Duchesne Hockey 2025-26: Catholic Cup Champions
By: Bill Kuhn
DHC Board Member
Three seasons ago, Duchesne’s new hockey rival, St. Dominic, began a varsity hockey program for the first time. As the only two Catholic schools in the St. Charles Conference of Mid-States Hockey, the two programs got together and created an event that would celebrate our Catholic faith on the ice, but also generate excitement for this new rivalry. The Catholic Cup was born.
The first year, things did not go well for Duchesne. St. Dominic literally “Dom-inated” the game and came away as victors in the 1st ever annual game. 2024-25 was a different season for Duchesne, with a powerful, high-octane offense. Still, St. Dominic had a good team as well. Fittingly, the second year ended in a 3-3 tie and, you might say, a little controversy when St. Dominic declined an opportunity to play for the rights to The Cup with a shootout after regulation – a shootout that would not count on the books, but only for the rights to The Catholic Cup. With the game ending as a tie, St. Dominic retained the rights to keep The Cup by default. This didn’t sit well with our team. A few weeks later and motivated by what happened in that game, Duchesne pummeled St. Dominic in an 8-0 win on St. Dom’s senior night.
Move forward to this year. Despite losing five seniors the year prior, the memory of what happened was still, a year later, fresh in these player’s minds. Duchesne’s team this year does not have the firepower it did last year, but what it does have is motivation and tenacity. On Friday, Dec. 26, Duchesne faced St. Dominic for the 3rd annual Catholic Cup. Duchesne had already lost to St. Dominic earlier in the season 0-3 and were sitting on a 6-6-1 record. None of that mattered this year. Duchesne knew it was time for The Catholic Cup to make its way to the halls of Duchesne High School.
Junior Dylan Slattery scored the first goal five minutes and four seconds into the game to take a 1-0 lead. Less than five minutes after that, Sophomore Owen Kelsey scored goal number two. Both teams were scoreless in the second period. Early in the third, St. Dominic scored to make it a 1 goal game with lots of time on the clock. However, Senior Defenseman Ryan Adkerson scored to make it 3-1 with 8:36 remaining. After that, it was “lights out” for the defense who shut down every opportunity for St. Dominic including a great performance by Senior Goalie Quinn Meyer who allowed just one goal on 36 shots. The buzzer sounded and Duchesne became the rightful “owners” of The Catholic Cup. Many celebrations ensued and The Cup now sits in the halls of Duchesne – where it should be.
With one game remaining in the regular season (Jan. 23 vs. Holt), the team sits with an 8-10-1 record. Some might consider that a mediocre record. However, probably due to last seasons success, Duchesne was saddled with a very tough schedule this year against some powerhouse hockey schools such as SLUH, Rockwood Summit, Priory, and a much-improved Francis Howell team that they faced twice and nearly tied in their second meeting. With eight new players on the team this year, they have made great progress throughout the season.
The team is led in scoring by Sophomore Owen Kelsey (19 goals, 6 assists) followed by Senior Liam Daleo (6 goals, 7 assists) and Freshman Jansen Smith (5 goals, 4 assists). Defensively, the team is led by Senior Ryan Adkerson and Juniors Austin Schoene and Brendan Birkenmeier.
Between the pipes, Duchesne is on a different level than most teams. While most teams have two goalies, but one dominant goalie that plays most of their games, Duchesne has three highly-skilled goalies that can be trusted at any given time to take the net – Seniors Quinn Meyer and Dillon Kuhn, and Sophomore Braylon Douglas. Combined, the three goalies have a save percentage of 88.4%
Finally, Duchesne Hockey is celebrating one major milestone this year as Senior Goalie Dillon “DK” Kuhn recorded his 1000th save on the evening of Dec. 22 in a game against Ft. Zumwalt West where Kuhn not only got the milestone, but also recorded a 3-0 shutout win against the Jaguars. He’s gone on to record 48 more saves since that game, sitting him at 1048 saves before the final game of the season and the playoffs. Congrats DK!
A huge shout out also goes to the Duchesne Hockey Cheerleaders who make it to nearly every game and are one of only a very few schools that have hockey cheerleaders at games. They always make the games much more enjoyable and create that high school experience all season long. The Duchesne students also need to be recognized – some of whom made long voyages to ice rinks across the city to watch their hockey team. The appreciation for that showed when the team posed with their newly acquired Catholic Cup in front of the glass where the students and fans sit.
Congrats Duchesne Hockey on another fun and exciting year. We look forward to the playoffs ahead!!