Yes, there is a hockey team at UNM.
The UNM hockey team is a recognized club sport through the University and plays in the Pacific Division of the American Collegiate Hockey Association.
The club was relatively unknown until a group of UNM students decided to see if they could make the team bigger.
“It’s something that we have started off from basically nothing,” the team president Nick Madrid said. “Four years ago it was a little club on campus that no one had really paid attention to.
Then a bunch of local kids decided to join and get it together and it has really put us on the map.”
Unlike recognized college sports on campus, the UNM hockey team receives money from ASUNM, fundraising, ticket sales and player fees.
“The team costs around $30,000 to run every season,” said Grant Harvey, the team’s head coach. “Each player on the team also has to pay a $750 player fee out of their pocket, so it shows how dedicated they are to this team when they pay so much to play.”
The bulk of the expenses are from the $100-per-hour fee to rent out the Outpost Arena for games and practice, and travel expenses for games on the road.
The team travels this year to face Northern Arizona University, Wyoming, Colorado School of Mines, Texas Tech University, Fresno State and Sacramento State.
Last year the team received around $12,000 from ASUNM and must propose a budget every semester in order to receive money.
Madrid said the team doesn’t always get the funding that it needs, but that any little bit helps.
“We make up a huge budget and propose this budget to the student financial committee every semester,” he said. “We rarely get all of the money that we ask in our budget, but we take whatever they can give us.”
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The team has a combined 35-6-2 record over the past two seasons and plays in the most competitive of the four divisions in the ACHA.
Last year the Lobos made it to the ACHA regionals for the first time in the team’s history. The team also beat 2009 national runner-up Colorado State last year on the road and had the highest average attendance of any team in the country.
Madrid said it can be disheartening to have one of the best records of any sports team at UNM and still not receive any media coverage.
“We are one of the best teams at UNM, but we are unrecognized by so many people,” he said. “We have often been ranked top 10 in the nation in the ACHA and play some of the best teams in the country every season.”
Harvey said he was not worried about the lack of media coverage because of the support from the surrounding community.
“We are a class act wherever we go,” he said. “We have a solid group of fans that fill the stands for every home game, and we have most of the players back from last year that took us to regionals, and a few new players that will be good additions.”
