Jordan McAlpine highlights their journey

Article is from our December 2025 Preview digital issue.

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When the opportunity presented itself to join Western Michigan before the 2023-24 season, it was a place that “felt like home,” and a place where Bump believed those dreams could become a reality.

The Prior Lake native got a taste of the tournament last March as the Broncos played in the Maryland Heights Regional, where they fell to Michigan State in overtime.

However, the Broncos are back in the dance again, this time with loftier expectations. WMU won the Penrose Cup as NCHC regular-season champs, won the conference tournament in overtime and the Broncos head into the Fargo Regional as the nation’s No. 4 overall seed.

As he’s done all season, Bump is playing a key role in their success.

“These are the type of games you grow up thinking about playing in yourself one day and everyone’s goal is to be playing games in March,” Bump said. “So I’m really excited for it and want to do my part as a leader and a player, and we just want to take it one game at a time and be the best version of ourselves.”

Alex Bump looks at the puck after he shot it into the net 22 seconds into double overtime to defeat Denver in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Championship on March 22, 2025 at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Bump and the Broncos are averaging an NCAA-best 4.1 goals per game and allow just 2.1 – which ranks fifth. They’ve lost in regulation just four times all season and WMU is 19-3-0 since the calendar flipped to 2025.

They’ll face Minnesota State at 4 p.m. on Thursday. With a win, WMU will play either Minnesota or UMass on Saturday with a Frozen Four berth on the line. This is WMU’s fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance.

“We’re obviously excited to still be playing and believe we have a group that can do something special, but I think we’re all just trying to focus on ourselves right now and control what we can,” Bump said. “We’re not trying to get ahead of ourselves and worry about who we could potentially be playing or anything. We’re just focused on the next day, but we’ve got a really excited group and we’re ready to go.”

As for Bump individually, the sophomore forward leads the team in goals (23), points (46), power-play goals (7) and is a plus-9. The Philadelphia Flyers pick (2022, 5th) also has fired an NCAA-leading 225 shots at opposing goalies – 44 more than the next closest player.

“His numbers are tremendous, but honestly, they’re still way lower than his quality of play, and it’s not even close,” said Western Michigan coach Pat Ferschweiler. “This kid’s been a superstar every game this season and if a few plays here and there got finished, he’d easily have 65 or 70 points, and he’s been spectacular. His shots on goal are off the charts, his vision is excellent, he’s dynamic with the puck on his stick and has dynamic hands, and he just thinks the game at such a high level.

“I think the most important thing he’s done this year though is take his compete to an entirely different level. He was a great player last year as a freshman, but he’s taken so many steps in year two and it’s been incredible to watch.”

Bump is impressive in many ways
Ferschweiler added that Bump’s personality immediately impressed him on the recruiting trail and he’s continued to emerge as a leader. He’s wearing a letter this winter as an assistant captain. The numbers speak for themselves, too, and the left-shot forward offers his team skill, play-making ability and an elite hockey IQ.

Bump has also scored several timely goals of late. He netted the overtime winner last Saturday at Xcel Energy Center and scored three times at the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, which landed him MVP honors.

He has 16 points (11-5-16) over his past 12 games.

“He’s played the same way the entire year,” Ferschweiler said. “Some more pucks have started to go in the second half of the year and his linemates have elevated their games too, but he’s been the same player since the start. If you watched our first three or four games, he could’ve easily left those games with 15 points. It just didn’t go in for him.

“He came into camp ready and his play showed that, and he just stuck with it. He had zero frustration, just determination, and the quality of play has been there all season.”

Alex Bump leads Western Michigan in goals, points and power-play goals this season. He was defended during the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Championship by Minnesota Wild prospect Zeev Buium from the University of Denver. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Bump’s 2024-25 season follows a 2023-24 campaign that yielded 14 goals, 36 points and a spot on the NCHC All-Rookie Team.

“Last year was an adjustment, but I think I’ve made a big jump this year and just try to keep getting better every day,” Bump said. “You expect to get better each year as a player and the coaching staff does such a great job putting you in a spot to do so, and there’s so many great people to listen to and learn from here so you can be successful.”

So what’s led to that success?

“I’ve played with two great linemates and they’ve made it easy for me, and I think that’s been a big part of it,” Bump said. “We’re a fast line and we like to get up and down the ice, and we use our transition game well.

“I think my transition is one of the strengths of my game, so that’s been a big piece of it too, and I’ve had a lot of confidence shooting the puck. But I know I’ve put in the work to be here and get to this point, and my confidence has only kept growing throughout the year.”

Now the hope is Bump can do more of the same and lead Western Michigan on a deep postseason run.

“He comes to the rink every day with a smile on his face and he just loves hockey,” Ferschweiler said. “You probably think every kid loves hockey but the reality is they don’t. Alex is someone that plays because he loves the sport and he’s always determined to get better.

“So when you combine that determination with his play-making ability, work ethic and his compete level, he checks a lot of boxes. He’s someone that thrives in these types of environments and big games too, so we’re excited to see what he can do the rest of the way.”

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Simms scored on a penalty shot with 18 seconds left in the third period Sunday to tie the game against Ohio State, and then at the 2:49 mark in overtime, she scored on a rebound to give the Badgers a 4-3 victory and its eighth national title.  

There was a video clip on social media that showed Badgers head coach Mark Johnson on the bench asking who wanted to take the penalty shot and Simms’ hand went up right away. 

