Matty Lee is a locker-room guy.
A junior on the State University of New York at Geneseo men’s hockey team, Lee is a third-pairing defenseman for the Knights whose biggest contributions, according his teammates and head coach, come off of the ice.
“I like to get the guys laughing,” Lee, 22, of Waterville, said by phone Tuesday. “My mindset is this: If they’re laughing at me, at least they’re laughing at something.”
On Friday SUNY Geneseo will take on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in the Division III Frozen Four for the right to play in Saturday’s championship game. Lee does not have a point on the season and is unlikely to record one Friday, yet he will certainly find a way to make an impact for the Knights.
“He gets things going in the locker room. When there needs to be a laugh, he provides it. When there needs to be energy, he provides it,” SUNY Geneseo head coach Chris Schultz said during a conference call Tuesday afternoon. “His role is kind of more important than what is on the ice. He’s a guy that creates enthusiasm. He creates passion.”
There was a time this season, though, where laughing was the last thing on the minds of Lee and his teammates.
Everything changed for the team and surrounding community on Jan. 18 when teammate Matthew Hutchinson and Kelsey Annese, a member of the SUNY Geneseo women’s basketball team, were stabbed to death by Colin Kingston, who later took his own life, according to police.
“(Hutchinson was) one of my best friends, my brother, my roommate,” Lee said. “I always say this and it’s kind of cliche, but he was that guy that just put a smile on everybody’s face. He was a firefighter. He did amazing things for the community.
The SUNY Geneseo hockey team has kept the locker of slain teammate Matthew Hutchinson intact, and added the team’s hard hat and SUNYAC championship trophy as well.
“I hope one day when I have children that they can be at least half the man that he is because he is an incredible person.”
Lee would not go into details about the night before Hutchinson’s death, but said he and members of the team had “a pretty good night” hanging out at the bar and the apartment the two shared with captains Ryan Donnelly and A.J. Sgaraglio.
“We went to the bar kind of just to hang out and have a few drinks and just enjoy the intersession, which is the time when no one else is really at school,” Lee said. “It was just kind of us because we were one of the only teams playing our sport during Christmas break. We were just enjoying each other’s company.”
At some point in the night Lee and Hutchinson went there separate ways, and the following morning the team received the news of what had happened.
According to an Associated Press report, Kingston, 24, a former member of the SUNY Geneseo men’s basketball team, entered Annese’s off-campus apartment around 6 a.m. with a large knife he had recently purchased.
Described in the report as a distraught ex-boyfriend over a recent breakup with Annese, Kingston found the 21-year-old basketball player and Hutchinson, 24, in the woman’s bedroom and killed them. Kingston then called his father before killing himself with what police believe was the same knife.
“I felt cheated,” Lee said. “How can you take someone’s life that was so young and so perfect and just an amazing person to the community?
“…It was tough. The first week I actually struggled a lot. Being on the ice — I played with him defensively too a couple of games and we were roommates and friends — you look across and you don’t see him out there and it’s just tough because you think about how cheated we felt.”
Lee and the team were still reeling from another loss earlier in the season when Hutchinson was killed. Sophomore forward Jason Stephanik, who has returned to classes but not hockey, suffered a traumatic head injury in a skateboarding accident last November, and Hutchinson’s death further compounded the situation.
At first, Lee did not know how to handle it. After consulting with his family and best friend, Waterville Senior High graduate Nick Margitza, an All-American thrower at Bates College, he knew there was only one option: He had to be himself.
“When you go through a process of grieving you don’t know what is right,” Schultz said. “If you haven’t been through something like this before, when can you joke around? When do you not joke around?
“(Lee has) stayed true to his personality and I think other players have jumped on that bandwagon throughout the whole process. Hey, we’re just going to be who we are and we’re going to rock it that way.”
Lee said the support of the Geneseo community made being who he is easier. In the two weeks after the incident the amount of food alone they received was overwhelming, yet greatly appreciated.
“I’m not the greatest cook,” he admitted with a laugh. “It was insane how much that helped, just not having to cook and not having to be alone, upstairs cooking and just being able to have full team dinners with these big lasagna plates. It was just incredible.”
Given everything the team had gone through it would have been more than understandable if the rest of the season had been a struggle on the ice.
Instead, just the opposite happened. Playing in honor of Hutchinson and Annese, the Knights won their first game since the tragedy, 6-1, over SUNY Cortland on Jan. 23 in front of a sold-out Ira S. Wilson Ice Arena in Geneseo.
And they kept winning.
In the 14 games after Hutchinson’s death, SUNY Geneseo went 10-1-3, including a 7-1 win over Salve Regina and 2-1 victory over Williams College in the first two rounds of the D-III tournament, respectively.
“(Hutchinson) was a very selfless human being and I think that was evident through his work with the community and fire department as well,” Donnelly said. “He was truly a volunteer at heart and he put the needs and benefits of others before his own.
“Really, that’s what has stuck with us — his teammates and friends — the most is that he cared about us so much and that we want to honor him. We knew that he would give anything for us to succeed and he would sacrifice his own glory for the good of the team. That’s really the mindset the team has adopted and has led us to our success.”
The team has honored “Hutch,” as he was known by friends, on their way to the Frozen Four in more ways than in memory. A patch with his number, 23, is stitched onto the right breast of their jerseys.
His locker remains intact, along with the additions of the team hard hat — given after each game to the player who worked the hardest — and State University of New York Athletic Conference championship trophy. Schulz said they plan to create a similar stall for Hutchinson for Friday’s 4 p.m. game at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, New York.
“It’s just nice to look across and see that stall every day,” Lee said. “I tap that name plate every time before I go out on the ice and look up at the sky and know he’s watching over me. I have a little hockey god on my shoulder.”
Evan Crawley — 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @Evan_Crawley
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