WATERVILLE — Three years ago, it was a way for Cole Turner and some fellow students to pass the time during the dark days of the COVID-19 winter. What it’s become now, the Colby College senior can’t believe.

Back then, the Colby club hockey team was comprised of just a few players who would skate together a couple hours per week. It wasn’t an officially sanctioned club yet, and with strict pandemic protocols still in place, the team would play no games.

“We were still able to use the ice, so we were lucky to just get out here, skating, getting things started and just having fun and fooling around,” Turner said. “We knew we wanted to revive club hockey here at Colby, but we didn’t know how big it would really get.”

How big is it? Well, the Mules are now in their first year of full NorthEast Collegiate Hockey Association membership; they have a roster of 28 players; oh, and with a record of 14-2-1, they’re on their way to Missouri this week to compete in the American Collegiate Hockey Association championships.

Club hockey, which began at Colby in 2019-20, would get ACHA membership the following year. The Mules would then get NECHA associate membership in 2021-22, probationary membership in 2022-23 and, finally, full membership to the conference for the 2023-24 season.

That full membership guaranteed Colby a chance to qualify for the national (ACHA) championships this season. The team had a chance to do so last year with a full schedule but lost the opportunity after four games were canceled. This year, though, the team’s best season yet coincided with better fortunes.

Colby College’s Trevor Mathewson receives feedback from coach Scott Massey during a drill at practice Tuesday in Waterville. The team is heading off to ACHA National Division III Tournament in St. Louis, Missouri this week. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

“Last year was when I really thought, ‘OK, we’re good enough to make nationals; let’s go for it,’ so when that happened, I was really bummed,” said senior Trevor Mathewson. “When that fell through, I said, ‘There’s no way it’s this year,’ but here we are — it’s this year, and it’s just so incredible.”

As a club team, this Colby squad is student-run. The team has two coaches, cousins Mike and Bob Roy, who make the lines, oversee practices and are on the bench during games. This relationship between coaches and players, though, is more egalitarian — “a two-way street,” as Mike Roy put it.

Being student-run also means the team’s players take on roles off the ice. As president, Turner, a goaltender, coordinates with presidents from other club teams to arrange schedules; as communications chair, forward Gabby Anusbigian does the work a sports information director would for an NCAA team.

“It’s been crazy (to see the growth of the program),” said Anusbigian, a junior. “I was fortunate enough to come in as a freshman when things were ramping up — we were just getting into the league and playing our first games — but it’s been insane how we’ve just started winning.”

Win the Mules certainly have. Colby has dominated its in-state counterparts, beating Thomas College 16-2 and 9-3, St. Joseph’s College 12-3 and 10-0, Bates 12-4 and 6-2 and the University of New England 10-0. The team won 10 consecutive games from Nov. 18-Jan. 28.

The key to the team’s success? Well, it comes down to Colby’s depth and the quality of its players. Many of the Mules, Mike Roy said, played junior hockey prior to attending the school, and one of them, freshman Mitch Ham, won the Travis Roy Award last year at Falmouth High as the best senior in Maine high school hockey.

“Our freshman class this year is filled with some great players,” senior defenseman Josh Houle. “Last year, we lost the first game against Dartmouth 8-2, and the first game this year, we ended up tying them. Right then, we knew we had already made some great strides since last season.”

Colby College club hockey players, from left, Ryan Harper, Henry Stone and Brendan Bullock, laugh together while waiting for a drill to begin at practice Tuesday in Waterville. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

Colby reached the ACHA tournament by finishing as one of the top-16 teams in the national rankings. The Mules, who were ranked as high as third in the ACHA rankings this season, will enter the tournament as the No. 9 seed.

Now comes a trip to Maryland Heights, Mo., where the team will compete in its first ACHA tournament game Thursday against the University of Arkansas. They will also be in action Friday against Lawrence Tech (Highland Park, Mich.) before closing out pool play Saturday against Saint Vincent College (Westmoreland, Pa.).

“We’re so excited it’s finally here,” Houle said. “My freshman year, we only had seven or eight guys skating for an hour and a half, and if you’d told me my freshman year that in three years we’d have a team that could get to play for a national championship in Division III club hockey, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

As travel, lodging and other amenities aren’t cheap, the trip there will come with a price tag: $25,000. Colby is covering those expenses for now, but the team, Mathewson (also the club’s president) said, must fundraise that money to pay the school back or else pay the remaining sum out of pocket.

“That’s two and a half times what our budget was for this year, so it’s a lot, but it’s absolutely worth it,” Mathewson said. “To watch a club that I helped create go to a national tournament in its first year of eligibility, I couldn’t have asked for a better memory for my senior year than this.”

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