“I can’t really say it was initially my choice,” Simms said with a laugh. “I had everyone on the bench screaming ‘Simms, you do it,’ so I was like ‘You know what, whatever.’ Coach is going to need to see my hand go up for me to actually go. After that, everyone just really instills confidence within me, and I actually have to thank all my teammates for that because I was super nervous going into that moment, obviously. But they all calmed me down and reminded me to just be confident in what I do and what I decide to do, and it (ended up) working out for us.” 

When asked about that video clip, Johnson talked about the mentality needed to be able to score on a penalty shot in that crucial of a situation. 

“Most (people) don’t want to go out there and embarrass themselves,” he said. “I’ve had players that don’t want to take penalty shots even though they were awarded one because they’re thinking negatively. They think they’re going to miss it. If you’re lining up for your birdie putt and you think you’re going to miss it, you’re probably going to miss it. I wanted to see who wanted to step up and own it. Who felt comfortable in the setting, because you can’t have one ounce of negativity in your mind as you pick the puck up. It’s got to be all positive, because if you think about what’s going on, you’re going to miss your putt and you’re going to miss the shot. That’s what the ultimate pressure in our game is about, and you can’t get any more pressure than that. 3-2, you’re down, national championship game. If you miss, the game is probably over other than maybe we get something off a faceoff on the power play.

“Laila (Edwards) came back, she was adamant that their player had their glove on the puck inside the crease, which your team is awarded a penalty shot. Then it comes down to who wants to step up. So, a couple players mentioned Kirsten and then the ownership is hers. ‘I’ll take it.’ ‘Okay, go get it.’

“I looked away. I didn’t even watch. I was like (goalie) Ava (McNaughton). I was asking several people after. I don’t know if I was playing, I would take the shot just because you’ve got to be as free as you can be right in that moment. You can’t be thinking about anything other than I’m going to score.” 

Familiar foes in the national title game
This was the third year in a row where Wisco faced OSU for the national title. After coming up short last year, the Badgers got the job done this time around. The Badgers also finished the season with a stellar record of 38-1-2, with the only loss coming against the Buckeyes back in November.  

“Obviously, we found a way to win,” Johnson said. “I don’t think we played one of our better games, but as I told the team a few minutes ago, we figured out how to get to the finish line. I’ve always said Monday always comes. Well, Monday’s coming tomorrow, and we’ve got the national championship trophy back in Madtown. So, it’s a good day.” 

While the Badgers were celebrating, the Buckeyes were visibly distraught with a few players lying face down on the ice and attempting to come to grips with what just happened as they were just seconds away from back-to-back national titles and their third overall in program history.  

“There’s not a lot to really say after a tough loss,” said OSU coach Nadine Muzerall. “Fantastic human beings (her players). I thought they played phenomenal tonight. I think it was just more of the way we lost, with 18 seconds left. It was just an unfortunate outcome. A debatable penalty shot, hard to challenge it when we’d already used our timeout. Very exciting hockey game though.” 

When asked about Simms’ penalty shot, which came because OSU’s Maddi Wheeler covered the puck with her hand in the crease, Muzerall explained what the officials told her after a video review. 

“The covering of the puck, she (the referee) just said she (Wheeler) had her hand covering it,” Muzerall said. “It’s not like she just swatted it away. She actually put her hand over it, and then you kind of lost sight of it because it went under her. I get that it was a penalty shot. I just question the actual penalty shot. And we didn’t have enough proof to rule against it in that quick moment. But we were contemplating if the puck moved back on her penalty shot, and I already used a timeout, so I didn’t want to go down, possibly 6-on-3.” 

The first period was a tight one throughout as both teams generated decent chances early on, but made some key defensive plays near the net to keep it at 0-0. The Buckeyes got on the scoreboard first thanks to a great individual effort by Joy Dunne. With OSU trying to kill a penalty, the sophomore zoomed past three Wisconsin players and deked out McNaughton for a shorthanded goal to make it 1-0 at the 8:22 mark.

However, just 12 seconds later, Wisco cashed in on its power play as Edwards did almost the same thing to Buckeyes goalie Amanda Thiele, beating her to the left post, just before a diving OSU player could knocked the puck away.  

OSU answered back though as Sloane Matthews skated into the Badgers zone along the far boards and beat McNaughton top shelf to put the Buckeyes back up 2-1 at 14:44. The Buckeyes would maintain that slim lead going into the second.  

Just 10 seconds into the second, the Buckeyes struck again. OSU’s Makenna Webster skated around the Badgers net and tried to feed Jocelyn Amos in front, but the puck deflected out to a waiting Emma Peschel, who blasted a shot past McNaughton to make it 3-1 Buckeyes.

Wisco wouldn’t go away though. At 5:27, the Badgers’ Caroline Harvey trimmed the deficit to one goal. Harvey got a pass across the slot from Simms and sniped it past Thiele to make it 3-2 heading into the third.  

After struggling to get good chances throughout the last period of regulation, the Badgers got a great one in the last 1:50 as the Buckeyes were whistled for too many skaters. With McNaughton on the bench for the extra attacker, Wheeler committed her penalty, Simms was given a penalty shot and she buried it to tie things up at 3-3 and force overtime. 

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — If there’s one thing that Alex Bump definitely does well, it’s scoring goals at Xcel Energy Center.  

