UNCW club hockey team is first from NC to play in national collegiate tournament

See our story on Dub Hockey around 11:20 tonight,(Tuesday)… Video will be posted online shortly thereafter.

In the opener of the national tournament Hope College defeated UNCW 5-2 on Tuesday afternoon.

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WILMINGTON, NC (DUB HOCKEY RELEASE) — The club ice hockey team at the University of North Carolina Wilmington was founded in 2004-2005 by Pete Schwarz, Blake Cute, Colin Rossi and Ian Aldrich. The first year saw the team play a limited 10 game schedule and would go 1-9 in league play, as the team would dress only 13 skaters. Despite the limited roster, “Dubhockey” was born and the club team has been a focal point in the community and on campus since. The Wilmington Ice House is the home for all the UNCW Ice Hockey games and averages 500-600 fans per game. The sell-out crowds at the rink have made Wilmington one of the best places in the Southeast to watch and play a college ice hockey game.

The club sport has been largely funded by the players themselves with the dues increasing from $800 during the first season to more than $1,500 for the current 2014-2015 season, with an overall budget of nearly $65,000 dollars. From 13 players the first year, UNCW nearly has 35 players from all across the eastern United States on the roster today. The team has numerous ‘student officers’ who are in charge of various team functions, all of which play a critical role in the day to day operation of the program. Some of these roles include president, vice president, social media chair, treasurer and fundraising chair just to name a few. These roles allow the players to develop real world marketing/budgeting skills while still in college.

The UNCW Club Ice Hockey team has been participating in the Blue Ridge Hockey Conference since 2004-2005 and saw modest growth until the middle of 2007-2008. During the winter break of the 07-08 season, Walker Coady was introduced as head coach and the program would go on a 10-1 streak, falling one goal short of the BRHC Championship trophy to Old Dominion University. Despite the loss, the programs hard work would not go unnoticed. The ACHA, which governs all club hockey programs in the country via three divisions, ranked UNCW -16th of the 45 Southeastern teams in Division 3 which UNCW participates in.

The true potential of the program was starting to be seen at not only a regional level, but at national level by the student officers and coaching staff. They began to actively recruit players to come to Wilmington to play hockey while studying at the university. However, UNCW would struggle to repeat the success in several seasons and a coaching change was made by GM Pete Schwarz for the 2009-2010 season. That coaching change, which promoted assistant coach Bryan Hapeman to the head coaching spot, would set the wheels in motion for the successes the program sees today.

Then in 2010-11 UNCW shocked the BRHC and the rest of the Southeast hockey community by qualifying for their first ever ACHA Regional D3 Tournament as the #10 team. Not only did UNCW come to the tournament as a huge underdog, but the team was paired against University of Alabama, who was coming off one of their best seasons ever. Despite Alabama being heavily favored to win the ACHA D3 South, UNCW was able to defeat them 9-6 in the first game, but lost to Loyola (MD) in the second game. The upset win over Alabama launched UNCW into the elite field of ACHA D3 teams in the southeast and in the BRHC.

2010-2011 was at the time, the best season on record as the program went 20-8-0 and captured the BRHC Commissioners Cup and another Carolina Division banner. UNCW was then voted into the Colonial Division of the BRHC which was created to give established club teams a better opportunity to compete against other established teams- with the goal of reaching the national tournament.

Since the 10-11 season, UNCW has qualified for the ACHA regional tournament in every season but one, with their highest ranking coming in 2014 as the 6th place team in the Southeast. The Seahawks have gone an incredible 87-48-1 over that time period as well and recently were runners-up for the BRHC Colonial Championships for the second year in a row.
Through 2014, UNCW has been fortunate to have some of the best players in the region as the program has been honored to have the following player awards since 2008: BRHC rookie of the year (1), BRHC MVP (2), BRHC goalie of the year (4), BRHC all stars (8), BRHC 1st line all stars (8), BRHC 2nd line all stars (8), ACHA all-regional team (2) and an ACHA European team selection (1).

We await this year’s honors as the season is not over yet! For the first time in team history, we are headed to the ACHA Division III National Championships in Alabama March 10 – 14, 2015 after defeating #5 Central Florida and #7 Miami in the South Regionals in Orlando, Florida. UNCW (ranked #8 going into Regionals) had a 2014-2015 regular season record of 19-7-1 in the BRHC and was a finalist in the Colonial Division tournament held earlier in February.
It truly has been a remarkable 10 years for the UNCW Club Ice Hockey team and thanks to the countless support of our family, friends and fans of the program over these 10 years, it can be assured that “Dubhockey” will remain a focal point in the community and on the campus of UNCW for the foreseeable future, but we need your help. In order to get the National Championships, we need to raise $20,000 for the team. As mentioned earlier, this is basically a pay-to-play sport and we need donations! We’ve set up a “Go Fund Me” account through Facebook for credit cards and for your ease in making donations but there is an 8% management fee (assessed to the team) to use this service. The link to the Go Fund Me account is http://www.gofundme.com/n1i9i8?pc=fb_cr_h. If you’d like to avoid that management fee, we would be happy to pick up your check if you are located in the greater Wilmington area or checks can be mailed to UNCW Ice Hockey, C/O Bill Frantz, 5 Conch Lane, Wrightsville Beach, NC, 28480. Please make your check payable to “UNCW Club Ice Hockey”.

You can follow the team’s progress leading up to and at the National Tournament through the team’s website http://uncwclubhockey.com/; Facebook at UNCW Club Ice Hockey; Instagram at @dubhockey or on twitter @Dub Hockey.

For more information or to schedule a check pick-up, please contact Bill Frantz at 919-623-6166.