A total of 10 British Columbia Hockey League graduates are still standing in the race for a National Championship, but many have turned their attention to the five players who are helping to make history at the Rochester Institute of Technology — this year’s Cinderella darling at the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament.
Senior co-captain Stevan Matic (Langley Chiefs), senior Al Mazur (Merritt Centennials), junior Tyler Mazzei (Nanaimo Clippers), sophomore Scott Knowles (Surrey Eagles) and freshman Adam Hartley (Surrey Eagles) are living the college hockey dream, as they prepare to battle Wisconsin on April 8th for a berth in the Championship Final at Ford Field in Detroit.
“It’s going to be an experience of a lifetime,” says Mazzei. “Playing in a football stadium with a hockey rink, you never think of it. When you’re a kid, you see it on TV and you see the NHLers doing it, but to actually be playing in a game like that at a prestigious event such as the Final Four is something you dream about.”
The clock could very well strike midnight for RIT next Thursday, but the Tigers are relishing the moment in their first-ever tournament appearance. They have taken their magical season in stride without much pressure to make the tournament — let alone advance to the Frozen Four. Even after winning their second Atlantic Hockey title in three years, head coach Wayne Wilson says his players were loose and relaxed about the task ahead.
“We haven’t felt any pressure,” he says. “Maybe because the expectations of winning it all aren’t there, but I haven’t felt and the players haven’t felt any pressure at all. I can honestly say that we are just enjoying this and we’re just looking forward to the next game. It’s been a really fun experience and a very unique experience because I don’t think a lot of teams would be reacting this way. It’s been a very mature and workmanlike approach.”
So while RIT is considered an underdog in a field with three No. 1 seeds, Wilson does not see his team in the same light as Bemidji State, who came out of the woodwork last year to make the Frozen Four.
“We are embracing the opportunity to play in the Frozen Four, but we’re not really looking at ourselves like the underdogs or Cinderella,” says Wilson, who won the 1984 NCAA National Championship at Bowling Green under current Boston College coach Jerry York. “We’re looking at ourselves as a good team playing a good team in Wisconsin.”
RIT upset Marc Cheverie’s No. 2-ranked Denver squad 2-1 in the opening round last Friday night and followed up with an impressive 6-2 victory over New Hampshire. Mazzei scored once and added a helper in the second-round win over Wildcats, while Matic also tallied for the Tigers.
It’s an amazing feat for the infant program that joined the Division I ranks only five years ago. But while the Tigers’ quick ascent comes as a surprise to most NCAA hockey observers, RIT’s first two wins are not all that shocking given their recent run. They entered the tournament on the longest winning streak in Division I hockey with 10 straight and have a quiet confidence about them after two more.
“We’re on a 12-game unbeaten streak [and] we feel we can beat anyone in the nation. We proved that beating Denver, then upsetting UNH [New Hampshire],” says Mazzei. “I’m just taking in this moment and excited to play the next game because if we play well, we can make it to a National Championship game.”
But the chance to compete for an NCAA Championship was not even conceivable for a player like Matic, who was at one point unsure about his future hockey prospects beyond the BCHL.
“I didn’t really know what to think. I went into my last year [in Langley] and there hadn’t been many offers for scholarships,” he explains. “Then RIT came around and liked the way I played. I didn’t know much about the program, but in the first year we had a very good team and we just got better every year. The goal was in sight. If we were going to get [to the NCAA Tournament], we didn’t know, but we definitely had the team to do it.”
A big part of RIT’s success over the last three seasons has been the program’s ability to hold onto its key players.
“The college landscape has changed over the years and we’re really fortunate to have good players – and good players with us for four years,” notes Wilson, the Guelph native who’s coaching in his 11th season at RIT. “You see so many players signing pro contracts early and some of the bigger-name schools and top programs in the country may miss out. Instead of being able to have another great year and get a second crack at it, they end up losing three or four players early to the professional ranks. We have a lot of consistency in our program. We don’t lose a lot of players from one year to the next.”
Wilson led the Tigers to the NCAA Division III Tournament in three straight seasons from 2000-2002, but he says the Division I Championship is a different animal.
“We know this is nice, but we’ve got to make sure we’re ready and not think we’re better than what we are, because we’re not,” says Wilson. “We’ll be as good as our effort and we can challenge, but if we start thinking we’re real good we’ll become a very average team quickly.”
The veteran bench boss has already reached out to Bemidji State head coach Tom Serratore, who knows exactly what the hoopla is all about as a newcomer in the Frozen Four. A year ago, the Beavers pulled off two straight upsets to advance to their first in school history and lost 4-1 to Miami-Ohio in the national semi-final in Washington, D.C.
Now it is RIT’s turn to experience the thrill of competing for an NCAA National Championship. The Tigers, who won the 1983 Division II and 1985 Division III Championships, will face an offensively-talent Badgers squad that scored 155 goals during the 2009/2010 campaign.
They have already defied all odds to get here, so what’s another upset win? And while the stakes are about to be raised in the Frozen Four, the players believe they belong with the best in college hockey.
“We were underdogs in the last rounds and we had to beat two really good teams, so our confidence is growing,” Matic says. “We’ll see what happens. We’re used to going up against the big teams now, so we realize anything can happen if you play your game and play well.”
