Photo Credit: Kelsey Lee-Violet Turtle Photography

This week, major news regarding the future of Alabama Huntsville’s only Division One offering, Men’s Hockey was announced. It involved getting a fund for this program of 17 million over the next decade to give this team a sound institutional commitment to not only funding the program, but funding it at a level that will allow the Chargers to fight at the highest echelons of the Division One level. That means 1.7 million dollars per year is the base level of support this team will have, a marked increase from previous seasons.

Why does this matter?

Well, for years this program has had to make due with less. Now, with the advisory group formed, lead by alums Sheldon Wolitski and Taso Sofikitis, things are changing. They helped marshal the initial investment needed to get this team on the ice for this year, and are now working to get them a long-term conference home. The two conferences most realistic for UAH to apply to join are Atlantic Hockey, and the CCHA. Both of these conferences require that foundation of institutional backing, which the board has helped secure. The next step for the board and team is to get a new home beyond this year.

Now, what does this donation mean to some of the players on the roster?

Well, as one would expect, quite a lot, but we will let two skaters tell their tales. Keep in mind, these players could have left during the period where the aforementioned alums and those in the hockey world were raising money to reinstate it, but they did not. The Chargers drop the puck one week from today against Robert Morris.

First, we bring you the thoughts of Peyton Francis, a sophomore center who plays a fast, two way game, and hopes to add a lot more to the scoring ledger in his second season in the Rocket City. We reached out to these players and both responded on the day of this momentous announcement, November 11.

Peyton says:

“The news today is phenomenal. It is awesome to know that people are as committed to us and the UAH program as we are to the team and university. It is great to know that we have so much support in growing the game of hockey in south. We have been working hard to lead the program in a new direction and the fact that the staff, alumni and hockey community is working along with us adds that much more fuel to our fire. The team is extremely excited for the season to get started and we look forward to paving the way for the upcoming generation of UAH hockey!”

Next is one of the juniors tasked to help lead this team, Tyr Thompson. He is a pass-first, defense oriented forward that, like Peyton, wants to see his production grow. Tyr plays a truculent game and routinely outworks players on many situations per each event.

Tyr said

“The very generous financial commitment by our alumni and the following commitment by the university is exciting news. Knowing we have people supporting us behind the scenes is going to make me and my teammates put our best foot forward every day. We want this team to be elite for years to come and now we have the framework in place to do that. Being the only Division I team in the southeast we’ve been given a great opportunity to keep growing the greatest game in the world in a non-traditional market. Now it’s up to the guys in the locker room to build on the ice and I can’t wait to tackle this challenge head on.”

Donate: To help us cover more games and tell more stories not found elsewhere about all of college sports, especially under represented athletes everywhere across the college sports landscape, please click the below link and consider donating what you can. If you do, I will list you in every story about we write as a supporter of crowd-funded  journalism that can truly be free for all at this link: https://www.paypal.me/oliverfrancies your donation will help expand what content we can offer and how many stories we can tell.