Ballard Steps Down as Youth Hockey Director
Ballard Steps Down as Youth Hockey Director
Veteran coach and director takes job with competitive program near Denver.
By Kyle Leverone / Sports Editor Apr 16, 2025
[Article taken from Jackson Hole News and Guide....linked here. ]
Six years ago, the board president and vice president of Jackson Youth Hockey met with Eric Ballard, the head hockey coach at the University of Colorado Boulder at the time, and gave him the keys to the future.
“Here’s the bus, you drive, and we’re going to support you,” Ballard said they told him.
Since then, he has ventured all around Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain region as the organization’s executive director. He has overseen 20 state championships, a Western Girls’ Hockey League title just a few years after developing the girls’ program, and over 30 players, boys and girls, who have moved on to play collegiate, junior, triple-A or prep hockey under his tutelage. In January, Ballard stepped in midseason and coached the varsity boys’ Moose team to a state banner and a spot in the USA Hockey High School Nationals in California, while also leading the Team Wyoming 14U double-A team to a national championship appearance two weeks ago.
Last week, Ballard announced that last winter will be his final stop as the driver of Jackson Youth Hockey, and that he is heading east to be the 16U Tier I head coach and director of player personnel for the Rocky Mountain RoughRiders just outside Denver. In addition to the appeal of being the coach of a high-level hockey program once again, Ballard will also be closer to his family in Fort Collins.
“This season really got me thinking,” Ballard said. “I do have some gas in the tank. I still have something to give back to the game.”
He will stay in his role through July and assist Jackson Youth Hockey with finding his replacement.
Ballard grew up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and prior to arriving in Jackson had racked up 25-plus years of coaching, including 200 games in the North American Hockey League. For five seasons, he served as the head coach of the University of Colorado’s Division I hockey team and in 2019 stood behind the bench as an assistant for USA Hockey in Russia at the World University Games.
Upon returning to the United States after that tournament, Ballard signed his contract to be Jackson Youth Hockey’s next executive director. He had been to Jackson to run hockey camps during previous summers, but he would make his home here beginning in 2019.
“It was a blank canvas,” Ballard said of the position. “I got an opportunity to paint my own picture here. I thought, ‘What a great opportunity to build something.’”
At the time of his landing here, Jackson Youth Hockey was a “recreational” program in Ballard’s opinion, and over the past six years it transitioned into a “progressive recreational” program to even a “Tier II-style” program. Each year, about 260 to 300 players appear in the ranks from mini mites to high school, and at one point 72 girls were enrolled.
“All of it has exceeded expectations,” Ballard said. “The boys’ side, the girls’ side. It’s become a hockey program in the middle of a ski town.”
One of the hardest parts of the executive director job is finding dedicated coaches to help with the youth teams, but Ballard credits the senior Moose club and the players that owner Bob Carruth brings in each year for making it a successful program. Before 2019, Drew Akins was director of player development, and when Ballard took over, Akins and Ryan Glantz continued with their on-ice instruction. Fellow Moose players Brad Improta, Brian Upesleja, Tom Hartnett, Dakota Richardson, Nick Krause and others have all been coaches with Jackson Youth Hockey at some point.
And now, in one of the most exciting developments that Ballard has seen, former graduates of the Jackson Youth Hockey program have come back to coach on the same ice where they learned the game. James Doyle, a former high school Moose player and current senior Moose player, just completed last season as the head coach of the high school junior varsity team.
“At the end of the day, if you really start to look at the reason why this program has been successful in the last six years as a hockey program more than it was before, in my opinion, is because of the overall infusion of those players,” Ballard said.
Despite the success he had as executive director, Ballard realized this year that he still had a coaching itch to scratch. All those weekends traveling from tournament to tournament that he thought he would never miss reminded him that he did, in fact, miss them quite a bit.
Recently, he traveled to Michigan with his 14U double-A team for USA Hockey Nationals, and Team Wyoming placed second after a shootout in the title game. During that trip, Ballard found a spark from his son Mike, his assistant.
And now, he’ll be able to use that spark in Denver to build a new fire within a new organization. Fifteen- and 16-year-olds are the top recruited age level for Division I collegiate teams and NHL programs, according to Ballard, and the players within the Rocky Mountain RoughRiders program are all chasing collegiate or professional hockey dreams. The atmosphere is completely different, he said.
“I’m extremely excited,” Ballard said. “I get to move home for family reasons, but now I get to be in the game at a level that I’ve missed a little bit the last six years.”