Hockey first crossed the minds of Marist students all the way back in 1960 when they started playing ice hockey on a frozen swimming pool. Their interest in the sport eventually led to the formation of the Marist men’s club hockey team that has since grown into one of the more popular club sports on campus.
The team’s origin story lines up with how many student clubs get started; student interest from the campus population eventually snowballs into something much greater.
But what happens when the school tries to start something new by creating excitement and student interest?
That is exactly what Randy Hurlbert, the general manager of Marist Hockey, is aiming to find out as he explores creating a women’s club hockey team out of the foundation built with the men’s team.
On April 5, the hockey program hosted an open skate at McCann Ice Arena in an attempt to gauge and generate interest in a women’s team. At the event, women with interest in playing hockey had the opportunity to show off their skills in front of the current men’s club hockey head coach, Anthony LoBianco.
The women skated alongside some of the men, such as team captain Anthony Russo, that are on the pre-existing team. Throughout the day, the men provided various pointers and techniques to the women that helped improve their skating and puck handling ability.
The open skate began with a free skate in which the players showed their ability to maneuver around the ice and get comfortable before the drills started. After the free skate, Coach LoBianco gathered everyone and introduced himself before organizing everyone into two lines for a horseshoe warm up.
Once the warmup concluded, they went straight into three-on-three scrimmages where the players showed a quick ability to build chemistry as they picked apart the men’s team players in goal. There were a variety of impressive plays, including a particularly magnificent goal on a shot through the five hole by Grace DeMarco.
The open skate ended with a simple drill in which the players were divided into two lines in front of each goal with the task of beating the goalie one-on-one, simulating the goal scoring opportunity of a player getting past the opposing defense. The drill tested their ability to score on breakaway, an important skill for any hockey team.
If the women’s team is to come to fruition in the future, perhaps the most forefront benefit is the opportunity for women hockey players at Marist to play the sport in college just as the men do.
“I think it is super cool that they are putting effort into starting a women’s program,” said Lizzy Kloss, a manager for the men’s team who participated in the open skate.
The need for an opportunity for women to play has always been on Hurlbert’s mind because of managers like Kloss.
“Since coming on board in 2016, at least one of my managers has been a hockey player that would certainly play for a women’s team if we offered it,” Hurlbert said. “There’s only benefits to starting a women’s program and to have more people in the school playing hockey makes people more aware and makes them want to come out and support.”
So far, the efforts to start a women’s team have been met with positive feedback. Stephen D’Alessandro, the assistant athletic director for intramural and club sports, has been trying to start a women’s team for a while. He believes this open skate was a huge step in the right direction.
“We’ve had some interest throughout this year that we think we can keep building off of as we head into next year,” he said. “We have to be reactionary to what the student interest looks like as we continue to grow. We have a couple ideas we’re bouncing around on how we’re going to continue to grow that.”
“If you’ve got people that want to start a club but they’ve never done it before, things are a lot more difficult,” D’Alessandro continued. “Today showed me that’s not where we’re at with this. It’s people that want to start a club that actually have played hockey and know what they’re doing.”
Along with the need to recruit an entirely new roster, the biggest obstacle to getting the team off the ground is financial. Running the men’s team requires a significant amount of money by itself, so adding a second team to the hockey program would likely necessitate a close look at the budget provided to the program by Marist’s Student Activities Department.
But despite the need for financial flexibility, there is a lot of upside to a women’s team addition as well. The women on Marist’s campus who are interested in playing hockey are passionate, and there may be no clearer example of that passion than Quinlyn Maloney, a current senior who spent some time on the men’s team as a player herself.
“I do believe Marist Athletics was doing a major disservice to female hockey players through not having a women’s team here, and I am happy that now all future women will have the opportunity to play here,” Maloney said. “I believe through further publicity and recruitment, I can definitely see a Marist women’s club ice hockey team being more than feasible.”
Kira Crutcher, who like Maloney is a senior, also took part in the open skate to show support despite being aware that she will not be playing a role on the team in the future.
“Although I won’t be able to participate, I definitely think any girl who wants to play hockey, even if they haven’t before, should come out and try to participate.”
Ideally, Hurlbert wants the women’s team to get started as soon as possible by using the stability already provided by the men’s team. If a women’s team does come to fruition, Hurlbert intends to register it as independent, a contrast from the men’s team that is part of the American Collegiate Hockey Association and the Super East Collegiate Hockey League. Being independent would allow the team to operate with fewer regulations but also make it more difficult for the team to get notoriety, a tradeoff Hurlbert is willing to make.
However, there is still more work to be done before a women’s team can officially take the ice: enough student interest needs to be generated to have a stable 10-person roster, a budget needs to be agreed upon and other logistical tasks like scheduling need to be taken care of.
As such, there is no exact timeline as to when a Marist women’s club hockey team may take the ice. But with increased attention from the hockey program and the athletic department as a whole, perhaps soon the women hockey players at Marist will have a team, too.
Edited by Hayden Shapiro and Max Rosen
Photo via Janiece Kerr
For more coverage of Marist athletics, follow @cfmarist on Instagram, X, TikTok, and Bluesky. Sign up to receive daily alerts here.