It's More Than Just Club Hockey

How many times have you seen the following headlines in your local paper:

“Club Hockey Team Sweeps Eastern Michigan University”

Or maybe:

“DIII Gold Team Wins Third Straight National Title”

I’m going to guess that your answer is more than likely “never”.

Have you ever heard of ACHA hockey? Unless you’re a college hockey fanatic or actually played at a school that had an ACHA program or know someone who did, your answer is also more than likely going to be “never”.

The ACHA (American Collegiate Hockey Association) is a club college hockey league governed by USA Hockey and consists of 5 different divisions, Men’s Division I, Men’s Division II, Men’s Division III, Women’s Division I, and Women’s Division II. ACHA teams play 30-45 games per season and Men’s DII, DIII, and Women’s players are eligible to play for 5 seasons, if they haven’t played ACHA DI or NCAA hockey previously. NCAA schools often have ACHA teams in order to comply with Title IX and NCAA DI schools such as University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Northern Michigan University only offer women’s hockey at the ACHA level. ACHA programs typically receive little to no funding from their schools and players pay up to thousands of dollars a year to play. Teams also often times have to practice and play games at city/public owned rinks and store their gear in their car or dorm room and drive themselves to away games that can sometimes be across the state.

Adrian College has one of the most successful ACHA programs in the country. The Men’s DI team went undefeated at home last season, the Women’s DI team went all the way to the National Semifinals last season, and the DIII Gold team has won three National Championships. Adrian has four ACHA teams, a Men’s DI team, two Men’s DIII Teams (Gold and Black), and a Women’s DI team. The ACHA players at Adrian have their own locker rooms for their gear and are provided with transportation to away games. But despite their success, the club teams rarely, if ever, receive recognition by the school and the small town news media.

Adrian’s Men’s DI team went 31-4 last season and didn’t lose a single game at home all season and not a headline was made in the local paper or a single story posted on the school’s athletics page. Sophomore Brad Kobryn hit the 100 career points mark this past weekend in only 46 career games and the school has remained silent on this accomplishment.

The DIII Gold team won the ACHA DIII National Championships back in 2012, becoming the first Adrian College athletics team to win a national title. They won two more consecutive titles in 2013 and 2014. They made ACHA history by becoming the first DIII team to accomplish the “threepeat” and only the third ACHA team to do so and only the fifth team in collegiate hockey history to do so. The Gold team received little recognition for their accomplishments, the local radio mentioned the title at the end of their sports news segment for a few days, only because my mother called the radio station and Athletic Director Mike Duffy to ensure that the boys were commended for their title.

So why am I writing this article exactly? Well, this is my effort to give ACHA players, especially the guys and girls I know at Adrian, the recognition that they deserve as collegiate athletes.

Perhaps the reason I am writing this article is because I’ve witnessed firsthand how great ACHA hockey really is. Growing up in the Adrian area, the only hockey I watched the first ten years of my life was the Red Wings in the NHL, we didn’t have a rink in Lenawee County until Adrian College built Arrington Ice Arena in 2007.

My family began attending the occasional NCAA game in the 2010-11 season with my brother’s youth hockey team, who the college team would invite to skate with them after games. In 2011, some of the DIII players began coaching my then 10 year old brother’s hockey team. At 10, he saw these guys as being just as cool as the players on the NCAA team, and that was great. We began following the Gold team that season and they would win their first national title that March.

Flash forward almost five years later and we’re still avidly following the ACHA teams at Adrian College and our family has forged many lifelong friendships with the ACHA players and their families who have come and gone at Adrian College. Johnny, my brother who is now 14, still looks up to these players and want to play ACHA hockey at Adrian College just like his buddies are. They skate with him (and I) at sticks and pucks, invite him to sit with them at other games, and always stop to talk to him when they see him around. There’s nothing that Johnny enjoys more than watching his “peeps”, as he calls them, play and high fiving them and the coaches at the end of each period of each game. For four years now, we’ve watched them win, watched them lose and cheered them on and given them our support whether we’re driving the short distance to AIA or travelling up to Lansing to watch the Gold boys play MSU, which has become a Costello family tradition. We’ve watched players come and go and the relationships that we make with these players and their families are uncomparable, they’ve become family.

Nearly a year ago, I started this blog to give the teams recognition, to write recaps of each game I attend (which is nearly every single one) and take photos of the game, which the players absolutely love. Now, I’m going to recognize a player a week who plays ACHA hockey and feature them on my blog in hopes to bring the individual players recognition for their accomplishments. Hopefully, I can change the mind of people who say “it’s just club hockey” and bring attention to our spectacular ACHA teams at Adrian because to the players and fans, it’s more than just club hockey.

Want to be featured as a #itsmorethanjustclubhockey player of the week? Email me at ccostello19@adrian.edu and I will give you the details!