The men’s ice hockey team is gearing up for its upcoming season and excitement is growing that the team can make a mark on the Division III map conference.

Head Coach Kevin Cole started his coaching career in 2016 with the University of Norwich in Vermont. He holds various positions of responsibilities within the team such as i organizing, training, and recruiting. In the past year, he and his assistant coaches have been recruiting future athletes for the hockey program.

“I really was excited about being a new program and being able to build it from the start,” Cole said. “When I did my interviews, I saw how invested everybody from the university and the community was so that was a big factor.”

Cole’s excitement and philosophy have been a critical to how the team thinks and operates. He never sees a player as a number with a jersey who is there just to win games for the university. He wants to facilitate a great experience and pleasure for players on and off the ice.

“I think just treating them as a person not as a number and not as somebody helping us win games not really helping them be a well-rounded student and I think when we do that it helps the culture build it that way along with just making sure we’re ready to work every day and making it fun to practice their workouts and be together as a group and I think those are the most important things to help the team be closer together to help the team win is to make sure people are invested having fun and doing things great way.”

His philosophy appears to be working now the program. Cole sees great opportunity for every player, and he sees that the team is experienced with 22 transfer players this year.  There are already 41 people on the roster,  so there is plenty of manpower for the new program.

“We have a lot of guys with experience and a lot of guys that are looking to really build on past experiences and make this their own.”

Cole thinks the season will be successful for the program. “I don’t know if that means for wins and losses, but I do know that we’re going to be a team that’s going to be hard to play against. As a group that’s going to go out there and give a full effort every time we step on the ice.”