Northern Exposure H


The Ice Jacks have their sights set on a rise to college hockey prominence By Brett Fera


at nationals might have to live with no ice within 90 miles - for good?


ow does the old saying go? “Neither hail, nor sleet, nor snow…”


Any other organization could have crumbled under the circumstances. Any other program - forced to spend parts of two seasons not only with no home games, but also making a five-hour roundtrip for practices - would have surely lost its identity.


But not this team, not in this town. For more than four decades, Northern Arizona University’s college hockey program has been a community staple and beacon of athletic persever- ance. At times merely competitive, at other times downright dominant, the Ice Jacks have succeed- ed in large part over the years because they’ve always been Flagstaff’s team. With a renewed presence at club hockey’s Division II and Division III levels as members of the American Collegiate Hockey Association, Ice Jacks leadership is confident that it’s got a stron- ger stranglehold on its Northern Arizona roots than ever before. And that’s how it should be - es- pecially in a hockey community ravaged by a bit of bad luck over the two years in a cool-climate, mountain city that feels like it was built to become a hockey hotbed.


Playing Through Pain If the events of January of 2010 weren’t bad enough, the aftermath looked downright disastrous for an established, but evolving Jacks program.


“We weren’t going to let that happen,” Fairch- ild said. “There was no way.”


NAU players, alumni, fans and other local hockey supporters held fundraisers, packed city council meetings, and demanded that the rink be rebuilt.


D-II head coach Keith Johanson - a longtime area-resident and business owner, contributor to the FYHA and former Flagstaff High School head coach who Fairchild calls “the perfect hire” - couldn’t help but dive in to the efforts as well. The calls were heard and work soon started. NAU would eventually raise money to buy new boards and glass, and recently brought in another $40,000 to help double capacity and put new seats


off as the third season with both D-II and D-III programs got underway last month.


“We had 33 new kids come in this year. I really like the influx of talent we have on both teams,” Fairchild said. “We should show a tremendous improvement.”


While the first season saw both teams exhibit plenty of tempered signs of success - including the D-II team narrowly missing the regional tourna- ment - it was last year that the cap exploded off the bottle once again. The D-II team played 26 road games and 11 at home, but still managed to knocked off both of its in-state rivals, and make some noise at regionals.


NAU didn’t make nationals, but Fairchild is confident that’s not a trend that will hold for much longer.


“That’s the goal,” he said of nationals. “Every year.”


Building on Tradition In beating Arizona State


University’s D-II team, as well as the University of Arizona’s D-I program last season, NAU proved that college puck in Arizona may have finally come full circle once again as two talented rosters of players get yet another season of Ice Jacks hockey underway. While there’s no denying that


With a permanent home rink in Flagstaff, the Northern Arizona University hockey program is expecting big things from both its ACHA Division II and Division III teams this season. Photo/Matt Esaena


A four-day blizzard hit the region that month, dropping more than six feet of snow. The Jay Lively Activity Center, the city-operated ice rink, was closed indefinitely when its roof caved in. That word - indefinitely - could have been cata- strophic. But the program did what it’s always done, says Ice Jacks general manager AJ Fairch- ild. It fought.


In collaboration with the City of Flagstaff, Flagstaff Youth Hockey Association and the Flag- staff Figure Skating Club - among others local supporters - the Ice Jacks fought to find a way to rebuild their home. But with a local and national economy still reeling, the prospect actually ex- isted that the rink may never be rebuilt at all. Could it be that a team fresh off a pair of na- tional tournament appearances and a No. 1 seed


in. But that doesn’t mean the 10 months after the rink closed were a cakewalk. The Ice Jacks wouldn’t play another home game until October of that year, and practiced sparingly in Tempe, 150 miles away.


Perseverance Pays Off


No home ice would have been hard enough if the NAU organization hadn’t just gone through a self-induced seismic shift. After years of com- peting for national championships as a absolute offensive powerhouse in D-III, management real- ized that not only was the talent there to move the team up to Division II, but enough interest surrounded the program to add a second team - back in Division III.


The move proved difficult for the program through the issues with the rink, but it’s paid


ASU’s D-I program has become an annual national contender and the UA program is under- going a facelift this season, it’s NAU that’s quietly put up a storied history for itself. At least five former NAU play- ers have played in the NHL or


been drafted by NHL teams, and while those may have come from the program’s heyday in the 1970s as an NCAA Division I program, that’s not to say the talent bus doesn’t still exit Interstate 17 at University Drive. With current leading men like fifth-year senior


forward Barett Buckowich, an Illinois native, along with linemates Nick Short (Gilbert) and Taylor Dustin (Colorado) and goalie Quinn Mason (Laguna, Calif., by way of Phoenix) and defenseman Rob Brown (New Jersey by way of Chandler), Fairchild is certain the Ice Jacks will be able to sustain excellence for years to come. “It’s really nice playing 16 at home and 17 on the road this year. I think that’s going to give us a lot better opportunity to be successful,” Fairchild said. “Our players give us that, too. This group can play.”


WWW.PUCKHEADHOCKEY.COM 6 magazine


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