A nest of their own

Collegiate hockey in the Inland Northwest? With all of the attention this time of year toward the winding down of football and the bright prospect of basketball ahead, it may come as a surprise that there are competitive teams on skates right outside your back door.

While they may not be considered a “varsity” sport by technical means, the breadth of competition and quality of play by the Eastern Washington University club hockey team proves otherwise.

Now located in the comfortable confines of their own home facility on campus in Cheney (a multi-million dollar recreation center project completed last spring), the men finally have ice to call their own.

“It’s been night and day,” said Gary Braun, head coach of the EWU hockey squad. “We have to pinch ourselves to really believe what we’ve got.”

After years of struggling to find competition, due to inconvenient ice time and conflicts at Spokane’s Eagles Ice-A-Rena, the Eagles have traditional schedules to the puck drop, and are playing in front of sold-out crowds at the EWU Recreation Center.

“We were just sitting around all day waiting for the games before,” said Mike Truex, president and leading scorer for the 10-4 Eagles. “We couldn’t get as high of caliber teams to come play us because of that.”

“Now, almost half the teams we play are on the East Coast and are varsity sports at their school.”

The Center was originally built as an ultimate traditional recreation facility for students and faculty alike, including brand new weight equipment, a climbing wall and the state-of-the-art ice rink for both amateur skaters during down time and a place for the Eagles to hang up their skates.

Now they have crowds exceeding upward of 800 screaming spectators, a far cry from their games which started at 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights in the past in North Spokane.

“For Montana and Washington, we had to turn people away at the door,” Braun said.

“It really is wonderful being on campus.”

One other draw for the club is the increased attention the team has drawn from being on campus, not just from the fans and spectators, but from interested players alike.

“[Last year] we barely had enough guys for training camp,” said Braun, who has a long history in the sport, including playing in the Western Hockey League and being on the bench as a coach during the Spokane Chiefs’ Memorial Cup run of 1991. “Colorado had 93 guys show up for their training camp… now we have 35 guys showing up.”

To get an idea of the level of competition in the American Collegiate Hockey Association in which EWU competes, the team that won it all last season (Davenport University in Michigan) consisted of a high proportion of Canadian-bred student athletes.

“I don’t think there is a guy on their team [Davenport] that hasn’t played on a national level,” Braun said.

“We’re competitive in the West, but at the national level, we just don’t match up with the preparation the other schools have for the national tournament.”

Another unique facet of this team is the reliance of being self-sufficient financially. Being that they are a club sport team, they do get some assistance from the university, but a bulk of the team fees and travel expenses come from the players’ pockets themselves.

The players have to bring at least $3,000 into the program each season to be on the team, and that only includes travel, pants, helmet, socks and jerseys. When meals and personal expenses get figured into the mix, the bottom line for inclusion shows the extreme dedication these skaters bring to the table in Cheney.

“Essentially, we are a non-varsity sport at Eastern,” said Truex, who scored two goals and lended two assists in his team’s most recent victory Saturday night, Nov. 8, versus Utah State University, 5-3. “We get funding through club sports and we have a couple small sponsors… nothing big and corporate.”

They are sometimes relegated to collecting their own funding when it comes to making the last few dollars to play. Parents are sometimes left to being the sole source of fundraising. However, some of the players go to the streets to find private sponsors to ease the financial burden of the fees.

“It’s hard to find sponsors when the only way is for our guys to go around and ask people,” Truex said.

But the increased pressure to collect those last few hundred dollars have become even more worth it when it comes down to whether or not you’ll be playing in front of the sold-out crowds on campus, something no EWU varsity sport can stake claim to.

“It is unbelievable, now that we are actually able to play in front of the student body,” Truex said. “People get there two hours before the start just to get a seat.”

If the team had actually been involved in the specifics behind the building of the hockey facility, Truex said the team wishes they would have put in a few more seats for even more fans to enjoy the success of Eastern Hockey, who is 8-1 at home so far this year, and has outscored its opponents 65-17 in those games.

“There have been rumors of people boycotting our games because not everyone can get in,” Truex said. “We’ve had to turn people away due to reaching capacity and meeting fire code.”

“It’s been an unbelievable shift in things, to have such a building as this to support our program.”

With not having to do much in terms of advertising to get folks to roll the turnstiles, the Eagles can focus on their competitive side, going deeper into the ACHA Division II playoffs.

Last season they snuck into the final 16 teams of pool play to decide the national champion, eventually falling to champion Davenport in pool play 8-1 to end their campaign. But with a shiny, new rink to call home and less worry of availability of ice time, the Eagles can now focus on the only thing that matters: hockey.

“We run everything here like it is a professional program: the training and coaching and everything,” Truex said. “It is a lot of money and time and commitment.”

And that commitment has gotten them a great fan base, stiffer competition and loftier goals on the horizon.

Not bad for a club team.