The Florida Atlantic University Ice Hockey Club of Boca Raton has announced on Instagram their plan to add a Division III (D3) team for the 2024-2025 season.
According to the post, “The Club reported an extraordinarily high number of skilled student-athletes who showed interest in participating over the past few years. With an increasingly stable organizational structure, The Club feels the time is right to grow.”
The Club has a Division II team currently ranked #1 nationally as a member of the AAU College Hockey League. They compete in the College Hockey South (CHS) Conference, which features the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida, the University of South Florida and others.
The Division III will serve as a “complement” to the existing Division II program, allowing two teams to exist under the club.
“Adding the D3 team was talked about last year, but we have to be very careful about expansion, biting off more than we can chew,” said Scott Grosky, the General Manager of FAU’s Ice Hockey Club. “It takes a virtual army of supporters off the ice to put on the program.”
The CHS Conference also has a Division I division that currently has five teams, and Grosky believes that FAU could be the next school to join sometime soon.
“Adding a Division I team is very possible. We do everything the way they want us to. We play the right number of games, the player’s uniforms all match from their helmets to socks, and we have enough players, but we need to have a solid foundation before getting ahead of ourselves.” Grosky stated.
The board decided to hold off on the expansion until they were approved that the team would be successful for the school. One of the main reasons for the delay was financing for the program, but now, with the addition of the D3 team, it will foster a younger group of players with time to be molded and trained for a higher level of play.
“Players that start on the D3 team have the opportunity to excel in the game and move up to D2,” said Grosky.
Forward Matias Weir, who has played for the club over the past four years, is glad to see the club finally expand due to the benefits that come with it.
“I think it’s huge for the program. It elevates us, helps us recruit more, and helps the development of our Division II team in the years to come,” said Weir. “The new team allows us to take more players than last year when we had to cut just because we didn’t have spots on the ice.”
The next game for the Division II team is Jan. 12 at 8:30 PM against Farmingdale State College. The game will play at the Panthers Ice Den.
Christiana Eckard is a staff writer for the University Press. For more information regarding this or other stories, email her at [email protected] or @christianaeck_ on Instagram.