Denver players Kent Anderson (left) and Zeev Buium (middle) celebrate one of their three second-period goals. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

For the Pioneers, who won last year’s Frozen Faceoff on their way to a national championship, it was a tough ending as they held what appeared to be a secure lead going into the third.  

Alex Bump scores the overtime-winner 22 seconds into the second OT period while being defended by Denver’s Zeev Buium. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Early in the second, Western still stayed in control, but then the Pioneers caught fire. At 5:46, DU got on the scoreboard on a goal by Jake Fisher. After Slukynsky stopped Samu Salminen’s shot, the rebound went right to Fisher, who tapped it into an open net to make it 1-0.  

Western Michigan players celebrate their NCHC Frozen Faceoff Championship on March 22, 2025. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“That is a huge hill to climb, down 3-0 to Denver in the third,” Ferschweiler said. “That’s such a great hockey team, and they’re so dangerous. But I thought our players were getting better throughout the game and there was lots of belief in that locker room. We just talked about being urgent from the first shift on and not waiting ’til the end to try to press. We couldn’t. We had to get three goals, not one goal.

“Then the big-time play by Liam Valente to pull up and find Zack Sharp, who calmly buries it under the bar, and you could feel ‘Okay, the belief was there.’ This is a confident group. The belief is always there, but then you could just feel the momentum build, and I just thought we got better and better and better even throughout the overtime.” 

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During Friday’s Mason Cup Championship, Groll got to hang on to a precious moment as he scored an empty-netter to clinch a 4-2 victory over rival St. Thomas and win the Mavericks’ third Cup in four years. He was happy that there was a little less pressure on the line for him to score this time around.

“Thankfully, our team was in a really good spot and it didn’t matter if I scored or not,” he said with a smile. “(Evan) Murr put the game-winner in before me. There was no pressure this time to make sure it counted, but it felt great. Having (Adam) Eisele hold me up like Simba and going around was really cool and saluting the crowd was fun after that. Just having the breath of fresh air and that relief after scoring was great, especially in a tight moment like that in the playoffs when everyone is kind of gripping their sticks a little bit. It gets everyone’s shoulders a little less tense.”

Things may have seemed a little tense heading into the third period as the game was tied 2-2, but Mavericks coach Luke Strand said that there wasn’t any stress in the Mankato locker room during the period break.

“Going into the third, there was a neat feeling in the room,” he said. “There was zero panic and very comfortable being an even game. I don’t think you take moments like this for granted, and that’s the maturity of this, this group.”

UST’s Chase Foley skates with the puck with Minnesota State’s Zach Krajnik behind him in their game on March 21, 2025. (MHM Photo / Ryan Stieg)

While the Mavericks were all smiles, the Tommies’ mood was significantly different. UST rolled into the game on an eight-game winning streak and was arguably the hottest team in the nation at puck drop. However, the Tommies fell one game short of being able to hang a CCHA Championship banner in their new arena next fall.

“I definitely feel for all the seniors and the age-outs,” Tommies captain Lucas Wahlin said. “They deserve better obviously. I’m going to be kicking myself for sure a little bit, and I’m definitely going to miss a lot of those boys, especially my linemates (Liam Malmquist and Matthew Gleason). It’s tough. They battled their hearts out and a lot of those guys stepped up when we needed them. You could see it tonight with goals from Gleason and Liam, two guys that won’t be here next year that gave it their all. (Jake) Sibell in net, I just feel bad for those boys. Hopefully next year, we can have a better outcome.”

When reflecting on the season as a whole, it was clear that Tommies coach Rico Blasi was proud of what his team accomplished during its big second half run that earned it home ice in the first round of the CCHA Tournament and a home semifinal win.

“There’s not too many teams in the country that go 15-4-1 in the last 20 games,” he said. “Led by the guy to my left (Wahlin), who drives our bus every day in practice and in games. This is what we play for. This is what St. Thomas hockey is going to be about. Playing for championships. So, everything that we do in our process from day to day will be geared toward that, on and off the ice.

“Our culture is in a really good place, our leadership group is in a good place. Our identity is what it is, and I don’t think we’re going to change that. There’s a lot of people that wrote us off at Christmas time, but this team buckled down and came together. They understood their roles and believed in each other. We have a saying in our locker room, Faith in Brother, and there’s a lot of meaning to that. Obviously, there’s faith in something bigger than ourselves, but also faith in each other and that’s what this team has and that’s where our program is at.”

An even game between the Tommies and Mavericks
The first period was evenly played overall. The Mavericks came out with a little more jump in their skates as the puck spent the majority of the first half of the period in the Tommies’ zone. However, as the period went on, things started to even out. There weren’t many high-quality scoring chances for either team, so the goalies weren’t tested much. However, they both made saves when they had to, and the score was 0-0 after 1.

Things were a different story in the second period as both teams started to get into a groove offensively. UST got on the scoreboard first on a great individual effort by Gleason. The senior forward collected a loose puck by the side boards, skated in hard and beat Mavericks goalie Alex Tracy blocker-side at the 6:56 mark.

UST defenseman Chase Cheslock chases a Minnesota State player with the puck in the CCHA Championship game on March 21, 2025. (MHM Photo / Ryan Stieg)

“I think that was a big confidence booster for our squad,” Wahlin said. “I would say that was our goal coming out. They obviously came out the first 10 minutes and gave us their best, so props to them. We kind of punched back the last 10 minutes of the first and we ended up getting our first goal of the game, which was huge for us. It brought our squad a lot of confidence and that was what we were looking for. We kind of came into the game with that confidence of ‘Hey, we’re going to score first’ and that was our mentality. We didn’t really get the bounces that we wanted to, so props to Minnesota State.”

