College diary with Greg Boxer

The Decision

    As many of you know, I was fortunate enough to be able to play four years of high school hockey in NJ, and had the best time of life doing so. When it came time to decide what was the next step in my life, I considered four different options:
1-Doing a post graduate year.
2-Playing a year of juniors.
3-Going to a college with a solid club team (ACHA).
4-Or, try my luck at a NCAA Division 3 school and just hope for the best.
    I quickly dismissed juniors as an option; I am not going to play pro hockey, and I really wanted to move on with my life, and take that first step towards being an adult. Taking a year off from school just didn’t seem like the right option for me. Doing a PG year was very appealing, but I waited to long to contact any coaches and by the time I finally made some connections, they had already recruited goalies. If you are thinking of doing a pg year, make sure you talk to the coach very early, you will find that the spots get taken up fast, especially for goalies. After a lot of thought, I felt that club hockey would be the most realistic way for me to play collegiate hockey as a true freshman, so I decided to apply to Virginia, Muhlenberg and Gettysburg, however I still applied to 3 schools with varsity hockey, Babson, Trinity, and Wesleyan. I was able to establish a relationship with the UVA coach, who is a great guy. He expressed a sincere interest for me to come and play for him, and I fell in love with the place. Unfortunately I was not accepted into the university, which made me alter my plans again. Of all the schools I applied to, I had only personally met with the UVA coach, and the Wesleyan coach. Wesleyan was never that interested, and I came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t the place for me. The Trinity coach responded to my email, but said that he had 4 goalies coming in, so there was no place for me on the team. I spoke on email with an assistant coach from Babson, who was very positive. His last email to me said “there may be an opportunity for you to be part of the program”. That may not seem like much, but it was still a chance. So it was decided, Babson College would be my future home for the next 4 years. It also happened to be my first choice for a school academically, which made the decision all the more easier.

The Adjustment

    Babson is a small school, only 1700 undergraduates, so it had a very comfortable feeling right away. When I arrived to school, I brought all my stuff up to my room, as well as my hockey gear, not knowing any other place to put it. It was at that moment, the first day at school, carrying my hockey gear into my dorm room that a dream of mine started. One of the freshman hockey recruits, who is now my roommate, happened to be living down the hall from me, and saw me carrying my gear. When we saw each other later in the day, we started talking about hockey. He told me that coach mentioned a goalie from Jersey was going to tryout, and that he was interested in seeing him. He gave me the coach’s phone number, and told me about all of the pre-season workouts. Keep in mind I had absolutely no idea how to go about playing hockey at this school. You can’t just show up at tryouts and expect to make the team. It is IMPERATIVE to participate in all the preseason workouts and captains' practices. I called the coach, told him who I was and that I was interested in trying out. I had previously been in contact with an assistant coach over the summer, so I believe he had at least some idea who I was. He said to make sure I was at all the preseason events.
    Preseason started the second week of school, so I thought it would be best to try and get to know the team before that. My new roommate happened to be very good friends with a number of kids on the team, so he introduced me to everyone. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was very old. Being a 21-year-old freshman was actually very common, which can be pretty intimidating. And there was an abundance of 23-year-old juniors. This was something I expected, but you can’t really prepare for it. However, it turned out that every guy on the team, whether they were 1 year older than me or 6, was really supportive of me trying out for team, and did everything they could to make me feel comfortable. That definitely helped me feel like I belonged, and made things a lot of fun.

The Schoolwork

    As classes really began to start, I was overwhelmed by the amount of homework given. I had at least 3 hours a night, if I did it the right way, and in some cases up to 5 and 6 hours. It was very difficult to motivate myself to sit down and do the work because there were just so many distractions; kids running in and out of my room, instant messaging, the TV, all of which are deadly to a college student trying to get work done. Day by day I started to get used to the workload, and I finally was able to force myself to sit down and do my work. I found that establishing a certain routine is extremely important in being successful at college, both academically and athletically. After I got into a routine the work became easier and easier, which allowed me to dedicate more energy toward hockey.

