Club hockey at Carthage will enter its 15th season this fall. The program has undergone some changes, but one familiar figure has been at the heart of the program since its inception in 1994. Douglas Arion, professor of physics and director of the ScienceWorks entrepreneurship program, is the only coach the Red Men icers have had.

"I got excited about playing hockey as a little kid," Prof. Arion recalls.

The coach grew up in the New York area, as a fan of the National Hockey League's New York Rangers.

"My father would take us to Madison Square Garden, starting when I was 5," he says. "I saw Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio," among other NHL stars of the 1950s and 1960s.

At traditional hockey power Dartmouth College, Prof. Arion played varsity and club hockey, so it was understandable that athletic director Bob Bonn asked him to help efforts to organize a club team.

"Before I got here, some kids were interested in hockey, and were trying to put something together," Prof. Arion says.

The solution was a club team, which competes at level between intramurals and intercollegiate varsities. Club teams do not have full-time coaches, and receive a more modest level of support from the College. They are not governed by National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.

"It's really driven by student interest," Mr. Bonn says of club sport programs.

Getting involved

How do club players find their way to Carthage? Prof. Arion says he is provided with the names of incoming students who have expressed interest in hockey.

"It's like passive recruiting," the coach says. "I don't go to tournaments, I don't visit schools, but if an applicant is interested, I'll try to get him to enroll."

For left winger Brad Voss, '09, the Carthage club program provided an opportunity to rekindle his enthusiasm for hockey. Brad had played in youth hockey programs for several years, but his high school did not have a team, and travel considerations ruled out possible play for a nearby team.

Instead of hockey, Brad played varsity golf at McHenry (Ill.) East High, and captained the team his senior year. He considered several colleges with club hockey programs, but says that "it wasn't one of my top priorities" in making a selection.

At Carthage, Brad played golf his freshman year, but he met several hockey players. One was Joe Mastrototaro, '09, a goalie for the team.

"He was like, 'Dude, you should play,'" Brad recalls. "Knowing how hard studies are, I thought I needed some time away from the desk, and to meet some new people."

Fierce competition

The Carthage club has played in the Kenosha Ice Hockey League since 2001. Before then, the team played college club teams from such schools as Marquette University and Lakeland and Loras Colleges.

"We switched from this rag-tag, call other teams and get a game situation, to entering a formal, organized league," Prof. Arion says. In its first season in the local league, the club posted its best record, 21-1-2.

"That was in the lowest of the three divisions," Prof. Arion explains. "We're now in the middle division."

In the middle division, the Red Men won a second championship in 2004-05. This winter, they went 7-15, their worst record ever.

"A lot of the players we play against are very good," the coach adds. "They've played together for a lot of years."

Brad found the competition was bracing, as opposing players in their 30s and 40s utilized experience and size to compensate for the students' greater speed and agility.

"We always joked that they've got to go to work on Monday," he says. "We were faster on my feet, but I found out my first year that the competition was tough. The games are fast, the hitting is hard. It's not like we can go out there and lollygag."

Players at many levels

The club team is coed, and makes room for players at varied levels of experience.

"One advantage of being a club team, as opposed to a varsity team, is that anyone can get involved," Prof. Arion points out. "Some players have considerable experience, others are just starting out."

Another advantage is that non-students can play. Prof. Arion, and assistant coach Jonathan Bruning, communication and digital media chair, are player-coaches.

"I'm the second oldest player in the league, at 52," Prof. Arion says. "If I have fun doing it, I'll keep doing it for a while."

For Brad Voss, fun was the basic idea. The business major was manager of the College's student ambassadors, and he was president of Pi Sigma Epsilon business and marketing fraternity. But hockey added excitement to his Carthage experience.

"It was awesome," he says. "We took it seriously, but we had fun."

- Bill Kurtz, Carthage College