Matt Shasby reflects on first hockey season back after budget cuts

You don't make it to the collegiate level as an athlete – or coach – if you don't have a drive to win. Pure competitiveness plays a huge role in athletic success. 

So, of course the UAA hockey team wanted to dominate this year. But the Seawolves weren't just focused on a high win percentage as a measurement of success. For them, their largest victory was finally being on the ice again. 

In 2020, UAA cut hockey because state funding for the university faced large reductions. But instead of accepting defeat, the Seawolves raised over $3 million in order to be reinstated. 

Though UAA hockey was reinstated, there was still a lot of work to do. The Seawolves needed coaches that could help rebuild the team. Luckily, head coach Matt Shasby, associate head coach Trevor Stewart, assistant coach Kevin Murdock and director of hockey operations Aaron McPheters stepped up. 

While coming to a new team and starting fresh may seem scary to some people, the staff was grateful for the opportunity and excited for the challenge. 

"I grew up here and I played for the university for four years," said Shasby. "There's no other place I would want to coach in college hockey, just because I have such a close connection to the program."

The other coaches also have connections with Alaska. Before coming to UAA, Stewart was coaching the Fairbanks Ice Dogs of the North American Hockey League team. 

Murdock coached Kenai in 2019 and was coaching the North Iowa Bulls of the NAHL team prior to this season. 

McPheters joined the staff in 2022 after serving as the assistant coach with the Ice Dogs. He also played three years as a Seawolf, recording one goal and six assists for UAA. 

"It was easy for us to jump on board to support the program because we all have familiarity with it," said Shasby. "There wasn't really any convincing that needed to be done about wanting to come to a new program that had been reinstated. We all knew we wanted to coach at this level."

With a new coaching staff and 27 new players, the Seawolves finally returned to the ice after two years of waiting. 

The coaching staff wasn't sure how the team would perform this year, but it's safe to say they exceeded expectations. "Everything was unexpected, just with everybody being new to the program," said Shasby. 

"We're very happy with the overall outcome of the season. We're really happy with the interaction between our student athletes and the campus and the community. So I would summarize it all and say the first year back was a huge success."

With 27 new players on the team and hockey being a team-orientated sport, the team struggled to play together. But, as the season progressed, the team chemistry grew. Shasby said this development as a team is illustrated in their record.

"If you look at the record and how the scores of the season laid out; you can see that the team struggled early on. The scores are directly related to the group becoming more cohesive and more comfortable on the ice and the players finding their own roles within the team."

Murdock also spoke with TNL about the team's season. He said, while it's hard to pinpoint just one success, he's most proud of the games the team won this year. 

"We found a way to make ourselves competitive the second half of the year," said Murdock, "and we built some momentum that hopefully carry into next year."

Murdock was also impressed with the team's success off theice. "We have a really good group of guys who had success in the classroomtoo," said Murdock. The team finished the first semester with a 3.61cumulative GPA.

And while this season was a success, the work isn't done.The team is already setting new goals – on and off the ice – for next year.

"We want to increase the community service hours thatour players are spending with our community, whether it's youth hockey in thecommunity or its Special Olympics hockey," said Shasby.  "There's a variety of different areasthat we can connect with our community."

"In terms of wins and losses, we hope to be indouble-digit wins next year," added Shasby.  "We feel like, with this freshmen classand the couple of transfers we're bringing in, our goal is very attainable. Thenext step for our program is to hit that double-digit win mark and kind of gofrom there."

The 2023-24 hockey schedule is still in progress. VisitGoSeawolves.com later this year to view the schedule, and make sure to head tothe Seawolf Sports Complex next year to cheer on the Seawolves.