Last week, the Division I team took to the air for a tournament in Belfast dubbed the "Friendship Four." The teams, Union College, Miami University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Sacred Heart University were all competing for the prized Belpot Trophy.
The Garnet Chargers went head-to-head with Sacred Heart's Pioneers to open the tournament.
SHU was quick to the goal, scoring for their first and only time just minutes into the match. Soon after, Union began their domination, scoring two goals within minutes.
Speaking just after that, Kristen Raffan, who works the front desk at College Park Hall on the college's campus keeping the kids safe, says this is her second time traveling to Northern Ireland for the tournament.
The team won the tournament in 2018 against Boston University in a 2-1 game. Raffan says in her 24 years at the school, the students have become like family.
"I know the boys. They used to live in my dorm, so I know their families. I know them. So just feel like their mom," Raffan said.
But the feeling of family doesn't stop with the Garnet Chargers. During that first game of the tournament, Sacred Heart's pep band filled an upper section of the stadium with their horns and drums. Noah Held is a junior studying music and is the mellophone section leader.
"Once the band started playing for hockey, which was quite before my time, and what happened was that we love the hockey team. We love the games. We love supporting the players. And, you know, the players love that we love to be there so they it's just so welcoming. I remember, you know, when we got here, we had a dinner with the team," Held said. "We had Thanksgiving dinner with the team, and it was just, there was so much just bonding and talking and getting to know the players and talking to them, because, you know, they're so excited that we're here, just the same way we're so excited they're here. So, it's just really, it's really cool."
Union wrapped up that game with an 8-1 win, the largest lead in tournament history.
The following day at the SSE Arena, in a faceoff for the Belpot, the team played Miami University. The tournament is the only NCAA hockey tournament outside of the United States.
In line for concessions just before the first period, Chris Hanley told WAMC that his son, Nate, a psychology student, has been on the team for four years. He said his son’s experience on the ice is helping him grow not only as a player but as a student and a person.
"It's been a great connection. I couldn't ask for anything more. It's something that we can always look back on as a family, and it's been a joy," Hanley said.
Just as the puck dropped in front of a crowd of more than 5,100, I caught up with Joanne Herrick. Herrick retired from the college's finance department in July after 43 years. She said it was easy to form great relationships with everyone on campus and gave her and her husband, Robert, something fun to do.
"[We] definitely became number one hockey fan with my husband," Herrick said. We started probably in 1990 and that's my son behind me, and he started development with the team too, and got to know all the players very well, and I got to know the families very well of the players."
Nearby, Bill Dean was watching with friends who have become family. Dean, a prosecutor in Miami, is a Union football alum.
Now, in his second trip to Belfast to see the boys play, he says it's the perfect excuse to skip out on the heavy lift of cooking Thanksgiving dinner at home and be elsewhere for the holiday. And he said he owes the ability to do so all to Union.
"My mom really wanted me to go to Yale, and now all these years later, there's a scholarship named after my mom at Union College, and I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for Union and Union College football team," Dean told WAMC. "So, a young, 17-year-old kid going there, major in Soviet history. In 1988 I was a three-year starter, Captain the football team, played for the national championship. Have lifelong friends, and the most important thing about Union College, as the name connotes the breadth and depth of education, I got there has placed me to where I am today, where I become very successful, and I will never ever forget what Union did for me, and that's why it's so important to me. So, it's not just my friendship with the athletic director, it's what union has done for me and my family, and really has transformed my family from a very poor, broken family back in Massachusetts to where it is now."
As the clock on the last period wound down, Union was neck and neck with Miami. Coach Josh Hauge said the boys were playing good hockey. Miami had scored early on in the game, followed by back-and-forth scoring, allowing Miami to snipe the win with just three minutes and 48 seconds to go in the third period. The clock buzzed and the Red Hawks flooded the ice in victory.
Post-game, Union forward Connor Smith, mourning the loss of the tournament, told WAMC that the team wins and losses as one.
"We spend 24 hours a week with each other seven days a week," Smith said. "So, I mean, it's basically just like our second family. And, I mean, we're a pretty small school, so our hockey group's pretty tight."
Goalkeeper Carter Korpi, who made 10 saves early on in the game and finished the tournament with 25, agreed.
"Union's a family-first program," Korpi said. "You know how it speaks all the time about how we put our family first. And I think part of that is us as one. You know, all of us are family now, and we put each other before each other."
Coach Hauge, who returned for his fourth season this year, led the team to a top four finish in the ECAC Hockey standings last year. Hauge says he's grateful to be a part of the guys’ lives.
"At times, you make mistakes as you go and as a coach, but like, you really get to know them and stuff like this and just their personalities, their quirks, they're funny stories, they're inside jokes. And maybe even an inside joke is probably about me," Hauge. "But it's, it's pretty special to have a group that you know, you can you say that they are family. My nine-year-old is in tears right now, crying because all his all the people he looks up to a are hurting. And I think that's pretty special."
