If you told someone who fell asleep in 2012, Rip Van Winkle style, then woke up in 2024 that the St. Thomas men’s hockey team was in first place in mid-January, they probably wouldn’t be surprised.
After all, the Tommies were routinely league champions of the MIAC in their Division III days.
However, they might be slightly more shocked if you told them that the Tommies are now a Division I program and are still two years from being NCAA tournament eligible, and the league they were leading was the CCHA.
The Tommies rose to the top of the league table this week, when they swept Michigan Tech for the first time in program history and leapfrogged idle Bemidji State to take first place.
So, if you are Rip Van Winkle and are somehow reading this column, well… surprise! It’s only been two and a half years, but St. Thomas has built itself into a solid Division I program capable of competing for a MacNaughton Cup and sweeping a perennial CCHA title competitor in Michigan Tech.
This isn’t shocking to Rico Blasi. When asked this week if he was “surprised” to see the Tommies atop the standings at this point, St. Thomas’ coach said no.
“‘Surprise’ is probably not the right word. I know the work that we’ve put in, and I know the work the guys put in over the summer, the things that they did in preparation of the season. But that’s probably true for every team in the country,” Blasi said. “This is what we do, we want to be playing meaningful games in the months of January and February. Hopefully you’re in the position to be playing for something. We’ve put ourselves in that spot.
“Obviously, we’re happy about it, but it also means the guys are buying into the culture and the process by which we do things.”
Serious college hockey fans have already seen the Tommies evolve, as have rival coaches.
Northern Michigan coach Grant Potulny, whose team takes on the Wildcats in a two-game series this weekend in Marquette, said the Tommies are playing the kind of hockey he wants his team to get back to.
“You watch St. Thomas now, they’re playing with confidence, they’re fast, they’re physical, and they’re playing a very good brand of hockey,” he said in his weekly media conference this week.
Michigan Tech coach Joe Shawhan went one step further. The Tommies received one first-place vote in the CCHA’s annual preseason coaches poll, which was conducted way back in September. Shawhan later revealed he was the coach who voted for the Tommies.
Unfortunately for Shawhawn’s team this weekend, the Tommies might have been a little too good in showing why his prediction was warranted. St. Thomas won 4-3 win on Thursday night thanks in part to a late power play goal by Mason Poolman, then rallied to win 3-1 in Saturday thanks to some heroic goaltending from both Jake Sibell and Aaron Trotter. Sibell made 27 saves but had to leave the game after a collision with just under minutes to go in the third; Trotter finished out the rest of the contest to help St. Thomas earn the sweep.
So the Tommies have, in sweeping the Huskies, gotten one step closer to fulfilling Shawhan’s prediction. Granted, it’s still early, and the current standings bear this out. St. Thomas has 27 league points while the second-place Beavers have 25. Both of those teams, though, have played 14 games. Third-place Lake Superior State, with 24 points, has played 15. Fourth-place Minnesota State (23 points) and fifth-place Tech (19) have both played 12.
Because of how tight things are, any time you can get any points is a positive. But beating Michigan Tech at home for the first time – and taking six points in the process – is even better.
“I thought it was a good weekend for our team,” Blasi said of sweeping the Huskies. “Obviously, getting a sweep in our league and in college hockey is the hardest thing to do, so any time you can come away on the weekend with a sweep, you’ve got to feel pretty good about yourself.”
