ASU hockey ready for jump from 'urban legend' to NCAA Division I

Even now, nine months after the announcement that Arizona State hockey is elevating from club to NCAA Division I, the program remains “kind of an urban legend,” says coach Greg Powers.

ASU varsity hockey ... really?

So real that the Sun Devils are less than a week away from their first new-era game, Oct. 3 against Arizona at Gila River Arena.

There were restrictions through Sept. 15 on ice time and the number of players who could practice together -- welcome to the NCAA -- but at least Powers and his staff were able to start working with a 33-man roster, 60 percent made up of new players who jumped at the chance to prove major college hockey in the desert is no Bigfoot.

It took just four months last year for then-first-year ASU Vice President for Athletics Ray Anderson to become convinced that Don Mullett and another booster were serious about putting up $32 million to fund varsity hockey and two new women’s sports, triathlon and likely lacrosse. Everything since the bold announcement in November 2014 has been on the fast track.

Powers, ASU club head coach since 2010, immediately began upgrading his staff and broadening recruiting to make the most of dividing 18 scholarships. That was a job unto itself, but he also bore the responsibility of his final Division 1 club team trying to defend its 2014 American College Hockey Association title. So in December, Powers sold Hanna-Shea Consulting, an executive search firm, to his business partner and made a welcome full-time plunge into hockey.

“I put in 50-hour weeks (with the club team) because I had so much passion for it,” Powers said. “Now, it’s my only focus. I’m not diverted. It beats working. There are very few people who get to make a living doing what they love.”

Faster than Penn State

When Penn State announced in September 2010 that it would go varsity with men’s and women’s hockey and build a multi-use arena -- all thanks to an $88 million donation -- it built in a longer transition timetable than ASU. The Nittany Lions’ teams did not play their first NCAA games until October 2012.

In 2010-11 and 2011-12, Penn State recruited higher level players, some of whom were transfers that could play club and still be eligible when the NCAA era began.

“They were able to ease into it,” Powers said. The Penn State men debuted with a 13-14 record (vs. NCAA foes), dropped back to 8-26-2 (2013-14) then more than doubled their wins to 18-15-4 (2014-15).

The 38-year-old Powers, with a swagger akin to that of football coach Todd Graham, expects ASU to exceed Penn State’s first-year success and finish above .500 in 25 NCAA games while playing a 38-game hybrid schedule that includes some ACHA teams, such as Arizona.

“You will never hear an excuse from me or anybody in our program that it’s going to take time and we need this and we don’t have an on-campus facility yet,” Powers said. “We have too many positives to sell and draw from to lean on any excuses. I don’t expect to be in the Frozen Four in the next two years, but we expect to win games.”

Eleven of the 13 players that Powers retained off the club team chose ASU over NCAA offers, including ACHA All-America first-teamers Liam Norris and Connor Schmidt and second-team goalie Robert Levin.

“Our (club) defense arguably was NCAA-caliber already,” Powers said, with Schmidt, Drew Newmeyer, Eddie McGovern and Jordan Young, all of whom came to ASU out of the United States Hockey League, a premier league for juniors 20-and-under.

The agonizing part for Powers was cutting 17 players whose success on the club level inadvertently led to their departure to make room for those deemed more talented.

"Those were kids I proactively recruited and committed for four years at the club level," Powers said. "But never in a million years did I expect this to happen. A lot of them were disappointed. Those were the hardest meetings I've ever had to have."

ASU still will continue to have an ACHA Division 2 men's club team and is launching an ACHA Division 1 women's team in fall 2016.

Former NHL player Alex Hicks joined Powers’ club staff in July 2014. They put a recruiting priority on acquiring forwards to go with Norris (14 goals/50 points in 2014-15) and Eric Rivard (22/39). In June, Powers hired Mike Field from Dubuque (Iowa) of the USHL as associate head coach. He also put a priority on finding the right equipment manager, settling on Joey Guilmet, who has NHL experience and worked for USA Hockey at three World Championships and the 2012 Olympics.

Guilmet grew up in San Diego and played games in Tempe at Oceanside Ice Arena, where ASU will play all but four of its home games in 2015-16.

“The day it was announced, my phone rang off the hook with people saying this is right up your alley,” he said. “It’s a special opportunity. These challenges are what fuels me.”

Field considers ASU to be a “legacy job” that will impact college hockey nationally. He compares ASU to be a blank canvas with “every type of brush to make a masterpiece. People in the hockey world all see the same potential we do. We’re going to be able to get the best of the best.”

Raising the talent level

Powers believes Louie Rowe is a poster boy for the foundation player that ASU needs to accelerate its NCAA transition and not just because he’s 6-foot-6 and already has a perfect Arizona nickname.

“He’s mean, he’s tough,” Powers said. “I really believe he’ll play in the NHL. He’s got the drive and leadership you can’t teach. He could probably play anywhere he wanted.”

Rowe chose ASU sight unseen. The Sheriff, as he’s known, is a 21-year-old freshman coming off two seasons with the USHL Omaha Lancers (18 goals, 22 assists, 40 points in 2014-15). Oh and that mean, tough part. He has a cumulative 278 penalty minutes as a Lancers’ enforcer.

