Coach Carlos Ross was born and raised in Brockport, New York, a town west of Rochester. He notes the cold winters and beautiful summers there— not dissimilar to the Roaring Fork Valley, but he adds that the winters in New York are really tuff, dark and gloomy. He appreciates the sun shining through during Colorado’s winter season.

His mother emigrated from Mexico when she was 29. She practiced dentistry in Mexico but was not licensed in the US when she first arrived. Coach Carlos commends his mom’s work ethic and proudly states that she worked hard to become certified in the US and now runs her own dental practice. On top of all that, she kept Carlos and his family well-fed on an authentic Mexican diet and thanks to her Carlos is bilingual.

Coach Carlos’ father grew up playing hockey and coached for teams in Europe before settling into a coaching position for SUNY-Brockoprt College. Carlos looked up to his dad and was on the ice by the time he was three.

He looks back on the days when he’d shoot the puck around with his dad or just skate around with his mom. “There are photos of me when I was two years old with a hockey stick — just in the living room playing around,” he reflects. “It’s pretty much all I’ve known,” he laughs.

Growing up only an hour from the Canadian border, he played a lot of hockey with our neighbors to the north.

When Carlos was a youngster he played for a local program not dissimilar from Colorado Extreme. When he was twelve, he ended up making it onto a Triple-A team, the most advanced youth division based out of Rochester. He got to travel the country to play hockey. “Actually that year we lost in the semi-finals at Nationals to a team from Colorado,” he adds.

His senior year of high school he opted to play on his school’s team back in Brockport. He valued his friendships with his classmates — the same kids he shot the puck around with before playing in the Triple A league. “I really wanted to spend my last year with all the kids I grew up playing with,” he explains.

After graduation he played junior hockey for a few years, two of which with the New York Bobcats out of Long Island. From there, he was recruited onto a college team for Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts. Because the young athlete valued education as well as hockey, his grade point average also helped get him into a good school.

He played hockey through college until graduating in 2019. Today, he enjoys playing on Tuesday nights in Aspen on the top division team here in the Valley.

While working a data analytics job (his education background is in data analytics and finance) he received a message on Linkedin from Sheldon Wolitzki, the founder of Colorado Extreme, offering him a job coaching hockey in the Aspen area. “At first I didn’t really believe it…I thought someone was pranking me,” he jokes, but, “I jumped on the opportunity.”

Growing up Carlos was usually the only Latino player on the team. “It’s pretty cool there’s a group of Hispanic kids who get to skate together, play together and have their buddies playing hockey together,” he says of Colorado Extreme.

“The sport of hockey gave us so much in life,” Coach Carlos says of himself and his Colorado Extreme colleagues. “The lessons I learned through the sport of hockey I carried through my professional career and now my coaching career.”

He finds great purpose in passing that on to another generation of players. “Seeing them work hard, making friends and progressing is unbelievable,” Coach Carlos says.“They’re not just becoming great hockey players, but great kids,” he proudly proclaims.