However, Mankato answered back on the power play at 10:40. After UST was called for tripping, Mavs center Luigi Benincasa got a cross-ice pass from Rhett Pitlick and beat Sibell glove-side to tie the game at 2-1. The Mavericks then took the lead at 13:14 on a goal by Kaden Bohlsen. With Sibell trying to cover the puck, it squirted free and Bohlsen tapped it into the open net to make it 2-1.

The Tommies wouldn’t go away though. After the Mavs were called for interference, Malmquist brought the puck into the slot and toward the right post where he snapped it past Tracy to tie things up at 2-2 going into the third. That was Malmquist’s 20th goal of the season, which currently leads the CCHA, and his league-leading 45th point.

Things remained tight and a back-and-forth affair throughout the third period. The Mavericks grabbed the lead at 10:13 thanks to a shot by Murr. The CCHA Defenseman of the Year fired a shot from the point that beat Sibell to the far post to put Mankato up 3-2. The Tommies got a couple of good chances to tie the game, but Tracy denied them both. UST was also unable to pull Sibell for the extra attacker until 45 seconds were left in the period thanks to some good pressure from the Mavs, and then Groll finished off the win with his empty-net goal.

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What had been taken for granted in the 1990s and early 2000s is now appreciated given the work it has taken to get back to this point. A record crowd of 10,894 for the second game of the Badgers series on Feb. 1 brought total attendance for the sweep to 21,641.

Connor Kurth and Cal Thomas celebrate a goal against Wisconsin in front of the packed home crowd cheering them on. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletics)

“For all of us who work in the athletic department and on the external side, where we’re not on the ice every day, having a game-day environment like that is what we aspire to,” said Mike Wierzbicki, senior associate athletic director for the Gophers. “Providing an atmosphere that fans can enjoy and that gives you goosebumps.”

Telling the story of attendance and fan interest at what is now known as 3M at Mariucci Arena, isn’t as simple as throwing out a bunch of attendance figures.

That helps — the average of 9,769 tickets distributed this season is the highest it has been since 2015-16 and is up from 7,867 in 2021-22 — but it fails to address the most important thing: The electricity, as Motzko called it, that has returned to the 32-year-old building.

That is what so often had seemed to be missing until the last few seasons. A student section that wasn’t filled, or season tickets that had been sold to corporations or the general public, but weren’t used. The tickets might have been distributed, but that doesn’t mean sections were full or that the building had life.

The Dropoff
Motkzo was part of two NCAA championship teams during his time as an assistant on Gophers coach Don Lucia’s staff from 2001-05 and returned to replace Lucia in 2018 after spending 13 seasons at St. Cloud State. Motzko remembers the importance placed on getting fans back upon his return.

Bob Motzko has coached the Gophers men’s hockey team since 2018-19. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

“It was a major discussion at the administrative level, and they did a lot of things behind the scenes, too, on students and ticket prices,” he said. “It was the perfect storm. I always call it the breakup of the WCHA. That took a decade for people to forgive. I think we’re through that.”

As members of the Big Ten, the Gophers were forced to make the move from the WCHA to the Big Ten when the conference began to sponsor men’s ice hockey in the 2013-14 season. This was triggered by Penn State’s decision to start playing Division I hockey and enabled the Big Ten to have a six-team conference. It resulted in major upheaval for college hockey.

The Gophers had long-established WCHA rivalries with North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State. Throw in Minnesota State Mankato and Wisconsin, and five of Minnesota’s nine conference opponents were within driving distance. The Civic Center and then the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul were the regular hosts of the WCHA Final Five.

Suddenly, all of that was gone, and while tickets were still being sold to Gophers games, the amount of nights on which Mariucci felt like the place to be dwindled. This despite the fact the Gophers finished in first place in the Big Ten each of the conference’s first four seasons and went to the championship game of the 2014 Frozen Four.

Mike Wierzbicki, University of Minnesota senior associate athletic director. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletics)

Wierzbicki, who grew up in Minnesota, arrived at the university as the assistant athletic director of marketing for the 2016-17 season. The Gophers won the Big Ten before losing in the NCAA regional semifinals to Notre Dame. There was an average of 9,595 tickets distributed as the Gophers qualified for the NCAA tournament for the fifth time in six seasons under Lucia.

The figure plummeted to 8,726 in 2017-18 as the Gophers finished fifth in the conference and did not make the NCAA tournament in Lucia’s final season. Motzko was hired to replace Lucia, but the work was just starting.

“There was a lack of WCHA rivalries and some changes there were not the most well-received things,” Wierzbicki said. “We also knew our team success wasn’t where we are nowadays and we didn’t perform on the ice the way we’re accustomed to.”

That wasn’t the only issue. The other was that a season-ticket waiting list that dated to the 1990s was “pretty much exhausted,” by Lucia’s penultimate season. That meant that when season-ticket holders didn’t renew for 2017-18, the athletic department was left with no built-in place to turn to replace them.

That wasn’t going to be easy, especially with the general public and corporations. The Gophers had the hockey market largely to themselves when the new Mariucci opened in 1993, the same year the NHL and North Stars left for Dallas. But by the time the season-ticket waiting list was gone, the NHL had returned with the Wild in St. Paul, the Twins were playing in a new stadium (Target Field) and the Vikings were opening U.S. Bank Stadium.

