A couple of years ago, I scanned the Internet and found myself in a wormhole of older college hockey stories.
It killed a good couple of hours while I sat in a nursery room with a rambunctious infant refusing to sleep, but it opened the lid on a time capsule capturing how we looked at the sport for any given week in any given season.
More specifically, I revisited stories written by folks who no longer grace these pages with their prose, but landing on Dave Hendrickson’s list of 20 things that made him thankful for covering Hockey East triggered my mind towards my newfound landscape in ECAC Hockey.
Reading and marinating on his thoughts sent me into a sleep-deprived emotional reflection on my own on-ice stories, so I revived his column with a list of 10 things for which I’m thankful. It wound up cleansing my own crusty sportswriter’s soul, so for the third straight year, here’s my take. I look forward to some young journalist finding it one day and maybe thinking about the weird college hockey landscape in 2024.
10. Going to arenas
This one won’t change much from previous years because it’s always the first thing about covering college hockey games, but I absolutely love stepping outside of my primary work-life balance by transforming into a life well outside of my day-to-day grind. There’s nothing like the feeling of stress and trouble melting away as arenas come into view, and the energy surrounding a building is unlike anything that exists in my email inbox or to-do list.
It’s a decompression, and stepping into that world releases negative energy. The routine of a home game broadcast – the coffee, the conversation, the high fives, the music, the fans – it’s all putting distance between the real world and this hockey fantasyland. It breathes life into all of us who attend its community church-like feel.
9. Talking to coaches and players
I wasn’t a hockey player in my childhood. I didn’t grow up by attending 5 a.m. practices at Hockeytown in Saugus (though if you know what I just said, I see you), nor did I learn how to skate until I dated a former hockey player in my late teens. I don’t understand the nuance of planning for a 1-3-1 system or an umbrella power play, but my learning increased hand-over-fist because players and coaches took me under their collective wing.
I’ve gotten better at seeing and understanding the game because they took time to explain things to me, and even officials outline how or why they call certain penalties to help my digestion of a particular scenario. Asking a clarifying question always helps, but outright admitting that I have no idea what they said usually leads to a teachable moment. As a former baseball player, I appreciate the desire to understand why a pitch – sorry, play – was thrown in a particular situation, and coaches and players are incredibly forthcoming about what they were thinking in certain areas if you just, well, ask.
8. The student bodies
Six or eight years ago, I was handed – almost literally – a college sophomore who just wanted to get involved with a hockey team. He had no idea how to broadcast and didn’t grasp the technical side of what we did, but he transitioned into a certified color analyst over the next three years because he carried a passion for his school’s hockey team. By the time he graduated, he became a good friend and trusted confidant, and I consider him one of the greatest blessings from my 15 years behind the microphone.
That’s what separates college hockey from the professional game. College students ideally receive four years to live this charmed life on a campus with other students who might not share anything other than their school’s name in common. They might not know each other, might not care about one another, but they all put the same colors over their head and chant the same chants. I look at the divided world and occasionally really get upset at how people treat one another, but then I arrive at a rink and hear students telling a goalie that he’s a giant sieve. I remember being that student – I apologize to almost every goalie that ever skated against UMass-Dartmouth at Hetland Arena in New Bedford, Massachusetts…almost – and I love seeing students living for the moment like that.
7. Little kids!
The two-time #girldad in me is a sucker for the intermission break mini-games and the parents holding their cameras as their kids skate 5-7 minutes in front of those same student sections.
You ever seen the look on a seven-year old’s face when he scores a goal in front of a sold-out student section? The horn goes off, the strobe lights hit, and the crowd goes wild. That kid has to feel like he’s Alex Ovechkin holding the Stanley Cup.
6. USCHO.com
My favorite college hockey story involves one too many cans of Red Bull and a 2012 playoff game between Bentley and RIT. I was a little hyper for the game and not knowing anything about USCHO.com or the players or the other team or literally anything, I lost my mind on Twitter after Bentley lost the second game of a best-of-three series. I took it out on RIT’s broadcast team and went off to the degree that Chris Lerch responded to me.
I’m pretty sure I called him a no-talent bad name, but he forgave me enough to bring me into the USCHO.com fold a couple of years later when Atlantic Hockey’s coverage split between the eastern and western contingents. He became a mentor for me – as did Ed Trefzger – and I spent the next decade working with some incredible people. My trips to the Frozen Four are legendary in my mind, and getting into college hockey’s weeds with Jim Connelly and Paula Weston brings me joy on a weekly basis.
