Sam Wheeler and his hockey teammates relentlessly barraged the Wisconsin-Milwaukee goal all night, scoring at will until the game ended with the Wildcats winning by a lopsided 10-1 margin. Nearly 100 people showed up to watch the team’s home opener last Friday night, and many pounded on the boards while chanting “NU.” Most wore some sort of purple. A few even sported Northwestern hockey sweatshirts.
This scene might confuse anyone who knows NU doesn’t have a hockey team – technically.
Although the school is without a Division-I team, its club hockey team, currently with a 4-3-1 record, is beginning to find its own niche in the NU sports scene.
“Most people are surprised that we have a hockey team at all,” said Wheeler, a sophomore who leads the team with 16 goals. “We just need to work on getting people to know we have hockey games.”
What differentiates club hockey from most other club sports is the lack of a varsityprogram, leading some to suggest the hockey team could become more than the standard club sport. While there may be an untapped demand for hockey on campus, the team has one major problem in attracting students: its home games are played in Highland Park at Centennial Ice Arena, a half-hour drive north of Evanston.
“It definitely sucks for the fans that they have to come so far, but hopefully this year we will develop a stronger fan base,” Wheeler said.
Attendance at the games may not be spectacular by varsity sport standards, but for a club team it is impressive. The team typically draws about 100 fans per game, coach Bryan Chamberlain said. There is a legitimate hockey feel during the games – smell of perspiration included – and the enthusiastic, rowdy crowd make it enjoyable.
“People have a really good time at the games,” senior club hockey player Matt Markezin-Press said. “If you like fast-moving sports, excitement, hitting, finesse or sports in general, there is no reason not to come.”
Chamberlain, coming into his 10th year as the team’s coach, is focusing on increasing student presence at games.
“We want to get to the point where we’ve got a couple fan busses heading up from Evanston,” said Chamberlain, who has started putting up team posters around town. “The games are early enough (7:20 p.m.) that students can come and still have time to have fun after.”
There has also been a shift in the team’s focus and discipline during the past two years. Though the team was “sort of a joke” in previous years, now the players are taking things more seriously. The team views itself as a varsity program.
“My freshman and sophomore years a lot of people did not take it seriously, practices were unorganized, people didn’t care,” Markezin-Press said. “Now we are a much more cohesive program.”
Chamberlain has discussed the creation of a varsity team with the athletic department.
Because of the high percentage of money allocated to football and the lack of a nearby ice arena, Chamberlain said it is unlikely NU could have a varsity team in the near future.
The club hockey team’s quasi-varsity status has left it with quasi-varsity expenses. Most club fees range between $100 and $300, according to the NU club sports Web site. For hockey, it’s a different story. The costs of ice time and equipment fees make club hockey dues range between $1,000 and $1,500. In addition to student fees, advertising and $10,000 in University contributions help meet the team’s $60,000 operating budget.
Expenses aside, Chamberlain’s main focus is on continuing to build the program’s stature.
“I would love to keep gaining momentum,” Chamberlain said. “We want to keep growing. The program has really taken off in the past two years.”
Player statistics and results from the team’s schedule, which runs through February, are available on the team’s Web site at northwesternhockey.org. Its next home game is Friday, November 6th against Purdue.
