{"id":1141,"date":"2018-02-01T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T17:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kualumni.org\/stories\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2026-01-08T15:09:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:09:42","slug":"ku-hockey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kualumni.org\/stories\/ku-hockey\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mighty \u2019Hawks: KU club hockey returns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article first appeared in a 2018 issue of Kansas Alumni magazine, the precursor to Crimson & Blue. We\u2019ve republished it online several years later for the growing audience interested in KU\u2019s club hockey team<\/a>, which is still going strong.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yo juego hockey.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When his Spanish teacher asked students to introduce themselves to a classmate, Andy McConnell turned to an unknown guy seated nearby and said, en espa\u00f1ol, \u201cI play hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, rather, he did<\/em> play hockey. McConnell grew up playing youth hockey at Kansas City\u2019s limited venues and, as with all talented junior players and their devoted families, far beyond. When he arrived at KU, McConnell immediately sought out the men\u2019s ice hockey club team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt ended up being one of the reasons that I wanted to go to KU,\u201d recalls McConnell, j\u201916. \u201cA lot of my friends that I grew up playing hockey with were here and were planning on playing with the team. So I joined up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What he found here was not good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was just rough,\u201d McConnell says. He concedes that he didn\u2019t help his hockey dreams by also joining a fraternity, but it turned out his frat brothers were the only true team he identified with during his first months on Mount Oread. Hockey, for the first time in his life, let him down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe team that was here was just kind of splintered,\u201d he says. \u201cWe weren\u2019t really that good. We were losing quite a bit, and a lot of the friends I originally joined up with stopped going. I finished it out until the end of the semester and told the coach I was going to stick with the fraternity and focus on my grades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t lose love for the sport, but it wasn\u2019t the same experience I had had in high school that brought me so much enjoyment. I kind of hung \u2019em up for a while. I didn\u2019t think I would do it again, at least not competitively like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Details of the recent history of KU men\u2019s ice hockey are, at best, muddled, especially when attempting to recreate a precise, year-by-year timeline of what happened when. What is known, though, is that the club team folded, leaving behind a trail of hurt feelings and bad debts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were no prospects for the sport\u2019s return, until McConnell heard his classmate\u2019s reply:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yo juego hockey.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rhett Johnston grew up playing hockey in Scottsdale, Arizona. He rose to amateur hockey\u2019s elite AAA level, yet certainly didn\u2019t come to KU for hockey, because hockey wasn\u2019t here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I showed up to school,\u201d says Johnston, b\u201916, g\u201917, \u201cthere was no team. At all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when \u201cYo juego hockey\u201d was met with \u201cYo juego hockey,\u201d an unlikely hockey renewal suddenly began. Half a decade later, the sport has been reborn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KU has ice hockey<\/em>? You\u2019d better believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Head coach Andy McConnell (second row), assistant coaches Rhett Johnston (left to right) and Chase Pruitt, and general manager Jimmy Samuels, Las Vegas sophomore, log nearly full-time hours during the season to help coach and organize the hockey club they treasure. \u201cIt\u2019s the love of the sport; it\u2019s being on a team,\u201d McConnell says of their motivation. \u201cBeing able to shoot for a goal that you built is cool. I know that\u2019s a huge motivator for me.\u201d<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The dark days behind them, today\u2019s KU skaters take the ice in swank Jayhawk jerseys, win a whole lot more than they lose, unabashedly share their playoff dreams, relish victories over Mizzou while eagerly pointing toward their Feb. 15 Border Showdown renewal, and pine for the day when students and alumni cheer them on in numbers the team has seemingly earned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot very many times in life, at least that I\u2019ve noticed, do you get opportunities to put your hat on something that can really stick for years to come,\u201d says McConnell, who closed out his renewed playing career two years ago and his since volunteered his time as the club\u2019s head coach. \u201cYou have that opportunity here, and I use that as a selling point to a lot of players. We\u2019re still a young club. There\u2019s still so much potential for this to become something really impactful. At KU. In Lawrence. In Kansas City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be honest, people just don\u2019t know about it. Yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Blame it on the \u201cThe Mighty Ducks.