Bellbrook graduation 2012
Fairfield Senior 2012 graduation
Kroger Aquatic Center opens
Frozen four
Former Miami players proud
MU hockey players from the '70s are thrilled to see the program evolve to today's success.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
OXFORD — The passage of three decades has not diminished the enthusiasm the players who carried Miami University hockey through its infancy still have today for the program.
It's an enthusiasm that has reached fever pitch now that the RedHawks are headed for their first Frozen Four.
Jim Phillips was the first captain back when hockey emerged at Miami as a club sport, not a part of the school's athletic department, not sanctioned by the NCAA. Two of the early captains after hockey became an official varsity sport at Miami in 1978 were Paul Kinney and Peter Shipman.
"I'm ecstatic and proud to have been a part of the program," Shipman said. "It's wonderful to see the program evolve into what it has become."
"We were getting beat 10-1 in some games; it would be a shellacking," Kinney remembered of those early years. "But we knew with hard work and putting the right groups of people together, (the program) could accomplish anything. It's been done inch by inch by inch."
"It's wonderful," said Phillips, who long ago had been chosen to make the ceremonial first puck drop at the original Goggin Arena. "What a great sense of success for the folks who've worked so hard for the last 30 seasons, including Steve Cady (Miami's first varsity hockey head coach)."
