While most students are nestled into their warm, comfortable beds, the men’s club ice hockey team is strapping on its pads and hitting the ice.
While the average student is rolling over and hitting the snooze button for the third time, these men are skating laps and running drills. And while students are grabbing a Pop Tart and heading to the bus stop, some of the hockey players are racing down the Inner Beltline, trying to make it back in time for an 8 a.m. class.
Goaltender Will White, a sophomore in accounting, said he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I started playing hockey at 6 or 7,” Will said. “I fell in love with it at a young age, and at this point, I can’t imagine not playing hockey.”
Club president Nick Cosentino, a senior in biology who is a forward for the team, said while the team has bounced around from division to division, the tradition of ice hockey at N.C. State is still very strong.
“We’ve been around since the late 70s — around the time the ACCHL teams started showing up. There weren’t a lot of rinks around here, and they actually had to go to Hillsborough [to practice]. So if you think showing up here at 6:15 is bad, they had to go to Hillsborough,” Cosentino said.”Basically, most of these guys come here for the academics, for the education value. They’re from up North most of the time — we’ve had a couple of kids from Canada in the past — they come down here for the education, and they’re surprised to find that we have hockey here.”
It has been a tough road to the ice this year, with several former team members departing and a steep decline in funds from the University.
“In the past, we’ve been one of the highest-paid clubs. We used to receive $7,500 from the entire Club Sports Council. First year I got here — four years ago — we had problems with a club officer, and we lost all that money,” Cosentino said. “We had to start back at zero, and we’ve been working our way up ever since. We had a lot of problems with that because we didn’t account for all that money we lost from the clubs, and we fell into debt. But we pulled ourselves out of it, and we have a clean slate this year.”
In addition, the team welcomed a new head coach, Larry Laurinatis.
Defenseman Wes White, a sophomore in business management, said the team had some difficulties in finding someone to fill the position.
“Me and Nick found the new coaches. We basically went door-to-door around town, to different pro shops and people in the hockey community, and we were lucky enough to find Larry,” Wes said. “He’s a good coach; we’re glad to have him. Our coaching staff this year is younger than we’ve had in the past. Our head coach this year is in his early 30s; he works at a local pro shop here in town, so it’s good for the players getting sponsorships. He used to coach at our rival Chapel Hill, but we brought him here to the good side.”
Laurinatis said he was more than happy to take the reigns, and he is looking forward to the season ahead.
“I know a number [of] the guys. Actually there’s a number of guys that I’ve been coaching for awhile, and I was asked at the end of last year if I’d be interested,” Laurinatis said. “I had been out of it for a while, enjoying my free time, but there was that void. I always missed coaching, and I wanted to get back into it. One of my goals is to see the team become more competitive. I want not only the NCHL to see that N.C. State hockey is for real, but some other divisions to start recognizing us. So far I think we have some of the tools required to get to that point.”
Cosentino said the team has a chance to do very well this year, with a core of young but driven new members.
“This year we’ve got a lot of guys who are committed, and they’re not afraid to go out into the community and raise some funds,” Cosentino said. “Overall, I think we’ll be more successful this year because we’ve got more commitment throughout the team.”
Fan attendance is harder to come by, as the games are held off-campus at the RecZone and the club is not well-known. However, Wes said the fans the team has are as devoted as any.
“We usually get about 400 to 500 fans for our games, which may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it gets pretty loud in there,” Wes said.
Dan Masiulis, a junior in technology education who led the ACCHL in scoring last year, said team road trips are equally entertaining.
“We stay nights in hotels, and it’s always fun because we pull pranks on each other,” Masiulis said. “It’s always a blast, always a good time.”Cosentino likened the team to a ‘band of brothers.’
Masiulis reflected that idea.
“We’re like family,” Masiulis said. “We’re best friends; we do everything together. Wherever we go, it’s always calling them first, and we go out together — that’s how it is.”
