The question is obvious and in a way, so is Michael Rivera’s answer.
How did a Chapin High School alum (class of 2010) end up as a successful ice hockey coach for the El Paso Rhinos, who play an NAHL best-of-five division finals series starting Friday at the Lone Star Brahmas?
The NAHL is the top American level of junior hockey, second tier in North America, where players age out at 20-years old. There is one team in New Mexico and two other teams in Texas, Corpus Christi and North Richland Hills.
Michael Rivera: ‘I wasn’t the traditional kid’
“I’ve always been different,” Rivera said with a laugh. “Never, ever with the status quo being a hockey player in El Paso. The majority of people (in high school) didn’t understand me or understand what I do.
“I find it funny that now I’m making a living doing it all these years later. I’m sure some of the people who I went to high school with would probably laugh: He was actually on to something.
“I played baseball in high school, did the normal stuff, but my love, my passion was always being here at the rink. I missed a lot of Friday nights, Saturday nights on the road, playing hockey and dedicating my life to the game.”
And now here he is, coach of an elite junior hockey team that has rolled through the first two rounds of the Robertson Cup and now is playing the No. 1 seed in their division with a chance to reach the semifinals.
Michael Rivera’s path from Chapin to Rhinos
Rivera’s path from Chapin to coach of the NAHL’s Rhinos actually is more straightforward than it might seem.
A native El Pasoan, Rivera moved with his family to New Jersey when he was 5, then back to El Paso when he was 11 (his father is a warehouse manager).
In New Jersey he fell in love with hockey, and while obviously the sport is bigger there, when he returned to El Paso he found a home with the El Paso Hockey Association, the umbrella group the Rhinos play under.
Rivera came up through the Rhinos age-group system and was a star for the powerhouse Western State Hockey League team (then coached by franchise founder Cory Herman) from 2010-13, starting when he was a senior in high school and finishing when he aged out at 20.
For almost a decade, as it is now, the El Paso County Special Events Center (or briefly the neighboring Coliseum briefly) was his patch of home ice.
‘The Rhinos loco means a lot more to me’
“This rink just holds a really special place for me,” Rivera said of the Special Events Center, now the team’s permanent home. “The Rhino logo means a lot to me more than the average person. It’s where I grew up. My family’s here. I played all the way through elementary school, middle school high school, then on to college all out of this rink.”
Rivera always had it in his mind to return to El Paso, but in 2013 he knew he wanted to move away, then earn a right to come back.
He did that by going to college at Central Oklahoma and becoming a star of their club hockey team, a stint that eventually led him to be coach there, initially as an assistant and then the head coach in 2019.
In 2024, a job as head coach of the Rhinos NA3HL team (their B team in the third tier of American junior hockey) opened. Rivera had his chance to come home.
“Junior hockey was something I always wanted to get back into,” Rivera said. “It was about waiting for when the time was right for my family, but also at the same time, I’ve always been kind of hitched to the logo.
“I wanted to go off, be off on my own, prove it and pave my own way, earn my way back here.”
There also was the best kind of family issue involved. In 2024 he and his wife Alexis’ daughter Palmer was 2-years-old (a second child is now on the way), and there was plenty of support here in El Paso.
“Coaching is not the easiest job on a young family,” Rivera said. “My wife and I both have family here, and so having the support with our little ones, to be able to help us out, made a big, big difference.”
Herman, now focusing on his role as owner of the Rhinos, didn’t hesitate to bring Rivera back.
Michael Rivera ‘doesn’t put himself above the team’
“He’s home bred,” Herman said. “He’s from here, grew up here, played here. The way he gets the guys to go, his motivation, his understanding of the game — he’s just another guy.
“He doesn’t put himself above the team, he’s one of the guys. He holds the players accountable, which is something we’ve been lacking the last several years. It goes to show what he’s doing is working and we’re super proud of him.”
Last season he was promoted to head coach of the Rhinos top team in the NAHL (the Rhinos moved from the WSHL to the NA3HL in 2020-21 and added the NAHL team the following year) in middle of last season, then this season has been special.
El Paso finished 33-19, third in the South Division, and now have swept Oklahoma and New Mexico in the first two round of the playoffs to set up a showdown with the reigning power of their division, the Lone Star Brahamas.
Games 1 and 2 of the five-game set are Friday and Saturday in North Richland Hills, with the team returning home Friday, May 8 for Game 3. A potential Game 4 would also be at the Special Events Center the next day, then the series would go back to the Fort Worth area for Game 5.
‘Our best hockey is in front of us’
“Fast, relentless, and disciplined, that’s our identity,” Rivera said of his team. “That’s the way we try to play every single day. We try to outpace other teams, be relentless with our pressure, never stopping the way we play.
“Then discipline: that’s the details and managing our emotions.”
The Rhinos will be a slight underdog in the conference finals, where the winner advances to the semifinals, but Rivera knows his team has more in it.
“We had some bounces go our way, I don’t think we played our best hockey, but in the playoffs it’s about finding a way,” Rivera said of his team’s sweep of New Mexico. “I’m excited we’re winning game and not playing our best hockey because hopefully that means our best hockey is in front of us.”
The Rhinos are doing it with an El Pasoan at their helm, a coach who always had a special place in his heart for the Rhino log.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso native Michael Rivera coaches Rhinos to hockey division finals
Reporting by Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
