Ahead of the 2024-25 season, we had a chance to sit down with the Men’s Hockey leadership group and discuss what makes Northeastern hockey so special. Thanks to Men’s Hockey SID Sidney Binger for facilitating and helping to make this happen.
If you attend hockey practice at Matthews Arena, the first thing you will notice as you watch the Men’s Hockey team is the sheer speed with which they go about their business. Every drill, every line rush, every lap around the ice, players fly around in a blur of black and red. The screech of a whistle and the subsequent instructional feedback from the coaching staff echo through the historic arena. All eyes are attentive to the lesson at hand, and as soon as it ends, the whistle blows and the pace dials up again.
When you ask anyone on the ice about it, they are quick to point out that that’s just Husky Hockey.
“Everyone’s hungry to get better, as a team, as a ‘we’,” said Jackson Dorrington when asked about the culture within Northeastern hockey. “It’s everyone putting in that extra work to become the best team you can be. Everyone has their individual goals, but if everyone is driving to that team goal of winning a national championship, it elevates everyone individually.”
That sentiment was echoed by Dorrington’s teammates as well. “The culture here is hard work, pushing yourself and your teammates every day,” added Cam Lund, one of four assistant captains with fellow juniors Dorrington, Vinny Borgesi, and graduate student transfer Jake Boltmann. Their captain, junior Jack Williams, succinctly put it in a simple phrase: “Everything here is earned, not given…that will be true wherever you go [after Northeastern], and Coach Keefe does a great job preparing us for that.”
A Pro Mentality Leads to Pro Players
The results are speaking for themselves. Since arriving at Northeastern as assistant coach to Jim Madigan in 2011, now-head coach Jerry Keefe has overseen a new golden age of Northeastern hockey, culminating in five Beanpot titles, two Hockey East Tournament championships, one Hockey East Regular Season Championship, and fifteen players making their debut in the National Hockey League- nearly half of all the NHL alums in program history.
“Everything here is run very pro,” stated Williams proudly. “On the ice, every single day is learning how to be a pro, what’s best for your body.” Lund added, “You have all the resources here you could imagine- coaching staff, strength coach, you have it all. Being able to talk to any of them any time you need, watching video, getting extra work in in the weight room and on the ice, it helps overall to better you as a player and as a person.”
Part of improving as a player is finding your identity within your team’s system, and playing the style that is best for your own success. Dorrington credits the staff in helping him find this in a big way: “Through video and skills, I feel like I’ve developed my game, I know what my identity is and I play to that identity. It’s important to know your identity because early as a freshman some players can be lost in that sense, and they’ll help you find that identity and play to that, and that’s how you build trust in coaches, both here and in the pros.”
Even the new guy in the room, Boltmann, who transferred after four seasons at Notre Dame in the Big Ten Conference, has noticed immediately what makes Northeastern hockey click. “Northeastern treats each and every guy here like a pro and does everything here with a pro mentality and pro approach. How we go about practice, meetings, film, workouts, I think that is what makes this place pretty special and you see it with the coaches, how they’ve produced NHL guys.”
And those NHL guys continue to have an impact even after they are gone from the program. Every recruit in the nation watches professional hockey and follows college hockey social media closely. Recruits take notice of programs having success in getting other players where they want to go. “You look at the defensemen that came through here and there’s a lot of big names that have moved on to the next level and had success and I wanted to do that for myself,” proclaimed Dorrington.
Borgesi adds that those NHL players made lasting impacts on their teammates while at Northeastern. “Me learning from those guys in the past helped me develop so much. For example, [Jayden] Struble, he’s played a full year in Montreal now, and the way he goes about each and every day, and Aidan McDonough and Justin Hryckowian, those guys have a routine each and every day in and out of the rink, and that’s something I’ve taken as an aspect for myself to get to that next level. It’s about getting 1% better every day.”
“The Standard is The Standard.”
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin popularized that phrase as the bedrock of his coaching philosophy. It is a simple phrase that emphasizes and highlights consistency, resilience, accountability, and adaptability, all to maintain the level of expectations year in, year out. Even as faces and personnel change, the goals and the focus do not.
