St. Thomas Tommies (Minnesota) men's ice hockey

''This is for the men's team representing the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. For the team representing St. Thomas University located in Fredericton, New Brunswick please see St. Thomas Tommies.''

The St. Thomas Tommies represent the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. The team is a member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, but will leave that league after the 2021–22 season to join the revived Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

On May 22, 2019 the board that runs the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, which is made up of the school presidents, announced that St. Thomas University was being removed from the conference involuntarily effective the spring of 2021. The release cites competitive parity as the main reason for the move. The university has been dominant in league competition accounting for about half of all MIAC championships (team and individual) since 2013. No announcement was made about the university's plans for joining a new conference. On July 29, 2020 the team was announced as joining the Central Collegiate Hockey Association for the 2021-22 season.

Jump to Division I
The university worked to receive a waiver from the NCAA that would allow it to move directly from Division III to Division I. At the time, NCAA rules would have required such a school to go through a 12-year reclassification process, but the organization was preparing to vote on a proposal to shorten the time frame for a D-III to D-I reclassification to five years.

The Summit League, a Division I all-sports conference that does not sponsor hockey or football, actively worked with the university to receive said waiver. When St. Thomas' expulsion from the MIAC was announced, the Summit League had nine members; in July 2020, it would both lose and gain one member. In recent years, the geographic center of the conference has moved toward the Interstate 29 corridor, running along the eastern border of the Dakotas south toward Kansas City. Illustrating this point, the conference added the University of North Dakota in 2018, lost its easternmost member in Purdue University Fort Wayne in July 2020, and welcomed back the University of Missouri–Kansas City, a former Summit member now branded for sports purposes as "Kansas City", in July 2020. The Tommies' Twin Cities location made them a good geographic fit for the Summit, and also gave the conference a presence in the largest metropolitan area in the Upper Midwest.

Because of St. Thomas' unique set of circumstances—being involuntarily removed from its former conference due to its athletic strength relative to D-III as a whole, having a healthy overall endowment of over $500 million, having an all-sports D-I conference willing to accept it, and also being in a state that previously had only one all-sports D-I program—the NCAA granted said waiver in July 2020. At the time the NCAA waiver was announced, St. Thomas announced that its women's hockey team would join the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, while the football team would join the Pioneer Football League, a conference that plays in the second level of D-I football, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), but consists entirely of schools that do not offer football scholarships. Shortly afterwards, the men's hockey team would be announced as a member of the revived CCHA.

Men's Program
The men's program dates back to 1923. As of 2016 the team has won or shared 31 regular season MIAC titles, won 12 conference tournaments and made 16 NCAA Tournament appearances

Conferences

 * Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (1920-present)

Arenas
Prior to the opening of the St. Thomas Ice Arena unconfirmed venues for 1920 to 2003 but possible venues if the team played indoors would have be St. Paul Hippodrome which was open from 1906 until the early 1940's and the St. Paul Auditorium which opened in 1932 and closed in 1985. The Warner Coliseum (1951-1971) and Oscar Johnson Arena (1971-2018) are also other possibilities.
 * St. Thomas Ice Arena (2003-present)

Head Coaches

 * Harold Dudley (1920-1921) 6-1-0
 * Joe Brandy (1921-1923) 9-8-0
 * David Hayes (1923-1924) 8-2-0
 * Bill Houle (1924-1925) 1-0-1
 * Joe Brandy (1925-1926) 10-1-0 (19-9-0 overall)
 * Willard Faulk (1926-1927) 5-9-0
 * John O'Halloran (1927-1928) 4-5-3
 * Matt Coogan (1928-1930) 15-13-0
 * Frank Penas (1930-1932) 7-7-4
 * Joe Boland (1932-1933) 7-3-0
 * Frank Halder (1933-1935) 6-6-1
 * Frank Klingberg (1935-1937) 12-10-3
 * Leo McGuire (1937-1939) 13-7-2
 * Wee Walsh (1939-1942) 18-3-3
 * program suspended 1942-43 to 1945-46
 * Tom Cunningham (1946-1948) 20-9-0
 * Bill Funk (1948-1951) 32-11-2
 * Norm Roberston (1951-1952) 7-3-0
 * Bill Funk (1952-1955) 34-8-9 (66-19-11 overall)
 * Ken Staples (1955-1959) 38-19-0
 * Don Saatzer (1959-1962) 19-14-0
 * Tom Martinson (1962-1963) 11-4-1
 * Joe Flood (1963-1970) 57-53-4
 * Gus Schwartz (1970-1982) 150-150-5
 * Terry Abram (1982-1987) 105-45-2
 * Terry Skrypek (1987-2010) 415-194-45
 * Jeff Boeser (2010-2021) 154-80-31 as of end of 2019-20 season, will be retiring following 2020-21 season
 * Rico Blasi (2021-present)

Year by Year Record
'Note: starting with the 2013-14 season the NCAA allowed the use of shootouts to settle tied games. The MIAC adopted this practice. Starting with the 2018-19 season the MIAC went to 5 minute 5-on-5 overtime followed by a five minute 3-on-3 overtime followed by a shootout. The NCAA declares any game settled after more than five minutes of overtime or by shootout a tied game for record keeping purposes and are indicated as such above.'

Links

 * Central Collegiate Hockey Association website
 * Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference men's ice hockey website
 * St. Thomas Tommies men's ice hockey website