You want a story? Let Roger Voisinet tell you a story. A hockey story. Voisinet is the general manager and assistant coach of the U.Va. men's ice hockey team. He is the club's biggest promoter, chief recruiter and when the time comes, most proficient storyteller.
Voisinet will sit you down with pictures of Virginia hockey, past and present. He'll hand you a stack of old hockey programs and start rattling off dates and names. As he reminisces, you get the feeling that you're looking at the face of Virginia hockey.
There are other faces, of course -- fans, alumni, coaches and players -- but Voisinet's face has been there since the beginning, or at least since the beginning of the team' most recent chapter.
There was a club hockey team at Virginia in the mid-1970s. The Cavaliers dominated in their conference, and the University took over ownership of the rink on Greenbriar Drive for the last two years of its existence. When lease negotiations closed the rink for good, however, the team dissolved. Voisinet moved to Charlottesville the same year the team disbanded, but it would be 15 years before he became a part of the Virginia hockey story.
In December 1994, Voisinet joined a group in Newcomb Hall to talk about the possibility of starting an ice hockey team at Virginia. University students Kareem El-Alaily and Josh Aderholt were joined by Aderholt's father and local businessman Lee Danielson. The team startup plan was deceptively simple: El-Alaily and Aderholt would find interested students with hockey experience, Aderholt's father would fund uniforms, Voisinet volunteered as head coach and Danielson went forward with his plans to build an ice rink on the Downtown Mall.
The team first came together in January 1995, with a roster of around 13 players and a five-game schedule. Many of the team's first members were former high school players, although several were graduate students who had played in college.
"We put together a surprisingly talented team that year," former player Phil Cox said. "It was about 60-40 undergraduate to graduate students."
Virginia won two of its five games that spring without a single practice session. When the team joined the ACC Hockey Leauge that fall, the roster had swollen to 25 players, but odds still seemed to be against them. Construction on the Charlottesville Ice Park was slower than expected, so the Cavaliers had a 25-game road schedule to look forward to. Practices would have to be held in an ice rink in Richmond. Then, Virginia's first practice session brought startling news: the soon-to-be captain of the team, Bryan Cook, had died in car accident earlier that day.
Still, the team had to move on. The Cavaliers finished third in the league during the regular season, and went on to beat Duke and Carolina to win the ACCHL tournament in May of 1996.
Also in May, the Ice Park finally held its grand opening. The Cavaliers were there, beating George Mason 7-1 in an exhibition game.
The opening of the rink "changed everything entirely," Cox said. It "is really a very nice facility and we had a lot of support from the rink. A number of us coached youth hockey over there and ran a number of their leagues and programs."
Indeed, Charlottesville has embraced the Virginia hockey team -- to this day community members outnumber student fans at many games.
By the end of 1996, Virginia hockey had made its mark. It would go on to make many more -- the Cavaliers were regular season champions in 1997, 1998 and 1999, capping their five-year run in 2000 by taking the regular season and tournament titles.
"2000 was particularly sweet," Voisinet said. "The league was at its strongest point and we had gone undefeated the previous season, only to lose in the tournament final in overtime."
The team has come a long way since the 13-person, five-game season of 1995, but continues to be one of the top teams in the conference year after year.
"We don't have any advantages over our opponents," Voisinet said. "They are bigger schools that are easier to get into and have more facilities. Our academics make it the hardest to recruit of any team we play. U.Va. just attracts a high quality group of students, and we are able to find players."
Everyone has a story about how they came to Virginia hockey.
Cox came to Virginia ice hockey from an intramural roller hockey team, but he really came from good New England hockey family stock.
"I grew up in Boston," he said. "Hockey has been a part of my life since I was four years old."
The hunger to continue with hockey drives most Virginia players to join the team. Current team member Mike Szarowicz, like many of his teammates, had a hockey upbringing.
Szarowicz grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., which he describes as "basically, southern Canada" when it comes to hockey dedication. In high school, he admits to being a "hockey player first, student second." Even so, when chose to pursue his undergraduate degree at Division I Boston College instead of a Division II or III school, he was forced to leave hockey behind.
It wasn't until Szarowicz graduated that he began to play hockey again. The casual "beer league" in Boston was enough to whet his appetite, so when he chose Darden for his MBA he tried out for the hockey team immediately.