The sports dollar only goes so far and fans only want to attend so many events. Tickets to Gophers games weren’t cheap and there also was the issue of students no longer packing the place.

The road back
The low point came in March 2019. The Gophers played host to Michigan in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament. Minnesota swept the Wolverines in two games, but the headline was the attendance.

The Gophers’ 3-2 overtime victory in the opener drew an announced crowd of 1,835 fans. Numerous photos from inside the building indicated that figure might have been generous. According to a 2023 Star Tribune story, the Gophers had an average of only 5,325 tickets scanned per game during Motzko’s first season.

The average number of tickets distributed in 2019-20 decreased to 8,100 during the season in which the COVID-19 pandemic caused the season to be canceled before the end of the Big Ten tournament. Fans were not allowed into games the following season, and the low point of 7,867 for ticket distribution came in 2021-22.

The general public season-ticket sales for that season was 3,991 and the student season-ticket figure was 1,498. The Gophers, however, won the Big Ten and made it to the Frozen Four before losing to Minnesota State in the semifinals.

As disappointing as the attendance figures might have been, things were about to get a lot better. Some of it was in the control of Wierzbicki and his team and some of it was timing.

“Once students got through Covid, there was an opportunity to springboard off that and we saw them more interested in coming to games across the board,” Wierzbicki said.

Ticket distribution has been on the upswing for the past three seasons. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletics)

The distribution of tickets has been on the rise the past three seasons: 9,129 in 2022-23 as the Gophers lost the NCAA title game after finishing first in the Big Ten; 9,221 in 2023-24 in which Motzko’s team lost to Boston University in the NCAA regional finals after finishing third in the conference; and 9,769 this season. The non-student season-ticket sales have been over 4,500 for two consecutive years and student season tickets have been over 1,500 for three years in a row.

“You have felt it ever since Covid with the students,” Motzko said. “If you remember, right before Covid, student attendance was falling all over the country in every sport. Then, the craziest thing is now we’ve got this uptick going on. For us, there’s no question. Our student section brings our building to life. We have such great diehard fans. They love that young energy. You can’t fool our fans, they want good hockey. But when you get that electricity in this building, I think it’s the greatest atmosphere in one of the greatest college sports.”

Wierzbicki points to the work done by the marketing, digital and social teams in the athletic department.

“We had to make it fun, right?” he said. “A cool and fun thing to do. So that played into giveaways, free food and creating demand and interest. All of those things need to come together. … But it all goes back to the post-Covid buzz and once there was reinvigorated energy to springboard off of that.”

Both season- and single-game ticket prices were dropped in different areas of the arena and a strategy was devised to get more fans into the building. One of those has been moving the faceoff time for Saturday home games to 5 p.m. That has helped the Gophers get more groups, such as youth hockey teams, and families to come to games and get home at a decent hour.

Giveaways also have helped.

“Our marketing team has done a good job of thinking outside the box,” Wierzbicki said. “We’ve done more unique things that students found value in. It might be a scarf giveaway or a unique stocking cap.”

Of course, “it doesn’t move the needle unless the team is successful,” Wierzbicki said.

The Gophers will enter their weekend series at Michigan in second place in the Big Ten, five points behind Michigan State with six games remaining. Their final regular-season home series will be Feb. 21-22 against Ohio State. The Gophers are a Big Ten-best 12-2-2 at home this season.

It feels like old times at Mariucci.

“You go back to (the Doug) Woog days and Lucia days, it’s been that before,” Motzko said. “We’re not creating anything new. Things go in cycles. We’ve always said, ‘Our fans haven’t gone anywhere, we’ve got to give them a reason to come back.’”

Both the team and the marketing department have done just that.

The post ‘Electric’ Crowds Are Back appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

New Boss On The Bench, Part 1

University of St. Thomas women’s hockey head coach Bethany Brausen went through a big and unexpected change last November after then-coach Joel Johnson’s surprising resignation. Brausen then became the interim head coach, and she said that her immediate focus was on the players, not on her new promotion.

“I think in the immediate moment, our priority was just so high on making sure that every single day was such a great experience or the best experience we could be providing for our players,” Brausen said recently. “So, to be honest, I didn’t really think about it too much from a future job perspective. I think me and (assistant coaches) Marty (Sertich) and Alli (Berg) stepping into that role, we were so focused on the experience of the student athletes that we weren’t really thinking too much about the long-term at that moment. And I think a part of that, too, was the three of us, we really had a lot of autonomy in the first year because that was the Olympic year (2022), and coach Johnson was away quite a bit for the Olympics. So even during that year, I was the acting head coach and Marty and Alli took on some pretty heavy responsibilities that year, too.

“So, it wasn’t a completely foreign space for us to step into. It was something we are actually pretty comfortable with because we’ve already done it and we had done it in a year that you could argue was a lot more challenging with it being the first year of transitioning to Division I. One of our coaches at St. Thomas shared this with me during that transition window this year, but she said ‘keep what’s important, important,’ and that was Jen Trotter, our softball coach, and I just thought that was such great advice. Do things the right way with integrity one day at a time and keep what’s important, important, and to us, that has and always will be, the student athlete experience first and foremost.”

