ASU hockey team honors teammate who collapsed as home games begin

TEMPE – Before the puck dropped on the Arizona State men’s hockey team’s home opener against Holy Cross on Friday, fans received yellow ribbons with Matthew Mayich’s initials and No. 27 etched on them. 

Sun Devil players wore decals on their helmets with the same yellow ribbon in a show of support for their teammate. The team also hung his jersey from his usual stall in the dressing room.

Aside from those references to the recent tragedy engulfing the program, the Sun Devils’ first game at Mullett Arena this season felt like business as usual. There were no visible signs, held by fans, mentioning Mayich. There were no protests. The crowd, while smaller than normal for a home opener, filled in to mostly full as the game progressed.

Arizona State dropped the first of two games against Holy Cross this weekend, a 2-1 decision in which the Crusaders scored twice in an 11-second span with under two minutes remaining in the game. But the game felt secondary in the wake of Mayich’s collapse during an Aug. 20 outdoor workout that left him incapacitated in a hospital with what family attorneys said is no hope of recovery. 

“We know this kid, and we hurt just like everybody else,” said assistant coach Mike Corbett, who was charged with leading the team after head coach Greg Powers was placed on paid administrative leave and assistant coach Alex Hicks was also placed on leave. “I think people lose sight of that at times, to think that we’re these monsters, and we’re not.

“It’s hard, and people can say what they want to say about the coaching staff or me personally and dig up things, and that’s their prerogative. We hurt, too. We are human beings, too. We were there, too, and we hurt. People have to understand that.”

Powers was placed on paid administrative leave on Sept. 30 after seven anonymous members of the team sent a letter to university President Michael Crow requesting that action as well as an independent investigation into the circumstances of the workout. 

There were few visible signs of the tragedy that has engulfed the ASU men’s hockey team when the Sun Devils hosted Holy Cross on Friday in their season opener at Mullett Arena in Tempe, Ariz.

Photo by Riley Kelton/Cronkite News

Athletic director Graham Rossini said the school will name an interim coaching staff soon, but as of Saturday morning, the school had not released any information regarding who is likely to fill the interim position. Cronkite News has confirmed that the top two candidates are former University of North Dakota coach and NHL assistant Brad Berry, and former Northern Michigan and AHL coach Grant Potulny, but other reports suggest there is a potential third option.

Berry has a strong reputation, having led North Dakota to a national championship in 2016 and spent more than 10 years with the national power. During his time as UND’s coach, Berry led the team to five regular season conference titles, the national championship, and he was named NCHC Herb Brooks Coach of the Year four times.

An announcement could come as soon as Monday.

In the wake of Friday’s loss, ASU’s players tried to put the game in context, noting all the roster changes in the offseason.

"Starting off with a new team, there's going to be bumps in the road, and you're struggling to score early on, and you're not always going to be in a one-score game,” senior captain Kyle Smolen said. “That game could have easily been 4-2. That game could have easily been 5-0. It's just a matter of figuring out what went wrong and bearing down in the scoring area."

The scoring drought was particularly tough to swallow after ASU scored 11 goals in a two-game series to open the season at Lindenwood.

"Yeah, we can score goals,” said senior Sean McGurn, who had the only assist for Arizona State's on Friday. “Tonight ,we just ran into a hot goalie and kudos to him. He played well."

Corbett said he was proud of his team in the wake of all that has happened.

“We got a lot of new guys who don't know the fun of this building, but I think they came out and played very well today,” he said. “We had a tough (11) seconds, and it's a 60-minute game, but there are a lot of positives going into tomorrow."

Corbett dismissed the idea that some players sat out the game as a protest, insisting that all who sat out were healthy scratches and coaches decisions.

“Due to some of the other things outside of hockey, it’s probably going to take this team a little bit more time,” he said..

The Sun Devils picked up a win against Holy Cross on Saturday 5-4 in overtime.

McGurn admitted that day-to-day life has been difficult in the wake of the recent tragedy.

“There’s no playbook for what’s going on,” he said. “But we’re just happy playing hockey again.”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.