “And then this year, with the goal scoring that we had returning, it did allow his playmaking ability to really come through and show. He’s a dynamic player. He’s very creative on the offensive side of the puck. He sees the ice in different ways than most high school players that I’ve come across. I do think that he does, at times, have a shot-first mentality, but once the season started clicking with his linemates and the power-play unit, the passing ability and that creativity really came to shine.”
But it wasn’t just talent that got Miltko to succeed, it was determination as well. Miltko retrieved loose pucks in the corners for his linemates and often won his one-vs.-one battles, enabling him to set up others for goals, Moses said.
The hard work, again, led to fun, which led to winning, the final piece of Moses’ equation for coaching.
Pine Creek secured the ultimate win on March 2 with a 6-3 win over none other than Steamboat Springs at the University of Denver’s Magness Arena.
“I think it gets lost, again in the shuffle, these kids being told that they’re winners and being told that they’re good enough to do something,” Moses said. “Once we found that the group believed in that, I think they really started to police themselves in the locker room, really hold each other accountable on the ice.”
With a reignited passion for hockey and the knowledge that he is a winner, Miltko is looking to the future. After he recovers from surgery for an injury suffered a week after Pine Creek’s victory in the Colorado state selection camp put on by the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association, he will look to play juniors for a season or two before hopefully moving on to the collegiate level and perhaps the pros.
No matter where he lands, he’ll always have the experience of overcoming his own challenges in hockey and helping turn the Pine Creek program around in the process.
“Wouldn’t have done it without my teammates or Coach Chris or Coach Matt (Levine),” Miltko said. “We had an amazing group last year and then this year we were able to just step it up to another level. Being able to be the group that brought it all home and was able to make school history like that. It really does mean something.”