The Workouts

    During the second week of school, the fitness test began.
    Sit-ups in a minute, push-ups in a minute, total pull-ups, 2-mile run, and benching your body weight 3 sets of 10 reps, or however many you can do. Almost everyone on the team was in amazing shape, and was strong as anyone I have seen. Kids were benching well over 250 pounds, and running the 2-mile in the 10-minute range. After seeing this, I had to make a commitment to getting into shape. I didn’t really hit the gym that hard this summer, and was noticeably smaller than every player on the team, both from in height and weight. Preseason consisted of 2 on ice sessions of 2 hours, where we just scrimmaged, with the loser having to do sprints, and 3 days of dry land training. We usually did plyometrics twice a week, where would do multiple sprints, shuttles, squats, and other tiring exercises of the like. The other day of the week, we were required to do a 6-mile run. Hockey players are not long distance runners, and a 6 miler just eats you alive.
    On top of the preseason practices, it was imperative that I got myself into the gym to develop some strength and mass, something that I will need to be working on until I graduate. The kids on the team usually lifted after the dry land training, so I took of advantage of a few of the kids’ knowledge of training, having them develop a plan for me. This made the preseason a very tiring experience, getting up early for class (I have three 8 am classes a week and two 9:45 am classes), going to the team practices, working out on my own, eating enough food, and having sufficient time for homework, all in one day so that I could still get enough sleep to be functional.

On The Ice

    I was very excited and nervous about getting on the ice for the first time. I had no idea what to expect; yes I have played against some D 1,2 and 3 players through certain camps and games, but never against an entire team. It was really important to me that I leave a good impression, so that the guys would take me seriously. I wouldn’t say I put on a mouth dropping performance, but I made some good stops, and showed that I could play a little. Making that first save was the biggest relief, as it took a lot of the pressure off of me.
    During the entire preseason, I had only spoken with the coach once, for less than a minute, when I introduced myself. He was not allowed to be at our practices, so I really had no idea what my fate was going to be. I just kept working hard, and hoping for the best. The schoolwork continued to pile on me, but I took care of it. However, all this had been such great news; something bad was bound to happen. I went into the feared slump. I was letting in horrendous goals, especially five holes. After you let in a few bad goals to players at this caliber, they start to lose patience with you. This can take a big hit on your confidence level, and I had a string of really bad performances. If not for the other goalies on the team I might not have come out of it.
    At the start of preseason there were four goalies, a returning senior, the returning sophomore-starting goalie, a very talented freshman recruit, and I. All three of the goalies were very supportive of me, telling me I had what it took to play for this team, and that I had nothing to worry about. This support really made me feel like myself again, and I had the best practice of the preseason that week. All of the players really responded to that, and made sure to tell me how well I played. Things like this always get back to the coach, and can only help. I brought this new confidence into the next practice and played pretty well, but tryouts were getting close.

Tryouts

    Tryouts started Saturday, Nov 1^st, with a 9 am and 7 pm session, for a total of 5 hours on ice. I believe the term that can best describe the tryout is bag skate. Never in my life have I done so many sprints, followed by more sprints, followed by even more sprints. When we finally got into shooting drills I couldn’t even stand up, but somehow I was able to stop a good amount of shots, and made it out of the first session alive and feeling pretty good about my chances.
    My expectations going into the tryout was that I would be the 4^th string goalie, used pretty much for practice, never dressing for games. However, the night before tryouts the returning senior goalie quit. He was burnt out and just hated playing. It’s too bad though; he was a great kid and a big supporter of mine. This got me a little anxious; I knew the team would keep three goalies, and only three of us were at the tryout, so I started to get very optimistic of making the team.
    The second practice on Saturday was a lot easier for me; my legs got their second wind. I thought I played pretty well Saturday night as well, and was almost convinced I would be on the team, but I still had not heard a word from coach. Sunday morning was the last day of tryouts, so I figured I would find out if I made team after the practice. No such information was disclosed after Sunday’s class, but I was not told to not come back to practice Monday, so I took this as a good sign. When I walked in the locker room for Monday’s practice, I was getting dressed when one of the other goalies told me to look at the roster on the board. There it was, and I was on it. It was one of the most exciting moments in my hockey life, a culmination of years and years of hard work, and people telling me I couldn’t play college hockey without going to prep school or playing juniors.