\u201d The 1992 Disney movie spawned an NHL franchise in Anaheim, California, and lit boyhood fires for a sport previously unknown in the McConnell family of Liberty, Missouri. Andy and his younger brother, Preston, grew up far from hockey, but close to theatres, and he was hooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just kind of fell in love with it and really wanted to do it,\u201d Andy recalls. \u201cEventually, after prodding and begging, my parents got me enrolled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Says Preston, now a senior forward and KU\u2019s leading scorer, \u201cHe was persistent and would not take no for an answer. Finally my mom told my dad, \u2018We\u2019ve got to get this kid playing hockey.\u2019 So Andy started playing, and I was the little brother who always wanted to do what he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut yeah, \u2018The Mighty Ducks.\u2019 It would be funny to take a poll to see how many kids started playing because of that movie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike other sports that can shuttle young newcomers directly into skill development, the McConnell brothers first had to clear hockey\u2019s primary hurdle: They had to learn to skate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTake a football player and put some hockey skates on him and see how well he does,\u201d says assistant coach Chase Pruitt, e\u201916. \u201cIt\u2019s just a whole different sport. It\u2019s not something that you can pick up and start playing. I wish you could because we\u2019d have a lot more involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Outside of hockey hotbeds in northern states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, youth hockey is rarely sponsored by schools. It\u2019s a community sport, funded by parents, and players and families routinely endure endless hours of drive time, traveling to practices at inconvenient rinks and games against distant opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems a plausible estimation that hockey features three universal rites of passage: learn to skate, log a ton of road miles, and spend bushels of money on the first two, along with equipment that is shockingly expensive. A good set of skates, for instance, can now cost more than $1,000, and might not last a competitive player more than a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of which helps explain why KU players are completely OK with paying $1,200 in dues each season and commuting to twice-weekly practices\u2014usually starting around 10 p.m., thanks to the difficulty of booking ice time\u2014at Line Creek Community Center, in North Kansas City, and weekend home games at Centerpoint Medical Center Community Ice, a cozy rink adjacent to Silverstein Eye Centers Arena, in Independence, Missouri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To answer the two questions invariably raised when the subject of KU hockey arises: Yes, KU has a team, and no, the Jayhawks do not play in Lawrence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor sure I wish the drive was 10 minutes away. That would be perfect,\u201d Preston McConnell says. \u201cBut, you\u2019d probably go to practice and leave. Being forced to make that drive and have some conversation and get to know your teammates is really beneficial, and I think it\u2019s made our team a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the rare grousing does surface, Preston McConnell shoots it down with college-age logic: \u201cYou\u2019re going to be up until 1 either way; you might as well just go play. And Andy, Rhett and Chase have to wake up at 6 a.m. and go to work. You get to sleep in and you don\u2019t have class until 3 tomorrow. What\u2019s so bad about it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Winning helps. When KU hockey was losing\u2014often by double digits\u2014shuttling to North Kansas City and Independence was miserable, not beneficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After discovering their shared interest\u2014Yo juego hockey<\/em>\u2014Andy McConnell and Rhett Johnston forged a friendship that quickly grew beyond their Spanish class. McConnell recalls that it was Johnston who was \u201creally adamant\u201d about restarting the KU club hockey team, efforts that he and another player, Chase Pruitt, supported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After meeting with officials at KU Recreation Services, which supervises the sport clubs program, Johnston discovered a pile of debts for ice time purchased but not paid for at Kansas City arenas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were forced to remedy everything the prior entity did wrong,\u201d Johnston says. \u201cSo we were on probation even from the school when we started. Slowly and surely we started gaining more trust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new team\u2019s first two seasons were limited by finances, opportunity and roster depth. Bad feelings from schools that had been stood up\u2014the dreaded \u201cno call\/no show\u201d\u2014by the previous KU team made scheduling