Weekend sweep is a weight lifted
After 12 games, including an exciting sweep of then-No. 4 Minnesota Duluth last month, the Tommies removed the interim tag and Brausen officially became the head coach, and she said that weekend against UMD was important to everyone in the program.

“It felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders, but more so for our players, I think,” she said. “We talked a lot about this as a coaching staff. They have been so deserving of that type of weekend. You can look from an outside perspective and just be like ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that happened,’ and internally within the locker room, I think all the collective group of 26 of us would say ‘I can, I can believe it happened’ because we’ve been there every single day along the way, and we’ve seen the effort that they’ve put in and the extra time and the skill sessions and the video. Just the way that they are committed to the full experience at St. Thomas on a daily basis.

“So for us, it’s not that it wasn’t something to just tremendously be celebrated, but I also think it’s something that they’ve really worked for and they’ve really earned. So, I think that little bit of weight off the shoulders really came for the players sake because they’ve really earned that, and they’ve been earning it for a long time, and they finally got rewarded in a win-loss column standpoint. It was a huge weekend for us, but what I love about our group is they’re just not satisfied with it at all. They feel like we’ve started to turn the corner, if we haven’t already started to arrive, and I think they feel like they have a lot left to prove and so they did that in the second game against Duluth and then they had a great weekend against St. Cloud (State) and we split with another close to top-10 team in the country, and I just think that we have a group that’s really resilient and really excited to keep pushing the needle of what it means to be St. Thomas hockey.”

When asked if her job has changed at all since the interim tag got removed, Brausen said it hasn’t changed much.

“I think that fundamentally at the foundation of who I am and who we are as a staff, nothing really changes for myself and Marty and Alli when it comes to how we’re gonna be as people,” Brausen said. “I think that hopefully remains true for any coach that is really kind of living into their own authenticity, is that at your core of who you are you continue to always do things in the right way and with integrity. I think that logistically, there’s definitely some different pieces now, right? Like whether that’s for myself or the two other members on our staff.

“Of course, there’s a lot more long-term planning now. We’re starting to say ‘Okay, now that this is the official transition here, those tags are removed, we can really move forward and proceed differently, knowing that we have that future really solidified in front of us.’ So, what does that look like from a recruiting standpoint? What does that look like from a full culture development as we project into the future? So, I think there’s the excitement now of just officially turning the page and really starting a new chapter in the program’s history.”

Coaches are constantly recruiting throughout the year and now that she’s officially been given the center spot on the Tommies bench, Brausen is really emphasizing the importance of connections between players and coaches.

“I think that, I mean from the best staff that I’ve seen, either working with staffs, or from a distance and learning from others, I think the biggest thing with recruiting is you do need to do it by committee,” she said. “I think that when athletes and families are signing up for going to a school, they’re signing up for your full staff because you know the head coach ultimately makes a lot of the decisions, and maybe does a lot of that administrative side of things, but they are in a eight-month process every single day with multiple people, and so to me, I think it’s really important, not only from a talent acquisition and evaluation standpoint, that we have multiple members on our staff seeing these different potential recruits and trying to recruit them in the future, but it’s also that relationship element.

“I think it’s really important that families are able to connect not just with me or just with Marty or just with Alli, but that they really know that we have a great group that can offer a lot of different things for these athletes in the future.”

Navigating the puzzle pieces of the portal
The transfer portal has been a blessing and a curse in college hockey, and Brausen says each year is going to be different for each program.

“It is absolutely a puzzle,” she said. “It is such a different day and age of athletics. I mean, compared to when I was an athlete at Minnesota in 2010 to 2014, it’s a completely different landscape now. I keep going back to the importance of academics and continuing to learn being a lifetime learner, I think the same is true professionally in the athletic space. You do really have to adjust and pivot and start to learn things like ‘What is the new normal in athletics?’ and ‘How do we keep adapting with those changes over time?’ I think the portal makes it really tricky, but I think the biggest thing is year-to-year, it’s a puzzle, and so every single year is going to look a little bit different. I think it really depends on your needs year-to-year.

“There might be a certain year where you’re like, ‘Gosh, we are dire to get a defenseman for the following fall. There might be other years where we’re like ‘You know, we’ve actually got a little bit of wiggle room. We might be able to absorb a couple players that really help overall build our program.’ So, while every year is different, I do think it’s important, like I said, that we keep adapting and changing and kind of being on our toes as coaches with the ultimate goal to give a incredible experience to our current student athletes, while knowing that you’re always in the hunt to build the best program you can possibly build.”

The portal has had a huge effect on men’s hockey as it seems to get updated every couple of hours as soon as the season ends, but Brausen says it’s affected women’s hockey as well.

“I think it’s had a pretty heavy impact,” she said. “I mean I look at sports that are really the extreme version of what the portal you know can do, and implications they can have like football, the basketballs (men and women). Those are really extreme cases, but those are also pretty widespread and massive sports, think about how many teams are playing and so I would say relative to women’s hockey, it certainly has had a tremendous effect. We just have less teams and less players compared to some of those other sports, and so I think one of the biggest areas is just the kind of the student athlete experience and my hopes, and my goals as a coach in the recruiting process is to help players get it right the first time.

