Coming out of the 2019-20 season, Auburn's Hockey Club was trending upward. Following a triumphant double overtime goal to beat South Carolina in the Southeastern Collegiate Hockey Conference’s yearly tournament, there was reason to hope that next season the Tigers could seriously contend for a conference championship.
But COVID-19 halted those plans. In a year that was tough on all athletics, even professional and Division I leagues, club sports like Auburn Hockey were impacted to an even greater extent. With no monetary support from the University for club sports, no ice to compete on due to hockey’s indoor nature conflicting with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and club funding largely based upon charitable donations and member dues, a rapidly progressing program found itself in trouble.
This was not the first time hockey on The Plains had floundered; after announcing their arrival in 2010, the club almost collapsed due to lack of goaltending stability. A young, inexperienced and still-forming Tigers team endured repeated drubbings at the hands of their more established competitors, culminating in a 29-0 loss to the 2014 University of Arkansas Club Hockey squad.
Last year, the program faced an obstacle arguably more daunting than years before: the suspension and eventual cancellation of the 2020-21 season, a season that players and coaches alike felt would be a triumphant culmination of Auburn hockey's development.
Hamstrung by a lack of revenue from tickets, merchandise sales and dues from new players, club captain and president Brandon Weis put in the work off the ice. With no hockey to be played, Weis sat down and evaluated the direction of the program, considering if the club was doing all it could to promote the sport, engage students and grow the program as a whole. The answer was quite plain: They were not.
The dire circumstances benefitted the team though, Weis said, driving them to ask the question, “What can we do better?"
“Last season, not playing allowed us to really take a step back and look at the changes that needed to be made, the things that we can improve for the organization so that ... not just the players in the club now but the ones down the road will have a template to use in the future," Weis said. "For the season to have been taken away is just incredibly disappointing, for the seniors who didn’t get a proper ending to the book they started many years ago or the freshmen, who came in excited to get to work and missed out on a year of development. It was incredibly frustrating to have that taken away from us, but it gave us some time to really focus in and work on overhauling all of the operations of the club away from playing hockey games."
Rather than emerging from the pandemic beaten and exhausted, the Hockey Club is entering the year with a brand new staff hoping to provide students with fantastic entertainment. Weis has revamped the game day operations staff, brought on photographers and graphic designers and assembled a media team to inform fans and keep them engaged. Also, most home games will be broadcast via student organizations Eagle Eye TV and WEGL 91.1, allowing fans who can’t make the trip to watch.
The new additions to the Hockey Club are from a diverse set of backgrounds and majors, but they all share a love of the game they’ll be working to represent in their school. Fans of the NHL's Nashville Predators, New York Rangers, Washington Capitals, Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes, Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks are all throwing their passion behind Auburn’s team, hoping to elevate the fan experience and grow the sport.
"I’m looking forward to working with the team and creating an engaging social media platform that further exposes Auburn Hockey to the University as well as the Auburn community,” said Brooke Harp, the team's social media director and senior in marketing.
The Alpharetta, Ga., native found her love for the game through the NHL's Nashville Predators and is hoping that she can share her passion with others.
Even with a schedule determined for 2021-22, the Club's season is still in question due to the emergence of new variants of COVID-19 and any regulations that might follow. That doubt on top of the previous missed games is yet another bit of adversity the program is facing heading into the year. Yet Weis, his teammates and the students who have joined the program’s staff have taken the disappointment of a canceled season and found the inspiration to improve with renewed fervor.
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