UMass Minutemen ice hockey
men's college ice hockey program
The UMass Minutemen Ice Hockey team is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's college ice hockey program that represents the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Minutemen are a member of Hockey East. They play at the 8,387-seat William D. Mullins Memorial Center (known as the Mullins Center) in Amherst, Massachusetts.
History
Pond history
The centrally located pond on the UMass campus was once used for multiple purposes. In the winter students and faculty would cut out blocks of ice to use for refrigeration and annual tug-of-war games between sophomores and freshmen were hosted during the spring months. In 1909 the first formal ice hockey team began playing on the pond as well. UMass fielded one of the earliest non-ivy league programs, playing continually until poor weather conditions and a lack of funding caused the team to cease in 1939. The Minutemen were able to return to the ice after the war but couldn't play at home until 1954.
The lack of a home venue caused the team to suffer through a stretch where they won only 2 games over a 7-year period. Eventually the pond became usable again and UMass were able to play home games with new head coach Steve Kosakowski.
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This entry incorporates text from “UMass Minutemen ice hockey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.