A local non-profit inline hockey league that provides free gear and accessible play to Carson City youth and adults is facing financial strain following a string of recent vandalism incidents at its rink — but its director is offering the skateboarders who caused the damage a chance to make it right instead of facing criminal charges.
According to Kodey Koch, president of the Sierra In-Line Hockey League operating out of the Marv Teixeira Pavilion in Mills Park, multiple groups of local skateboarders have caused significant property damage to their rink and park facilities while repeatedly trespassing.
Koch doesn’t believe the damage is entirely nefarious — much of the damage is due to the kids skateboarding on the rink and throughout the pavilion, but it doesn’t change the fact that the cost to fix the damage is over $60,000.
According to Koch, the destruction includes a shattered temper glass panel that costs $2,000 to replace, and numerous in-line floor tiles have been damaged by the skaters using trash cans, cinderblocks and metal hockey nets to build ramps and jumps.
Since the pavilion isn’t host only to the in-line skating rink, it needs to be removable. The rink is made of interlocking sports tiles, which aren’t available for purchase as individual replacements — which means replacing the entire floor is the only option and will cost $61,000. Given Sierra in-line hockey is a non-profit, they only have about $4,000 in their bank account at any given time.
To keep the league going, they are currently relying on a piece of plywood to cover the broken glass. League players are made aware of the broken pieces of tile and know to avoid skating over them directly.
Despite the destruction, Koch said he is offering perpetrators a chance to make amends rather than face severe legal consequences.
Community service isn’t meant to be a punishment — it’s meant to help you learn responsibility by owning up to what you’ve done to better yourself.
He said he knows who they are, because they have been caught by Koch himself as well as other league volunteers. Additionally, many have posted videos of themselves on social media skateboarding in the pavilion after jumping the fences and creating makeshift ramps inside.
While meeting Carson High School Student Resource Officer George Nunez at the rink recently to discuss the ongoing issues, Koch said four of the skaters were actually inside the rink trespassing when they arrived. They ran, but Koch said Nunez tracked them down in the park and arrested them and warrants for three more kids were issued later.
Koch said this isn’t the first time he’s had interactions with the kids who were arrested. Around a year or so ago, he caught them trespassing in the rink after they had been using his metal nets to practice grinding, which had repeatedly stripped the paint from them.
He said he didn’t call the sheriff’s office or threaten them — instead, he had a conversation.
“Listen, I used to skate, I was a little delinquent before. I was super nice to them, I offered them some gatorade and snacks — we’d just done a tournament so I had extra. We talked, and I told them, ‘I can’t stop you from jumping the fence, but I’m asking you for the same level of respect I’m giving you and to not touch my rink. We work hard for it. It’s something for Carson — there’s not much to do here, we offer a lot of free programs and free gear to help hockey be affordable.’”
They apologized, and Koch felt their conversation was productive. He didn’t have issues with those specific skaters again — until the last few months when he spotted them among others trespassing.
These chats weren’t a one-off though; over the past few years, Koch said he’s caught a number of kids trespassing in the rink.
One of the skaters he spoke with about respecting the rink a year ago took Koch’s talk to heart. When Koch recently messaged him asking about the vandalism, he was adamant that he hadn’t returned — but gave some insight into why skaters continue to trespass at the pavilion.
“He said ‘dude, I don’t do any of that bullshit anymore since you and I talked,’” Koch said. “But he told me, ‘we’re just trying to push for a new skate park, a better one than the one we have in Carson — we need something bigger.’ And I was like, ‘I’m the connection to do that.’”
Koch said that he told the skater that he would be the person that could help advocate for them or find sponsors, especially since the nonprofit has received funding a number of times from local sports organizations like the Tahoe Knight Monsters, the Aces and even the Vegas Golden Knights.
But he warned him that the consistent vandalism is actively ruining their chances of ever seeing the skatepark expand.
“I told him, ‘I’m with you. I want to make the community fun. I want engagement, I want to be able to host all this stuff. But when you guys run around breaking shit, the city’s going to laugh at you.’”
