DaytonDailyNews.com

OXFORD — In the days when hockey was something new at Miami University, long before the state-of-the-art Goggin Ice Center was unveiled, even before plans for the original (and now vanished) Goggin Arena were approved, there were murmurs.

They came from the office of former Miami President Dr. Phillip R. Shriver, Jim Phillips remembers, and they concerned something that never had been seriously considered on the Oxford campus — the possibility one day of winning a national championship.

Phillips was one of the first captains of Miami hockey when it was a club sport, and in the spring of 1975, he said, he and a couple teammates were asked to meet with Shriver.

"Phil Shriver said, 'We need a few of you guys to come to the board of trustees and make your case about why we need a rink on campus,' " Phillips said. "Hockey should become a varsity sport, and there would be the possibility, more so than any other program, to compete on a national level. That's what Phil Shriver asked us to say.

"We got in front of the board of trustees, the three of us, and said if you believe in us, some day we'll bring home an NCAA championship. We didn't believe it ourselves, but here we are."

Today, Miami's hockey team stands just two wins away from becoming national champions.

The RedHawks will face Bemidji State (Minn.) in the Frozen Four semifinals Thursday, April 9, at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., and the winner will go for the gusto two days later in the championship game against Boston or Vermont.

"The guy behind the process who really got it going was Phil Shriver," Phillips said. "He was the guy who made it happen."

The man brought in to get the ball rolling was Steve Cady, who became head coach when the program was granted varsity status.

"Steve Cady and I were here as 22-year-olds starting a program, Steve as head coach, me as assistant," remembered Bill Davidge who later became Miami's second head coach and now provides color commentary on radio for the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets.

"Our vision was of a national championship team," he said. "Dr. Shriver believed it was viable. Those were the dreams Steve and I had."

Those dreams blossomed from a program that had extremely humble beginnings. Back in the club sport days, Miami hockey games were played at a rink — you couldn't call it an arena — on the Hamilton campus.

"It had a roof to keep the snow out, but the sides didn't go all the way down to the ground," Phillips said, "so whatever the temperature was on the outside, it was the same inside."

Paul Kinney was a team captain the first two years after Miami hockey had achieved varsity status, which came about in 1978. He played at the old rink and the original Goggin Arena, and he recalled the state of affairs for a program that did not receive, at first, an abundance of resources.

"My dad would come to some of my games," Kinney said. "In one game (at the old Hamilton rink) Tom Smith broke two sticks. My dad went to a shop, bought a stick and came back to the rink. He reached over and handed Tom the brand new stick. I loved it."

The original Goggin might have paled in comparison to the new building that houses Steve Cady Arena, but at the time the Miami players were overjoyed with their new home.

"You have to remember that for us back then, it was a brand new facility with brand new locker rooms, brand new everything," said Peter Shipman, a captain during the 1979-80 season. "It had a great college feel.

"The biggest difference between then and now is, if you look at the resources Steve Cady had to begin with, he didn't have the same level of scholarships and history to recruit with," Shipman said. "He did it with tireless hours and incredible enthusiasm."

The players who were attracted to Miami's program in the early days, Shipman said, were hungry.

"Being small, I didn't get recruited by any of the big schools," Shipman said. "The guys who came here wanted a chance to play, they had to scratch and claw."

Miami's coach in those days, he said, wanted something more.

"Cady had a vision that (hockey) is one sport where the university has a chance to compete on a national level," Shipman said, "and win a national championship."