Hockey Comes to the University of Tampa

After much paperwork and a great amount of effort, members of the University of Tampa have begun a competitive ice hockey team.

Associate Professor of Biology at UT Steve Kucera serves as the team’s head coach, but does not take credit for single-handedly forming the club. He acknowledged Leif Benner, a sophomore, with the drive necessary to begin a competitive men’s full-contact hockey team.

“[Leif] approached me last fall. He asked if I would be the faculty advisor of the club and serve as the coach, so I said ‘sure,’” Kucera said.

Coach Kucera and Benner knew each other from playing together in a men’s hockey league in Brandon.

After discussing their ideas about the potential team, Kucera went to UT’s Director of Campus Recreation, Charles Yezak.

Once Yezak was on board, he pitched the idea to the Dean of Students and the school President. Coach Kucera explained that it had to be approved by all of these people because of the liability involved with full-check hockey.

Coach Kucera sent out emails to the public in hopes of generating some interest in the team. Then, at the beginning of the semester, Coach Kucera held a general interest meeting for potential players.

“I had no idea walking into that if we would have five guys show up, ten guys show up or whatever, and we had close to 20,” Kucera said.

While progress had been made to start the team, Coach Kucera said that Benner had become discouraged after all the work he had put in.

Coach Kucera reassured Benner at the meeting that without his help and hard work, nothing would have gotten done. Coach Kucera also told Benner that he would be the team captain, which he now is.

“None of us would be here if it weren’t for him. He made this happen.”

Though Kucera has no past coaching experience, he does have a history with the game of hockey. Raised in upstate New York, Coach Kucera played pond hockey in the wintertime.

He then played competitively for two years in high school until an injury in his senior year left him unable to play on the collegiate level. Since he was 20, however, Kucera said he has been playing in men’s leagues. On top of teaching at UT and coaching the newly formed team, he still plays in a men’s league in Ellington, south of Tampa.

The team now has just over 20 students on the roster. The club practices at the Tampa Bay Skating Academy, located in Oldsmar, and has recently become a member of the American College Hockey Association (ACHA) as a Division III team.

Coach Kucera said that each team member has pitched in 400 dollars to go towards funding for the fall semester.

The athletes also have provided their own equipment and uniforms until official team uniforms are made. Funding has come from additional resources as well, Coach Kucera explained.

“Mr. Yezak very graciously kicked in a significant amount of money from his budget. The Vice President for Enrollment, Mr. Dennis Nostrand, has directed his entire donation to the university that he’s going to make this year to us,” he said.

Sophomore defenseman Matt Larue said that having an ice hockey team at UT is a good idea because of all the students from up north that attend the school.

“With as many northern students as we have going to school here, I think it’s a really good thing to have. I had been playing at home for 12 years or so, so I think that kind of prepared me for this,” said Larue, who is from Pittsburgh.

Other members of the new Spartan squad expressed their excitement for getting to play collegiate hockey and represent UT on the ice.

“For me, it’s just really that last piece of everything I wanted to get from coming to the University of Tampa,” said Curtis McIntyre, a sophomore.

“I think it’s a great program to be involved in and I think, from what I’ve seen, it’s really well organized.”

Junior Mark Baccoli, a goalie, shared the same enthusiasm that his teammate had.

“The last two years I didn’t have a school ice hockey team [so I’ve] just been playing men’s league. So it’s really cool to be able to play for my school,” said Baccoli.

Kucera explained that team schedules are typically generated in the spring semester for the following season. Since the Spartan hockey team was created just this semester, there is no official schedule at this point.

Coach Kucera is working with the ACHA and colleges in the area in hopes of building some type of schedule in the near future. For now, the team has been practicing regularly and will have inter squad scrimmages as well as compete against local men’s teams.

The Spartans may be a new team, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t confident in their abilities to play hockey.

“Because we have a lot of northern students that go to the school that may be interested in hockey, along with that, we have lot of northern students who used to play hockey, so the level of talent that we have on our team, I’m very impressed with,” Larue said.

Once a schedule is established for the Spartan men, they will be playing a majority of games at The Tampa Bay Skating Academy, as well as in Ellington.

Though the squad has enough players on the roster to fully field a team, there is still room to join; if not this year, then for future years.

“We’re starting it up this year, and we’d like to see it continue year after year after year, so if new students want to play, there’s definitely next year,” said  Baccoli. “Even this year too, but especially next year, we’ll be looking for players.”

After getting through all the paperwork from the university, the ice rink and the ACHA, Kucera is looking ahead to building a successful team with a winning mentality.

“Now the process really begins of building the team,” said Coach Kucera.

The team website is now up and running at http://www.utweb.ut.edu/icehockey.

To contact Coach Kucera about joining the ice hockey team, e-mail him at skucera@ut.edu.

Daniel Feingold can be reached at minaret.sports@gmail.com.