"It is good to play on a 'real' team again," Szarowicz said. "Putting on your school colors and going out there as a team is really pretty cool."
Fourth-year Larry Kosilla can appreciate Szarowicz's attitude -- it took Kosilla three tries to get into Virginia, but he stuck it out to be able to wear orange and blue.
Kosilla, unlike any other Virginia player, was recruited out of high school to play Division I hockey at West Point. Unsatisfied there, Kosilla decided to transfer. Voisinet's recruiting helped draw him in, but in the end it was the University itself that enticed Kosilla.
"I love it here," he said. "I came to visit and walked around Grounds and I knew, this is where I want to be."
The transfer would be anything but smooth -- Kosilla spent a year at Manhattanville College and a year at Piedmont Community College until his third transfer application to Virginia was accepted. He had been practicing with the hockey team and traveling in support of the team, but his acceptance meant a new chapter for the team and a dream come true for Voisinet: a Division I-caliber player on the ice for Virginia.
Five championships and another on the way?
This season, the Cavaliers are 10-11 overall and 8-4 in the ACCHL. They have a few tough wins to their credit: a 6-3 win over N.C. State that snapped the Wolfpack's year-long win streak in November, a come-from-behind victory over Duke at the beginning of February and a 6-1 victory over Virginia Tech last Sunday that gave the Cavaliers a boost before the ACCHL tournament this weekend.
Still, the Cavaliers are seeded fourth, and in order to advance to the championship game, they will have to beat George Mason on Friday and Duke on Saturday. Virginia has gone undefeated against the Patriots this season, but they split their series with the Blue Devils, so they will need to put themselves all out on the ice if they hope to reclaim the conference crown.
"I think we're ready," head coach Rob Boyle said. "We were trying to work it so we peaked at the right time, and I think we have that this weekend. We plan on winning."
Thirteen of Virginia's 24 roster spots belong to underclassmen, many of whom see playing time, but Boyle stresses the strength of his team.
"We don't have a Wayne Gretsky on our team, someone who's going to go out there and dominate a game, but what we have is a whole bunch of guys who, when called upon, will get it done," he said.
Hockey's not a game, it's a lifestyle.
Boyle calls the ice hockey team's club status a "misnomer."
"They are truly student-athletes," he said. "They devote hours a week to hockey and study on top of it. They pay to play. They choose to play. That just goes to show you what kind of people they are. Everybody's committed not just to the team, but to each other."
The costs of playing hockey are high. Players dues are just under $500, and other than game uniforms and bags, which have been donated to the team, most members supply their own equipment and drive their own cars to away games.
Ice time for a typical game costs up to $600, and referees can cost an additional $200. Ice time for practices runs about $400, but those costs only represent a part of the expenses.
The team fundraises -- selling Virginia shot glasses, for example -- but is also beginning to look at other revenue streams, like alumni donations.
"It's getting to the point now that there's something of a tradition here," Cox said. Voisinet "told me just within the last month that they had to cut out a few practice spots because of funding. But it occurred to me that sponsoring ice time would be a very easy contribution. We're going to work on that and make sure that in the future there's space for the team."
The costs of hockey can also be personal. Szarowicz made the difficult decision to quit the team during his first year at Darden, simply because the school workload made practice and game times impossible.
In addition to students bearing the load of College classes, there are architecture and engineering students who manage to give their time to hockey. But it isn't easy. Many players laugh at the idea of free time. Third-year Sebastian Hindman puts it simply: "We definitely do it for the love of the game."
The rest of the story
Voisinet has been doing Virginia hockey for the love of the game for almost 10 years. Like any good storyteller, however, he can see chapters far ahead of him. He envisions alumni funding, high-level recruiting and even the conversion of University Hall into a multipurpose facility that includes an ice rink.
"I have this vision that someday we'll be skating out onto the ice in front of 3,000 fans on campus somewhere," Voisinet says. "That's what my long-term vision is. But the journey is the best part of all. The guys are great, it's great to see them suffer through losses and celebrate after wins. And then once in a while, we win an ACC tournament."
Virginia will get one of those chances at an ACCHL title this weekend. Not every story, Voisinet seems to believe, has to have an ending.
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