The Name Above The Stall

    On Tuesday I came in, and above one of the stalls was a nameplate that said 29 BOXER. Now I knew it was true and that I had made the team. Two months of preseason, and now I was here.  Now that I am on the team, I know that I have to work even harder, so that I might be able to play one day.
    The most difficult thing about being on the team is coming from Bernards, where I started pretty much every game since my freshman year, to being a 3^rd string goalie in college. I will be dressing every game, but I don’t know if I'll see any ice time. This creates an interesting emotion for me. I do get very excited for each game, always rooting for the other goalie to play well; however, I don’t get that nervous energy I used to get before a game. My heart doesn’t start beating fast, and I don’t get all antsy. It is very hard getting pumped up for a game when you know you are going to be on the bench. However, being on the bench makes me more pumped up for practices than ever before, motivating me to get better. All I think about now is playing hockey, training over the summer, doing whatever I can do to get better and play for this team.
    On Friday, November 14^th, we played Tufts in our only preseason game. I was really looking forward to this scrimmage, as it was going to be my first time to see Division 3 hockey at this level. I also thought there might be a chance I would play if we were beating them badly enough. 
    At 1:30 we had an optional skate, for about 45 minutes. Every guy was on the ice, with most of the players in half equipment, just shooting around and getting loose. Everyone was due back at the rink in suits no later than 3:45, so we could watch the 2003-2004 NCAA officiating video. After the video, which was around 4:15, we went to the cafeteria as a team, and ate a late lunch. We were all due back at the rink no later than 5:30. At 6:00 the ref came into our locker room and went over all the new officiating rules of the season.
     Everything at the college level is very structured and organized, especially when it comes to game day procedures. We have a clock in the locker room with a timer, and they set the timer for 60 minutes, an hour before game time. So at 6:00 the clock started to go down. At 38:00 we go on the ice for warm-ups, for a little over 20 minutes. We then go back into the locker room for an ice cut, and return to the ice for the game with one-minute left on the timer. For a preseason game we actually had a good amount of fans, probably around 500. We play 20-minute periods, with ice cuts in between each. After Tufts tied it at 1, we opened the door on them and beat them 9-2. I didn’t get any playing time, something I would have to get used to.

The Real Season

    The real season was about to begin. We opened up with Hamilton College on Friday, and Amherst College on Saturday. Hamilton has a storied tradition with their first home game, calling it the “Orange Bowl”. The arena is sold out, well over a thousand fans, all wearing orange shirts. The trick is, when Hamilton scores their first goal of the season, all the fans throw oranges at the visiting team.
    We left school on Friday at 11:00 am, and got ready for a 6-hour bus ride. We finally arrived at Hamilton, and were anxious to play. When we went out for warm-ups there were a lot of fans already there, but they were relatively calm. However, when we went out for the game, the place was a nut house. Everyone was shaking the glass, screaming as loud as they could. We couldn’t hear a thing, and the arena felt like it was moving. It was defiantly one of the most thrilling events in my hockey career. Hamilton came out flying and scored first, which was then followed by the fans’ throwing of the oranges at us. They went up 3-1 going into the third, but we fought back and ended up winning 6-4. It was a really exciting game, but also a tough one for me, as I had to watch it all from the bench.

On The Road

    We drove back to Amherst, MA after the game, and went right to bed in our hotel. We followed the same routine as always against Amherst; however this game would be a much different one than the night before. There were only a few hundred, very quite fans, and the feeling was a lot less exciting. We dominated the game, but allowed them to score a late power play goal to tie the game up. Once again, it was a very frustrating game to watch us let them come back, especially not having any control over the game from the bench.

Holiday Tournament

    While everyone got to go home after classes on Friday, we had to stay at school all week, getting only Thanksgiving Day and the day before off. We had practices all week, with a game against Salve Regina on Tuesday. We beat Salve, 7-3, in a very sloppy game, full of penalties. I came home right after the game, but had to be back Friday morning for practice. This is a very hard thing about playing hockey in college; you lose almost all of your break times.
    Babson hosts an annual hockey tournament over Thanksgiving break, and this year we opened up against Fitchburg State. We beat them 11-1, and it was a little disappointing because I thought I would maybe get some playing time after we went up 7-1 after the second period. Unfortunately I sat on the bench and watched. This set up the championship game between us, and previously nationally ranked Elmira College. In a game marred with penalties we lost 3-1, and blew a huge chance to really be seen in the national eye as a top team.

     A Bit of Advice

    I have learned so many things in this young season, and if I had to give one piece of advice to anyone who seriously wants to play hockey in college it is this:
    Do a PG year or play a year of juniors if possible.
    That doesn't mean leave NJ hockey. In fact, I think its great to stay in NJ and play, but it is so difficult to step into a good NCAA program as a walk on and not only make the team, but contribute. That doesn’t mean it's impossible, but it's just very hard.