“I didn’t need to go on a visit (to ASU),” said Rowe, who committed in January, signed in April and didn’t make it to campus until June. “The whole environment seemed perfect and when I saw it, I fell in love even more. It exceeded my expectations. I want to be part of a new organization and I was in the first wave of D-I hockey to go through Arizona State. That’s a cool title to have.”

ASU learned in August that Rowe would have to join four others sitting out as redshirts in 2015-16, a short-term setback that goes with the territory in making this major shift on the fly. Forward David Norris, Liam's younger brother, also is redshirting even though he played second semester last season for the club team after transferring from American International College, an NCAA team.

ASU’s freshmen are an average of 20 years old. Norris, granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA because one of his four club seasons counts as a redshirt, is 24. Powers said his players are older, stronger and more mature "to compete at a high level right away."

Liam Norris could have left after last season for a job as a production engineer for an oil company in his native Canada. But he couldn't shake the feeling that not playing on ASU's first NCAA team would become a lifetime regret, and additionally, he could work on a master's degree in legal studies.

"There was really no downside other than giving up the job," he said. "I let them know this is a huge opportunity that presented itself at the last minute. My boss was very understanding."

Norris, Jordan Young and Garrett Peterson were named ASU's captains Tuesday.

ASU players in addition to David Norris with NCAA experience are Schmidt (Ferris State), Brock Krygier (Michigan State), Ryan Belonger (Northeastern), Wade Murphy (North Dakota), Dylan Hollman (UMass Lowell), Jake Montgomery (Nebraska-Omaha) and Peterson (Notre Dame), and 2016 goalie commitment Joey Daccord was a seventh-round NHL draft pick this year by the Ottawa Senators.

"The percentage of kids who get to play D-I hockey is extremely low," Schmidt said. "The fact I have a second opportunity is a humbling experience I hope to take advantage of. I'm very excited to start a tradition instead of joining one. It's something I can tell my grandkids."

Relentless buzz

On a six-stop ASU athletics caravan in May to Tucson, Prescott, Yuma, San Diego and around metro Phoenix, hockey -- more than even football or new men's basketball coach Bobby Hurley -- was the topic du jour.

"Not just on those caravans, but anywhere I go, one of the first things people want to ask us about is the hockey program and how it's going and how excited they are that we've added it," athletic director Anderson said. "It's a combination of loving the game and the uniqueness of having it here in the desert. It's really ignited folks. We kind of got lucky."

Fortunate foremost that Mullett and others choosing to remain anonymous were willing to make the largest donation ever to ASU athletics.

"I keep track of what's going on pretty closely," said Mullett, CEO of Bradley Corporation, a Wisconsin-based company that makes commercial plumbing products. His son, Chris, is a former ASU hockey player. "A lot of people that don't know me want to know why I did this but those who are associated with me in some form or another can understand. It's just kind of what I do."

In 1998, Mullett previously financed construction of the Howard Mullett Ice Center, named for his late father, in Hartland, Wis., helping the rise of Arrowhead High School boys hockey to state runner-up by 2005 and champion in 2009.

ASU will play 11 home games at Tempe's Oceanside Ice Arena, which is paying for close to $250,000 in improvements including new glass and increasing seating to 1,000. Four high-profile games, including the Oct. 3 season opener against Arizona, still a club program, will be played at 18,000-seat Gila River Arena in partnership with the NHL's Arizona Coyotes. ASU could double or triple its games in Glendale in the next two seasons while plans progress for an arena on campus. There already is talk of a bid to host the NCAA Frozen Four at Gila River Arena.

Mullett favors incorporating hockey into an anticipated remodeling of Wells Fargo Arena, ASU's home for basketball and a variety of Olympic sports. A new multi-purpose arena that could be located next to Wells Fargo Arena or on the east athletic complex also has been proposed.

Rocky Harris, ASU athletics chief of staff, said adding varsity hockey has been complex but seamless.

"They managed their business like a business rather than a fun club sport so transitioning in like-minded people made it very easy for us. It's going to be way more complicated to add other sports because we have to create them from the ground up," Harris said.

Powers is only partly joking when he says the club team's budget was the limit of his credit card. Now, he's operating with a 15-year budget and his team will be equipped by CCM (part of the Adidas group) that sponsors such NHL stars as Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, John Tavares, Pavel Datsyuk and Carey Price. ASU is a first-year Adidas school, and Adidas recently announced a seven-year agreement to outfit NHL teams starting in 2017-18.

Anderson said he was under no obligation to hire Powers as a condition for the donation to fund hockey and some suggested he looked for someone with more experience like high-profiles hires Anderson has made in other sports.

"Greg has seized his moment and really proven he was the right choice," Anderson said. "He's done an unbelievable job of putting the pieces together."

Powers played goalie for ASU from 1995-99, and better than almost anyone, he grasps the magnitude of a transformation that by 2018-19 at latest will put the Sun Devils into the Big Ten (for hockey only), Western Collegiate Hockey Association or National Collegiate Hockey Conference.

Beyond that, ASU could be the trigger for further NCAA college hockey expansion in the West.

"The volume of interest we've seen since ASU (announced its move) is even beyond what we expected," said Mike Snee, College Hockey Inc. executive director. "More administrators are warm to the idea. It's almost like, 'Why did this take so long?' When that pitchfork is on a jersey playing NCAA games against UConn or Michigan Tech then it's even more real for other schools."

All because an urban legend is coming to life.

Arizona hockey participation on the rise