its traditional opponents a near impossibility and prevented a return to the American Collegiate Hockey Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KU hockey was even a pariah on campus. Far from being eligible to return as an official sports club, KU hockey was also prevented from registering as a student club for a year. Once it did, the team received a mere $500 from the Student Involvement & Leadership Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was bad,\u201d Andy McConnell says. \u201cWe were hated in the league, and were hated, kind of, by the school, which is totally understandable. So that first year, you\u2019ve got to play so many games, you\u2019ve got to get in good standing with everybody, you\u2019ve got to get your players. It was like trying to ski a steep learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With limited finances, the team could afford only an hour of practice per week, and didn\u2019t even have a coach. \u201cIt was a jumbled mess of voices those first two years,\u201d McConnell says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Players had to schedule ice time\u2014paying time-and-a-half to eliminate debt at area rinks\u2014while also recruiting new players and scheduling opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can remember my freshman and sophomore year, we\u2019d lose to Arkansas and Mizzou by double-digits,\u201d says senior forward and team captain Brent Bockman. \u201cNow we expect to beat them every time. We know where we came from. We have a chip on our shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Near the end of their second season, the Jayhawks found themselves wavering outside Mizzou\u2019s home arena. Although they\u2019d beaten Missouri once the previous year, the Tigers had also handed KU a 16-1 loss. While the KU team improved in its second season, thanks to an influx of talented young players who were slowly filtering into the club, Mizzou\u2014an ACHA Division 2 club, compared with KU\u2019s Division 3 status\u2014had improved even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had played them that Friday night and we got absolutely tossed,\u201d McConnell says. \u201cThere were injuries. We were super-short benched, with maybe 10 guys. It was the end of the season, you\u2019re already tired, you\u2019re beat up, you know you\u2019re going to lose. It was one of those \u2018do we want to do this?\u2019 moments. And I remember asking exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huddled around their cars, the Jayhawks took a vote. Leave now, drive home, call it quits. The game, the season, the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, enter the arena, take the punishment, and keep pushing forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were really bruised up, injured, and we barely had enough guys to play a game,\u201d says senior goaltender and club president Will Dufresne. \u201cEventually we decided in the parking lot that we\u2019re here and we\u2019re going to play. We can look back at it now and laugh, but it was a low point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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KU hockey<\/a> clawed its way back to probationary sports club status in spring 2016, and spent last season proving the team\u2019s worthiness to the ACHA, opponents, and, most critically, KU Recreation Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had to show they were serious, because it came back on us, as well,\u201d Dave Podschun, d\u201912, assistant director of sport clubs, says of the previous group\u2019s meltdown. \u201cThat\u2019s part of why we set those parameters for them to take steps to slowly get back. We wanted to make sure they were committed to getting the club on the right track. And they are. They really are committed to making sure they keep the club\u2019s good name now that they\u2019ve reestablished that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 2016-\u201917 Jayhawks also established themselves on the ice. Buoyed both by pride in perseverance as well as an ongoing flourish of talented new skaters, KU went 15-3-1 and on Feb. 23 jubilantly celebrated a 5-2 victory over Missouri in a packed Silverstein Eye Centers Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomething clicked, and we started winning,\u201d Bockman says. \u201cEverybody started buying in. It was a culture change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally off probation, KU hockey this year received $9,000 from KU Recreation Services. Along with players\u2019 annual participation fees, the team can now afford two, and sometimes three, practice sessions each week. It is scheduling better opponents, and still concluded the fall season 14-5, including 12-2 and 9-4 victories over Missouri and winning records against Creighton and Nebraska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KU finished the semester ranked No. 8 in its ACHA division; the top 10 teams in each division advance to the playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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See KU\u2019s club hockey team in action in their December 2017 match against Washington University in St. Louis\u2014a 5-4 victory for the \u2019Hawks\u2014and hear from players about the team\u2019s culture and camaraderie.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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