“I think if families and these players in particular are signing up for experiences that really are tailored toward their ultimate goals and their holistic experience. What do academics look like? What is the social experience at this school? What is the hockey coaching staff? You really should be, hopefully, signing up for all of those factors and not solely just one or the other because no different than life, it’s challenging. It’s hard. There might be days where players are frustrated with their playing time and so you really do have to treat the portal as families, as not necessarily a back up option, but an opportunity that would be more in a unique situation. I would love for players to get it right the first time, and for coaches to honor those same opportunities on the other side of it as well.”

Tourney time next season?
At the time of this article, the Tommies had four regular season games left, three of which scheduled at home before entering the WCHA Playoffs where the season will come to an end. However, next season, both of the UST hockey teams will be eligible for the NCAA Tournament, and Brausen says that changes things quite a bit.

“I think it absolutely does,” she said. “Phil Esten, our athletic director, he’s been doing all the right things to have that move in the right direction, and so it’s a testament to his leadership and his commitment to athletics to say ‘How can we advocate and fight to get that five-year drop down to one less?’ And that’s a really big deal for student athletes because I think every competitive athlete wants to compete for something big at the end of the year, and I think our players are no different.

“I’m gonna run the statistics on this, because I’d be very interested to see how that shakes out, but you know we look back and there were certainly some games that could’ve gone either way, that we could’ve won. I reflect on some games in November and we went to Nashville. We had two really great games with nonconference opponents in Clarkson and Penn State, who were both Top 15 in the country at the time and those were 50-50 games. I think those could’ve easily gone either way, and I would just be curious statistically if some of those games do, where are we sitting? Because right now, I think we’re around 20 in the NPI (NCAA Percentage Index), and when you are in the top 11, that’s the national tournament, and so for us in our first few years to go from you know essentially, technically, the last-place team when you first start to climb by 10, you know 10 points or 10 teams in your first year and to climb another 10 to climb another 10, all of a sudden, we’re looking statistically at an opportunity.

“It doesn’t guarantee anything, but it does tell you that if your trajectory and your development remains the same that you at least give yourself a fighting chance of being a part of that national tournament type of picture one year from now, and so that’s the big overarching goal and that’s what everyone’s shooting for, but it does come down to those daily habits, that 1% better, doing it the right way over the offseason and putting in the time and effort. But it’s certainly something that I know our players are committed to.”

With the postseason rapidly approaching, Brausen thinks that both her program and women’s hockey is in good shape for the future.

“I think it’s a really exciting time, not only to be a part of St. Thomas, and that I think there’s no more exciting place to be in women’s hockey right now than the University of St. Thomas for a lot of reasons, but I think it’s an exciting time to be a part of girls and women’s hockey in general,” she said. “I mean, you just look at the PWHL and all the strides that it has made. It’s in its first couple years and they’re filling out these NHL facilities of 18,000 or 19,000+ people, and what a great thing for women’s hockey to have exposure like that and to just see how many people are excited to show up when they’re given the opportunity. I think that there’s a lot to be excited about in general, but certainly to be at St. Thomas, like I said, it just feels like there’s no place that has the same academic resources, the same hockey experience within our league. So, it’s been a lot of fun to be a part of and something that I feel really honored and excited to move forward into the future with.”

The post New Boss On The Bench, Part 2 appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

A few weeks ago, Bethany Brausen officially became the head coach of the St. Thomas women’s hockey program after having the interim tag placed on her for 12 games following the abrupt resignation of then-head coach Joel Johnson.

After a successful playing and coaching career at the University of Minnesota, along with the Tommies’ sweep of then-No. 4 Minnesota Duluth during Brausen’s interim stage, it was no surprise that UST decided to put the future of the program in her hands.

Hockey is basically in Brausen’s blood, and some family influences helped guide her into fully embracing the sport she loves.

“My dad, he always kind of played, more informally though, so he would always kind of just do some pick-up hockey and stuff, so we definitely grew up in the rink,” Brausen said recently. “But a lot of the credit I give to my hockey involvement was actually for my cousin Connor, and he was like my best friend. I was attached at the hip with Connor, and he decided that he was wanting to play hockey, and so anything that he did, I was sold on as well. So, looking back, that was probably the biggest reason I got in was my best friend, my cousin. And then I feel like once I started playing, as most people know, it’s a hard sport to get out of. It’s just something you fall in love with pretty quickly.”

After earning Ms. Hockey honors as a senior and leading Roseville Area High School to a state championship in 2010, Brausen stayed in the Twin Cities and decided to suit up for the WCHA powerhouse Golden Gophers, even though it wasn’t as easy of a decision as one might think.

Choosing the Gophers
“When I was growing up, Minnesota was kind of the premier program in the Twin Cities,” she said. “It was really the only option in some ways for Minnesota kids just to get really high-level visibility, and so when I was growing up, there were people that I knew like Winny Brodt and Ronda Curtin, they were both Roseville people, and they ended up at Minnesota. So, I think I was kind of the traditional story of growing up in the Twin Cities and having the Gophers 10 minutes away from my home, and so that was definitely a big part for me when I went through the recruiting process.

“There were some other schools that I was considering. I thought about going out east. I even considered, you know, could I go to an Ivy League, things like that. But at the time just growing up in the Twin Cities and having an option that was close to home that had just such a rich tradition of success was definitely a big part of it.”

Brausen helped lead the Gophers to back-to-back national championships in 2013 and 2014 and then back to the title game in 2015. Then she decided to turn to coaching, which ended up being a perfect fit for her considering what she majored in during her time at Minnesota.