Springtime Hockey

    As the spring semester began, we had already experienced so much as a team. We had been ranked as low as 11^th in the country, and beaten some of the top 5 teams such as Plattsburg and RIT, yet we had lost to St Mike’s and Wesleyan. A lot of people were feeling very bad about the team’s situation, and that we really had no where else to go but lose in the semifinals to New England College like every other year. After the loss to St Mike’s we dropped out of the National ranking, with pretty much no chance to get back in. We continued to struggle as we lost to Southern Maine, one of the lower skilled teams in our division. We had a team meeting for over 2 hours in the hotel after that game, and everyone came out with their problems, issues, and goals for the rest of the season. It was the type of meeting that changed everyone’s feelings toward the season. We went out the next day and beat Salem State (featuring fellow New Jersey native Mike Dowd), which had beaten Middlebury earlier in the year.
            Our next big game was Middlebury, who at the time was ranked 2 in the country. This would turn out to be a huge event at Babson, as our sports marketing department set out to get a lot of fans. Over 1500 people packed into our small rink, and as we ran onto the ice to our own laser light and fog show, the place was insane. All of the boards and glass were shaking, and it made my heart beat like you wouldn’t believe. Unfortunately, we did not play to our potential and lost 6-2 to Middlebury, the eventual national champions for this season. Although disappointed with the game, we would go on to win 5 of our last 6 games, ending with an 8-1 loss to New England College in the regular season finale.
            School was getting very hectic, and my classes were taking up all of my other free time. Unfortunately for me I was stuck with all 8am starting classes, with 1 on Tuesday and Thursday, and 4 classes on Monday and Wednesday. I was busy from 7 in the morning till 8 at night every day between class, hockey, lifting, eating, etc. I did my school work from that time till midnight or even later. I began to get less and less sleep at night, and it really became difficult to get myself out of bed in the morning. But practice and the gym became a place of happiness for me, as it allowed me to escape the realities of school work and stress, instead letting me concentrate on my passion in life; hockey.
            The playoffs were coming up, and we earned the 3^rd seed and a date with Skidmore in the first round at our barn. We had played Skidmore to a 2-1 victory two weeks ago, while their goalie put on an amazing performance. We knew this would not be an easy game; however it was also a game that we all expected to win.
            Now, one would think that everyone would be unbelievably excited to play, and have a deep motivation to win. That was not exactly the case. We found out that should we win our conference we would get an automatic bid to the NCAA tourney, which happened to take place over spring break. Now, to many people who play, they could care less about break….this is a chance to win the national championship, but to a group of kids on our team, going somewhere fun for break was more important. You could see it in their attitude; you could hear them talk about it in the gym. On the other side of the room were all the seniors, who realized it was their last run playing hockey. These were the kids that would have given anything to win their final games. I could see this contrast of moods develop, and I was very curious to see how we would play in the ECAC East tourney.
            Against Skidmore we came out flying, and took it to them early and often. We ended up winning the game 6-1 in front of close to 1,000 fans on a Saturday afternoon. After the game there were hordes of little kids from Wellesley coming into the locker room wanting autographs, pucks, and old sticks. It was a great feeling. Winning that game gave us a ticket up to Norwich for the ECAC Final Four, where we would square off against New England College, a team who beat us in the final game of the regular season 8-1.
            Most of the kids on the team probably thought we would lose, with very few really believing we would win. It was because of this, that a lot of kids were really getting ready for spring break. We had a great week of practice, but it was very obvious who wanted to be there and who didn’t. We made the drive up to Norwich and had an hour long skate at their amazing facility. Our biggest game of the season would be tomorrow.
            We arrived to the rink for the early game, and the mood in the locker room was very good. A few of the seniors spoke, but that was it. Everyone was just really waiting to see what would happen. As we hit the ice, we played a very even first period, and both goalies made some big stops to keep the score knotted at 0-0. After two very physical periods we were still knotted at 2. Then in the third, NEC struck first on a rebound goal. However, only a few minutes later one of our Defenseman launched a rocket and scored low short side to tie the game. NEC continued to pour on the chanced, but our goalie came up huge .Then, with about 7 minutes left, we were given a penalty shot due to a NEC player covering the puck in the crease. One of our top seniors skated in very slowly, gave a little head fake glove side, and popped it in low glove side. We went crazy, but very shortly settled down as we realized we still have a lot of time left. NEC had their chances but couldn’t get any closer than hitting the post, and just like that we were heading to the ECAC Finals for the first time since 1992, where we would face off against the defending ECAC East and NCAA champion, Norwich Cadets.

