Colorado pond hockey tournament canceled due to thin ice
Unseasonably warm conditions in Colorado’s high country this winter forced organizers this week to cancel an annual pond hockey tournament at Keystone Lake.
“We are beyond sad to announce that the 2026 – 9280 Pond Hockey Tournament has officially been canceled due to warm temps causing the ice to be too thin for us to safely host the Tournament,” organizers posted on the tournament’s official Facebook page on Wednesday.
The event was scheduled for Jan. 23-25 at Keystone Mountain Ski Resort.
The tournament touts itself as the No. 1 all-ages pond hockey tournament in the country and the only outdoor rink in the country that is maintained with a hot-water Zamboni, according to its website.
The event started in 2015 with 40 teams and had grown to more than 220 teams during last year’s edition, the site said.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said on its website ice needs to be 4 inches thick to walk on, 6 inches thick to support a snowmobile or ATV, 8-12 inches thick for a small car or pickup and 12-15 inches thick for a medium-sized truck.
Organizers did not say how thick the ice was at the 5-acre, manmade Keystone Lake this season when they canceled the tournament.
Colorado experienced its hottest December on record this winter, with temperatures more than 4 degrees above average statewide, according to 9NEWS meteorologist Chris Bianchi. And the snowpack situation is off to a dismal start.
“Welp, it’s officially Colorado’s worst season-to-date snowpack on record,” Bianchi said in a post on X on Tuesday. “Just a smidge below 1990, 2000, 2013, 2018 levels.”
Colorado has kept snowpack records since 1987, making this the worst season in about 40 years of record-keeping, Bianchi added.
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