Despite Koch’s frustration with the skateboarders, he said that at the end of the day, he’s not angry — but that they need to step up and make it right.
“I get it. Kids are kids. Accidents happen,” Koch said. “Just grow up, take responsibility and you won’t get in trouble.”
He said what he’s asking for is for the perpetrators to come and talk with him and come to an agreement of community service, whether they come and help the league do rink teardown, or help build the rink again next season; something that will help them understand how much work goes into the league.
He said he doesn’t feel that they deserve jail time for wanting to skate and he believes some of the damage — like the $2,000 shattered glass panel — was broken during a botched trick.
“Honestly, I feel like it was an accident, and I told that to the city and the sheriff’s office,” Koch said. “I feel like they went for a kickflip or something and when you go to fall, you kind of slingshot the board. I think it just shot off the stage.”
Accident or not, Koch said they still bear the responsibility. Despite this, many of the skaters who have been questioned are already denying any culpability — going so far as to say they never touched the nets or were ever inside the facility despite having posted videos of themselves grinding on the net inside of the rink.
Some of the parents haven’t been as supportive as Koch would like — he said one of recently arrested skateboarders who has continued to cause trouble at the rink is the son of a corrections officer for Carson City. Koch said he’d been told the skateboarder’s mother had bragged that because of his father’s connection, the charges were likely to be dropped.
He said this is not the perspective that kids or their parents should have: community service isn’t meant to be a punishment — it’s meant to help you learn responsibility by owning up to what you’ve done to better yourself.
Koch said that assisting with the rink has already helped a number of youth in the community.
“We regularly work with the kids from juvie who come down for community service hours and help us build the rink. One day, I sat there and talked to one of the kids and told him ‘dude, I’ve done all this dumb shit you’ve done, I’ve been to juvie — just get a hobby.”
Koch proudly said that after that teenager was out of custody, he joined the league, became an active player and is a valued member of their community.
“Kids can be guided toward being constructive if they are given the right opportunities. It’s really that easy: get a life that’s not destructive.”
Despite the recent vandalism issues, the league has seen explosive growth in recent years.
Founded in 1993, the organization had dwindled to just 32 players during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Koch took over leadership at the age of 20 shortly after, the league expanded to 176 active players, including six adult teams.
They have pulled a number of sponsorships from local organizations willing to step up to support accessibility for players regardless of their financial situation — which Koch said he is grateful for on a personal level.
“It’s the best feeling in the world knowing that I can waive fees or make it accessible to everyone without cost, and I can get you gear head-to-toe with sponsors,” Koch said.
The league is currently preparing to send a team of youth players to the North American Roller Hockey Championship this July in Redding, Calif. But in order to continue providing opportunities like this for their players, Koch said they can’t continue to drain their limited funds fixing damages caused by trespassing teens.
He said he wants to offer the opportunity for the skaters to make it right despite the fact that the trespassing and vandalism is still occurring even after arrests were made and warrants were issued. He said just this past week he caught one of the skateboarders inside grinding on his net. He said when the skater saw Koch, “he starts smirking at me, then grinds on the net again.”
Koch told him deputies were on their way, and he needed to pick the net back up and put everything back. He said that a chaotic yet hilarious situation ensued in which the skateboarder accidentally dropped the metal net on himself twice, said “fuck that net,” then went to jump the fence and promptly got his backpack caught on the way down.
“I was just trying not to laugh at that point — the amount of Karma was just insane. It’s annoying because I’m trying so hard to do something right for the community, and stuff like this is just a huge hiccup for no reason.”
Koch said at the end of the day, he doesn’t want kids in jail — he wants them to do better.
“I’m giving them the opportunity to come to me directly and be honest and say, ‘yes, we broke this, here’s how we’ll make it right.’ If they do, I’ll drop [the charges]. But if they fight me on everything and say we didn’t break this, we didn’t move the net, we didn’t go in there — I caught you myself. You jumped the fence during our practice. You told me you’d been in there four or five times this week. You posted videos of yourself grinding on my net. You need to own up to it and take responsibility.”