“I think to some degree I always knew that I wanted to coach in some capacity,” she said. “What’s interesting is I think growing up and even into my college years, I don’t know if coaches do a good enough job really kind of advocating and promoting a career profession of coaching. So, for me when I was at Minnesota, I’d never really thought about it as a full-time job. I actually originally got my master’s (degree) in counseling, and then I was pretty much set up with my PhD applications. I thought I’d go on and become a psychologist and maybe work in sports psychology, or industrial organizational psychology.

“So that was kind of my path originally and then at that point when I was starting my second year of my master’s program is actually when (Gophers head) coach (Brad) Frost called me and offered for me to come back and coach Minnesota. I think I always knew I wanted to coach. I coached at high school (at Breck) for a couple years. I coached in OS stuff all growing up but for me, I never really thought of it as a career profession until the opportunity presented itself. And then, similar to falling in love with hockey at a young age, it felt impossible not to fall in love with the coaching side of it as well later.”

When asked if her multiple degrees have helped her as a coach, Brausen said they definitely have played a role.

“My undergraduate was in psychology,” she said. “I think that that really applies to any sector that you go into and that’s kind of why I was drawn to that degree originally and then the masters in counseling. I actually did a internship with Premier Sports Psychology as well during that time and so, I really got pretty nuanced in the mental side of sports, and really just kind of the mental side of life, too, and how we can be the healthiest version of ourselves. And so, I think between those two programs and then the current one I’m in right now is actually in organizational leadership.

“So, for me, education has always been something I’ve been really passionate about and I just believe that everyone can and should be lifetime learners if we want to keep getting better. So, I definitely think between those three different types of degree programs it’s really set me up to be a really well-rounded coach.”

As far as her PhD goes, the soon to be Dr. Bethany is in her last year of her program and is in her dissertation stage before she’ll be defending it later in 2025. The topic is appropriately related to women’s hockey, which is a topic “near and dear to her heart.”

“I’m looking at four different coaches across the country Division 1 women’s hockey, and the question I’m trying to answer is what are the thoughts, beliefs, and practices of these four coaches who seek to help their student athletes flourish,” she said. “Essentially the question is really about how do we go above and beyond, kind of, traditional approaches to coaching. How do we go beyond kind of just black-and-white there’s a player you have their coach and it’s kind of old-school and traditional, but how do we go beyond that and actually develop these student athletes holistically and from a social psychological academic full life perspective?

“So that’s the answer, or the question I’m trying to answer, and I will get back to you in some months hopefully. If I get some good insights in that way.”

Brausen says all four of the coaches she’s researching are female and not just from the WCHA, which makes for an interesting study.

“It’s called purpose of sampling,” she said. “So, what you do is, if you were actually kind of ingrained or engulfed into a certain population or a certain demographic, you can actually hand select people based on your experience or feedback from others of who would be the best candidates, and so that’s how I went about selecting my participants. I can’t say specifically who they are from an anonymous standpoint, but they are all female and that was just by chance. It could’ve been a male, but just by chance, the four that were really the best fit for the study were females. I have a couple of head coaches, and a couple are associates or assistant coaches. I have one that’s an Ivy League coach, I have some from the WCHA, and some from other conferences. So, it’s really a nice blend to get some different perspectives from a wide range. So, it’s been fun.”

Joining the Tommies as an assistant coach
With a psych background and a successful tenure at Minnesota, Brausen joined the Tommies bench and there were a couple of factors that made her switch from maroon and gold to purple and gray.

“I think the biggest thing is that, number one, I had been with Minnesota both as a player and as a coach for so many years at that point, so nearly a decade, and it was fun and it was rewarding and it was so many great things, but it was a very seasoned program,” she said. “So, for me, the opportunity to go somewhere that was new and different and really building from the foundation up, was pretty much the opposite experience of what I currently had. Like with academics, I’m just a really high achiever by nature where I want to do things differently. I want to always keep pushing myself, and so for me, the opportunity to go coach somewhere that was new, and was different, and was building something from that foundation level was such a new challenge and very exciting for me.

“And the other part of it is I went around and I walked the St. Thomas campus when I was considering coaching there. I vividly remember the thought of ‘Gosh, it’s going to take some years. It might take three or four years to really kind of start to build that program, but that is not a program I want to recruit against in the future.’ I just remember vividly having that thought because as a potential student athlete when I walked around that campus, this is where I would’ve wanted to go. If I could do the recruiting process now today, the fact that it’s this beautiful, small private school in a very safe part of the Twin Cities, your professors come to your games, they know you by name, they know your family members’ names. It was just a different academic and athletic experience. Just being a lot more intimate. Our athletic director (Phil Esten) and our sports administrators, they’re at almost every single game.

“So, it’s just a different environment at St. Thomas. So, I think it was both of those things. It was this new and different challenge that was so different than anything I’ve experienced and then on the other side of it, it’s not for everyone necessarily, but for the right people looking for something different in our conference. St. Thomas offers a completely different experience than any other school in the WCHA.”

The post New Boss On The Bench, Part 1 appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Drew Cove writes about the informal-and-fun Gophers’ alumni and collegiate alumni game.

This story was originally published in the MHM February 2025 HDM Shakopee Recap.

The post College Alumni: Shine A Ligh7 appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Ryan Stieg writes about the Gopher women’s hockey team defeating Bemidji State on outdoor ice.

This story was originally published in the MHM February 2025 HDM Shakopee Recap.

The post College Women: Enjoy The Ride appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.