In March 2015, Sean Hogan climbed into his Ford 500 and set out for a three-hour drive from Athens to Connellsville, Pennsylvania.
It was a Wednesday night at The Ice Mine, the name of the town’s community rink, and Hogan was one of 269 people attending the junior hockey game, the Keystone Ice Miners versus the Johnstown Tomahawks
When the final horn sounded, signaling a 4-1 win for the Ice Miners, Hogan didn’t get up and leave — he got up and got to work.
Just 10 days earlier, Hogan finished his first season as coach for Ohio’s club hockey team, a perennially strong program currently on a streak of 29-straight winning seasons. His trip to Connellsville was in search of future Bobcats.
Hogan made his way toward the locker room and talked to players on both teams whom he’d previously contacted. He came without any promise of scholarship money, but no one seemed to care.
As Hogan talked to one of the goalies, another player passed by. The player recognized the hunter green “OHIO Hockey” logo embroidered on Hogan’s black windbreaker.
“He goes, ‘My brother visited Ohio U and he said it was awesome,’ ” Hogan said. “People know about the hockey program now, which is good.”
Without the ability to offer scholarships, Ohio’s hockey team attracts talented recruits by showcasing what it does have: a winning reputation and a place for players who truly love the game.
A club team at an NCAA Division I school
Ian Spencer, a defenseman on the Tomahawks, toured Ohio’s campus in February 2015. He had heard of the Bobcats from his brother, who played in the same league as them.
“He was definitely interested, but just like anybody else that we recruit, they’re kind of holding out for that Division I opportunity,” Hogan said.
Division I is the highest level of inter-university athletic competition in the NCAA. There are 60 NCAA D-I hockey teams and each has 18 scholarships.
For players who don’t make a varsity team, one option to stay in the game is to try out for collegiate club hockey in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), which is separated into Division I and II levels.
Ohio has a team in both divisions — Hogan coaches the ACHA D-I team.
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While there are many disparities between the ACHA and NCAA, such as less promotion for club teams and long bus rides instead of short flights, the ACHA’s most significant drawback is its inability to offer scholarships to student-athletes.
Ohio’s football team has 85 full-ride scholarships available to a roster of about 100 players. The men’s basketball team has 13 full-ride scholarships to give its 15 players. Meanwhile, club hockey’s 28 players have no scholarships.
But Hogan said that doesn’t make for a hard sale with recruits because options are fairly limited for hockey players compared to athletes in other sports.
“There’s so many opportunities to play football somewhere. There’s so many opportunities to play basketball,” Hogan said. “Hockey players are more about, ‘Is there an opportunity for me to play?’ ”
While back home in Silver Spring, Maryland, Bobcat captain Michael Harris found his opportunity in Athens by researching the nation’s best club teams.
“When people are recruited to come here or you want to come here, it’s mostly for more than just the hockey,” Harris said.
Harris knew there wouldn’t be a scholarship for him at Ohio, but the sport management and business programs attracted him.
ACHA’s direct competitor, NCAA D-III, is under the same limitations for scholarships, despite being in a different league.
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Spencer, for example, weighed his ACHA options of schools like Ohio before ultimately choosing NCAA D-III Nichols College in Massachusetts.
Hogan, who played NCAA D-III in the mid-’90s for two years at Iona College, said there wasn’t a lot of outreach for ACHA recruiting at that time. Much has changed since then, he said.
“I feel comfortable saying that in the next five or 10 years, ACHA Division I will probably overtake NCAA Division III in terms of level of play and kids wanting to go here,” Hogan said.
Standing out
When he contacts recruits, Hogan’s message is the same — there are some things Ohio can offer that other schools cannot.
Bird Arena, the university-owned rink used by Ohio, is located on campus. Most NCAA D-III schools play “home” games at least 20 minutes off-campus.
The Bobcats have access to the same strength and conditioning coaches as the school’s NCAA D-I football team, which is something no NCAA D-III school has at its disposal. Players go to Peden Stadium every Monday and Wednesday for two-hour workout sessions, receiving the same treatment as Ohio’s varsity athletes.
Ohio’s hockey program has a history of success, having won four ACHA national championships. The 2014-15 team finished No. 6 in the national rankings out of 58 teams.
“The hockey can sell itself,” Harris said. “Some NCAA Division I schools don’t even get the fan base and the support that we do. Most people here don’t even know we’re not NCAA, to be honest.”
Hogan also talks about student population size. Ohio’s undergraduate student body of more than 20,000 students is much larger than bodies of 2,000 to 3,000 students at most NCAA D-III schools, such as Baldwin Wallace University and Capital University.
Ultimately, Hogan said it comes down to where the player wants to go to school. Drew Crandall, a sophomore forward at Ohio, spoke with confidence when he answered that question.
Crandall first heard of Ohio from his high school hockey teammate, whose brother had been a Bobcat and raved about the experience.
“(My teammate) would just tell me about going down, watching his brother play and just how much he loved it — how great the fan support was and everything like that,” Crandall said.
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Fan support is one of Ohio’s best selling points to recruits because students and local residents fill the bleachers at home games. The heart of that support is the Blue Line Booster Club, a group of Bobcat season ticketholders.
Valerie Young has been a booster with her husband since the couple moved to Athens 20 years ago.
“Our initial motivation was just to have the reserved seats because sometimes it was really hard to get a seat and watch them play,” she said with a laugh.
When Young first started watching Ohio, she didn’t know it wasn’t an NCAA team or that the players didn’t have scholarships.
“It truly was a group of guys who were working really hard to be students and also to play hockey just because they loved hockey,” Young said.
The right fit
In his ninth season as an ACHA coach, Hogan understands that recruiting players for the league is about finding character as much as it’s about finding talent.
“The more you do it, the more you have a feeling for it — the more you know which kids are going to be successful in your league and which ones aren’t,” Hogan said.
What he’s talking about is finding players who understand what it means to play ACHA hockey.
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It means a regular schedule of classes with everyday practices during the week. It means early morning bus rides on Fridays and late night bus rides on Saturdays. Players don’t pay to play ACHA D-I hockey at Ohio, but they certainly don’t get paid to play either.
“We’re here every day working out and practicing,” senior forward Diego Breckenridge said. “It’s a huge time commitment. It just goes to show how all the guys love the game and love to play.”
No scholarships mean no player’s spot is more valuable than another’s. The roster is filled with guys who gel because they love hockey and want to play a few more years at a high level.
“Coming to Ohio was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life,” Harris said. “The bond you get with the guys here is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced on any other team.”
That’s why Hogan introduces recruits to the team when they visit. Sometimes the chemistry that players develop with potential teammates is a factor that outweighs everything else.
Coaches also link players on the team to recruits if they have a past connection, such as with Crandall and freshman forward Bryan Lubin. When Lubin was still deciding where to play last year, Crandall reached out to him because the two previously played youth hockey together.
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Bobcats are tightly knit through geographical connections, too. Their roster is predominantly made up of players from the Midwest. Ohio’s current 28-man roster features players from six states, but 24 of those athletes are from Ohio, Pennsylvania or Michigan.
Hogan said he wants to expand his recruiting to a broader region, but having players from places surrounding Ohio helps lure recruits close to home as well.
“If you’re a Midwest kid, do you want to go to a small, liberal arts private school, or do you want to come to Ohio University, where no one’s ever going to ask you, ‘Where is that? What is that?’ ” Hogan said. “The student experience here and the academic experience here is second to none.”
@JordanHorrobin
jh950614@ohio.edu