We have a pretty cool little college hockey family at this website, and I’m eternally grateful for Chris for looking after a stupid little 20-something who only knew the sport from schools that began with a B.
5. Empty arenas after games
My kids obliterated my body clock after arriving on this planet within 17 months of one another, but I never complained about a lack of sleep even before they were born. I’m still a night owl and early bird all at the same time, which is why I probably enjoy – a little too much – those last minutes in an empty arena before I head home.
I mentioned how driving to games decompresses my mental state for those few minutes before I get on the air or into a press box, but leaving the arena when the lights are mostly low and the janitorial staff is cleaning the quiet recesses of the building is a pretty cool feeling.
4. Training staff
I never really understood the importance of sport-specific training until I walked into a basketball facility and realized that the players don’t have the same weight training equipment as a football team because nobody wants a beefcaked basketball player with no agility whatsoever. Having now learned about the differences, I’ve grown increasingly enamored with team doctors and trainers who help bodies recover during the week-to-week grind associated with a college hockey season.
These guys on the ice are finely tuned machines, but even tough guys get bruises over the course of a season. A slap shot off the wrist or a bad check at the end of a long shift is all it takes to send these guys into the cold tub after a game, but over the course of a season, nobody’s ever going to feel perfectly right. Training staff and doctors keep them moving, and it’s extending beyond simple weight training in the modern era. Mental breaks and understanding the emotional toll while monitoring food intake and exertion output? It’s all pretty impressive to me.
3. Staff members
It takes a village to make these games and columns happen, and I’m eternally grateful for the folks who arrange interviews and provide number checks and corrections on a weekly basis. It’s difficult to sacrifice time when weeks are stuffed with personal obligations, but I’ve never had a negative experience in this league – a league that introduced me to college hockey in the mid-1990s, for what it’s worth.
I’m including the other staff members in that list because players don’t step on the ice without equipment managers, academic advisors, directors of hockey operations and the sports information directors, in particular. I’m sure they don’t love waking up to my Sunday morning emails, regardless of whether or not it’s part of the package, so I appreciate invading their football-watching hours with my emails asking for availability.
2. The fans
It’s the most obvious part about covering ECAC for this website, but without readers, I’m just kilobytes on a random webpage.
Fans keep us going. This website has been around long enough to watch the Internet evolve into a 24/7 accessible piece of everyday life, so I hope we’re doing right by your time being spent on this page. I said it last year, but I hope we’re generating the conversation that gets you through your weeks because the higher powers know that the conversation gets me through my week. I love seeing reaction to content on our message boards, on our comment sections, on our social media pages, and on whatever website is not going to get me investigated by whatever Elon Musk is doing these days (that was a joke! A joke, I say!).
I can’t wait to see what we’re going to do together for the rest of the year. Also, on a special note, to the person who meme’d me last year, you still haven’t told me who you are, but you sure continue to give my friends a good amount of entertainment, so…I hope we’re in on the joke now?
1. The family
College hockey is a family sport for the Rubin clan. I love being a dad at home, and waking up on those Saturday mornings to play soccer with a three-year old makes it all the more easy to operate on no sleep after a Friday night turnaround. I wouldn’t have it any other way, and I especially love it when they visit me in a rink or attend a game with me…which is becoming more and more frequent as they get older (at least while they still think I’m cool).
(Also, as per the usual, shoutout to my wife for getting them to games, but I’ll save her more expansive discussion for later in the year.)
I can’t express enough how college hockey is about family, and I don’t think I show them the necessary gratitude sometimes. But beyond all of that, it’s worth offering special space to my brother, Mike, who is largely responsible for getting me into college hockey. We don’t operate in the same circles as much anymore, but big brother is still the best broadcast partner I’ve ever had. I miss calling games with him at Brown, and I especially miss the days of painting faces in the bathroom at Bright Hockey Center ahead of a Brown-Harvard matchup in 1998 (during his undergraduate days).
As a 13-year old kid, I fell in love with college hockey because of those memories. I’m sharing those memories now as a 39-year old dad. One day, my future generation will unearth this column and remember what all of that was like. For the rest of the season, let’s see where it leads us.
Here’s a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. May your table, however it forms, enjoy the light and love and warmth it so richly deserves. Everyone deserves happiness, and I hope this week defines it as perfectly as possible for lives well lived.