In college hockey in the year 2024, there is unprecedented movement. Players transfer in and out of schools seemingly like the wind, in addition to players who graduate and sign professional contracts. This can create a lot of turnover year to year, and this year Northeastern is no exception, with fifteen new faces in the locker room. Getting everyone on the same page of what Husky Hockey is, and how to play that style, will be imperative to Northeastern’s success this year.
“Husky hockey is a pro style of hockey,” Williams declares, echoing back to the professional attitude of the program. “It’s getting over pucks, it’s forechecking, playing the game the right way, it’s not cheating for offense, it’s being a smart hockey player.” Boltmann adds, “It’s a blue collar mentality we have this year, we want to be hard to play against, play as fast as possible, shove it down their throats when we can.” And Borgesi takes an even deeper approach to what it means: “It’s about the logo on the sweater, taking a lot of pride wearing that jersey, coming to the rink every day and working for what they got.”
So how does a leadership group foster that standard in a new season with so many new faces and personalities, especially as juniors being asked to fill every leadership role when the program has no traditional senior class?
“On day one, bringing people together,” says Lund. “The best way to get close is hanging out as a team and building that bond right from stepping foot on campus.” Borgesi agrees: “Early in the offseason with new players, it’s important to be a voice for them to lean on and be there for them if you need to. Especially on and off the ice.” And some players have their own unique leadership styles. Borgesi admits he is more of a vocal leader and louder voice in the locker room. Dorrington acknowledged he’s a quieter, lead by example type of player. Each leader has their way to demonstrate the standard, and act as the role model for their teammates to stay the course and keep the standard established regardless of what’s happening around the team, good or bad.
The captain drove home that last point in one of the most thoughtful comments of the interview: “Not everyone can be the same mindset and function the same way. Some guys can be dialed in 24/7 and [hockey] is all they think about. Some guys need to get away, and learning how everyone is different and learning how to be around those differences, that’s ok, that’s what makes them a good player.
Things are going to be tough, that’s why you train. You trust the work you put in in the offseason to get you there. It doesn’t matter if it’s going well or not, you can’t get too high and you can’t get too low. You just have to be in the moment.”
Lessons From the Past Applied in the Present
The five players in this season’s leadership group were all quick to credit those that came before them in helping define what it means to be a Northeastern hockey player.
Each of the juniors have had two captains at Northeastern: Justin Hryckowian last year, who signed after the season with the Dallas Stars, and Aidan McDonough, who the year prior signed with the Vancouver Canucks and quickly made his NHL debut and scored his first NHL goal.
“Dunzo was a little more outspoken, Ritzy was just totally lead by example. You could tell the love he had for hockey, how bad he wanted it, and it radiated through the room,” said Dorrington. “They were pros when they were here with how they carried themselves, so trying to implement that into my lifestyle to show everyone that’s what we do here.”
Williams echoed those sentiments: “Go about your business and do the same thing every single day. Guys see that and hopefully model after you.” Borgesi remembers what the leaders early in his career did for him, and tries to emulate that: “It’s about helping the younger guys in practice, telling them what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong, it’s also being there for support and helping them figure out what college hockey means and what it means to play under these coaches and to wear that jersey.”
Both Lund and Boltmann had similar responses when asked what lessons from previous leaders they have learned that they are applying now in their leadership roles. “[Just] enjoying every single second of it,” waxed Lund. “College flies by and just being able to enjoy coming to the rink and your best friends who become family, embrace that and enjoy playing the game of hockey.”
Boltmann, the elder statesman of the group and one of the oldest players on the team, echoed those remarks. “This goes by so fast and it’s hard to put into words how it feels to be playing my 5th year of college, it feels like yesterday where i was a freshman. So trying to instill that with guys…be present each and every day, work your tail off every day to get better.”
Ultimately, that’s the central tenant of Northeastern Husky hockey. Working to get 1% better every day, as Borgesi put it. This season makes 14 for Jerry Keefe at Northeastern since starting with Madigan in 2011, and in that time, the pillars upon which all success is built have remained unchanged: Get better. Pay attention to the details. Learn from the players and people around you. Earn everything that you want and earn the right to play for this school. It’s interwoven into the fabric of Northeastern, through the air of Matthews Arena, and in an age where “culture” gets thrown around about every team and every program, Northeastern’s timeless mindset has proven successful then, now, and will continue to prove successful in the years to come.