ECAC Championship

            Norwich is a hockey town; in fact, there is a three-year waiting list for season tickets. It takes two weeks to get a single sit down ticket for a home game. So as you can imagine, tickets of for the championship game would be impossible. The place was sold out, over 2,500 and it was unreal. Everyone was wearing Norwich jerseys, screaming chants, and pretty much just going berserk. There was a feeling in the locker room like this was our game and that we would finally knock off Norwich and be dancing. The game started off very much in our favor, as we had several quality scoring chances in the 1^st period, but were unsuccessful. Norwich started taking it to us late in the period, but once again the period ended tied 0-0. The second period was all Norwich as they totally dominated the shots and quality of shots categories, however, our goalie was phenomenal and we were still tied 0-0. In the third period we went chance for chance, however we struck first with about nine minutes left in the game. When we scored that goal I thought we would win 1-0 and that there was no way they would get one past our goalie. We went six minutes keeping them at bay, until they finally scored the equalizer. The arena went nuts, and the energy on the ice had totally transferred to Norwich. We escaped the third tied 1-1, after Norwich had several more chances after the equalizer. We went into the locker room for an intermission, and came out set to play until someone scored. Off the opening draw we had a 2 on 1, but the centering pass hopped right up over our forwards stick. Two minutes later Norwich would get a shot down low, which was stopped, but the rebound kicked out to the Defenseman who shot it again, which created another rebound that was stuffed home. Game over. Norwich defends their ECAC East title, and Babson’s run had ended. At that moment you knew that everyone on our team only cared about hockey, and that they would have done anything to have won that game. The seniors cried, and everyone else just said lots of profanities. We got the taste in our mouth, and I know we will be their again next season.           

Memories Of Freshman Year

            When I first came to college I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with hockey. I was lucky enough to find a school that I really wanted to go to academically, and the fact that I could play hockey was a bonus. Getting a good education is so important, so for those of you who think that all you want to do is play hockey in college, make sure you go somewhere that you will enjoy the school work, because if you don’t do the work, your not going to be able to play hockey. However, playing hockey in college has been one of the most amazing experiences in my life, and if you have a chance to do so, I recommend you do it.
            I think that there are a lot of myths and misconceptions about what you need to do to get to that next level of college hockey, so I will attempt to answer them.

1) Can I stay in NJ to play on a college hockey team?

            Answer--There are several good ACHA club hockey teams that are non-NCAA, that several players in NJ could play for right out of high school, and in many cases could be very successful. However, in order to play any level of NCAA, (there are only a handful of D-II teams, who are worse than many DIII teams) it is almost impossible to play straight from NJ high school hockey. This is because the players being recruited by such teams are on average 1 or 2 years older than the grade average. This is due to junior hockey (USHL, EJHL, NAHL are the three primary junior leagues for the NCAA) and prep school hockey. College scouts and coaches do not come to NJ to scout very often, if ever, and the only real chance to get noticed is on a club team at a scouting tournament or nationals. Physical conditioning is so important, so if you’re not in the gym and running you had better start.
       If you are planning on trying out for a college team, email the coach and try to get one of your coaches to call him. At least then he will know your coming to the school and can expect you. I emailed the Babson coach and because of that, they decided not to recruit a 4^th goalie. It just worked out that the 3^rd stringer quit, and I took his spot. 

2) What can I do to play for a college team?

            Answer--Provided you have the talent or skill to make a team, it is imperative that you give yourself a year or more for development. Playing juniors has became the most popular median for college scouting, and often times prep school players play a year of juniors after prep school. Our team has several of those types of players. A year of juniors gives you a full 80 game schedule, amazing physical training, great coaching, scouting, and top competition. Playing on the top NJ club teams will often give you the median to get scouted by a junior team, so therefore playing on the best possible club team is imperative. It is an extremely demanding task to get to that level, and I really wish I had played a year of juniors or prep school. For as much time, effort, and hard work I put into playing hockey my entire life I sat the bench behind a 22 year old freshman who played 3 years of junior hockey. It doesn’t seem fair to a lot of people, but it happens. Prep school is the other option for kids who wish to continue education while playing hockey in an extremely competitive environment.

          I hope that my articles have left you with a better understanding of the college hockey scene and how to get there. If anyone has any comments, or questions you can email me at Gboxer1@babson.edu and I will get back to you. Keep working hard and never give up the dream of playing in college, because they can come true.