Colorado
Teacher in Colorado’s high country honored for dual language welding classes
A Colorado teacher was recently recognized for his dedication to his students, regardless of what their primary language is.
Oakley Van Oss works at Summit High School in Breckenridge and specializes in welding and construction. He teaches practical job skills with everyday applications to students in both English and Spanish.
For Van Oss, it doesn’t matter what you would expect a welder would look like, or what language they would speak.
“You probably notice that we have a lot of ladies in here and they are kicking some serious butt, doing a great job for us,” Van Oss said.
In his workshop, if you’re willing to put in the work, you’re a part of the team.
“He’s like, ‘You come here, you work hard, you clean up and you show up.’ And that’s how this class is. And it gives a completely different feeling to the rest of the classes here,” student Lucas Navratil said.
It’s that attitude, paired with the real world skills he’s teaching kids, that won the high school in Summit County $35,000 thanks to the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence. Van Oss also received $15,000.
Van Oss is one of around 900 teachers that applied around the country and 25 were selected.
His students know it’s well deserved.
“Nothing you do in this class will ever feel like a mistake,” Navratil said. “You’ll always be coached through it and he will always make you feel like there’s a way to fix it. He’ll tell you exactly how to fix it.”
Van Oss says the students in his class for whom English is a second language excel when they hear lessons in their own langauge.
“It’s a real honor to be able to teach these classes in Spanish. It teaches them some really unique vocab that they can use at on job sites,” Van Oss said. “It’s not like everything’s in English going over their heads, but they’re actually understanding. They’re learning along with everybody else.”
While the prize money is appreciated, it’s the everyday prize that really matters: building a better future for his students –one weld at a time.
“It makes me feel like I’m doing something that’s unique and that’s valued, that my larger community, the United States, is into what we’re doing here in this small community of Summit County. And I just have a lot of pride in what I do and who I teach,” Van Oss said.
Colorado
Two-alarm fire damages hotel in Estes Park, 1 person taken to a Colorado hospital
A two-alarm fire damaged a hotel in Estes Park on Friday night. It happened at Expedition Lodge Estes Park just north of Lake Estes.
The lodge, located at 1701 North Lake Avenue on the east side of the Colorado mountain town, was evacuated after 8:30 p.m. and the fire chief said by 10 p.m. the fire was under control.
One person was hurt and taken to a hospital.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. So far it’s not clear how much damage it caused.
A total of 25 firefighters fought the blaze.
Colorado
Warm storm delivers modest totals to Colorado’s northern mountains
Lucas Herbert/Arapahoe Basin Ski Area
Friday morning wrapped up a warm storm across Colorado’s northern and central mountains, bringing totals of up to 10 inches of snowfall for several resorts.
Higher elevation areas of the northern mountains — particularly those in and near Summit County and closer to the Continental Divide — received the most amount of snow, with Copper, Winter Park and Breckenridge mountains seeing among the highest totals.
Meanwhile, lower base areas and valleys received rain and cloudy skies, thanks to a warmer storm with a snow line of roughly 9,000 feet.
Earlier this week, OpenSnow meteorologists predicted the storm’s snow totals would be around 5-10 inches, closely matching actual totals for the northern mountains. The central mountains all saw less than 5 inches of snow.
Here’s how much snow fell between Wednesday through Friday morning for some Western Slope mountains, according to a Friday report from OpenSnow:
Aspen Mountain: 0.5 inches
Snowmass: 0.5 inches
Copper Mountain: 10 inches
Winter Park: 9 inches
Breckenridge Ski Resort: 9 inches
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area: 8.5 inches
Keystone Resort: 8 inches
Loveland Ski Area: 7 inches
Vail Mountain: 7 inches
Steamboat Resort: 6 inches
Beaver Creek: 6 inches
Irwin: 4.5 inches
Cooper Mountain: 4 inches
Sunlight: 0.5 inches
Friday and Saturday will be dry, while Sunday will bring northern showers. The next storms are forecast to be around March 3-4 and March 6-7, both favoring the northern mountains.
Colorado
Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.
It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.
Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.
“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”
Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.
The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.
“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.
“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”
Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.
That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.
Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.
Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.
“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.
“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”
Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.
Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.
Martin Necas continued his hot run with a goal to even the score at 13:30 of the middle frame. Nathan MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and carried it into the offensive end. He left a drop pass for Necas near the right point and then played fullback, driving Wild defenseman Daemon Hunt back to give Necas space and then providing a screen on a lethal wrist shot from his Czech linemate.
That was Necas’ 24th goal of the season. He added a second goal in the final minute after the Wild had built a three-goal advantage to give him 25 on the season.
It’s also three in two games since the Olympic break. Necas had three goals and eight points in five games for Czechia at the Olympics in Milan, equaling his country’s record for points at the event.
MacKinnon missed Colorado’s first game back on Wednesday because of maintenance. He actually slipped to third in the NHL scoring race as of Thursday morning, in part because Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has now has 53 points in his past 23 games to track down MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid to make it a three-man race for the Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid (five times) and Kucherov (three) have combined to win the Art Ross in eight of the past nine years. MacKinnon has never won it, but has finished second each of the past two seasons.
Minnesota scored a second goal off a Colorado player to make it a 3-1 game and then added two empty-net tallies around Necas’ second goal to seal the Wild’s sixth win in a row.
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