From Orange County Register
By Brian Robin
The Chapman hockey player sitting in the penalty box at Irvine’s Great Park Ice Arena had no idea how long his two minutes in the box were going to seem. Or that he just sat down in the center of a drum solo that wouldn’t stop for the next 120 seconds.
“BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG,” was the sound that serenaded him, courtesy of a Cal State Fullerton student relentlessly hammering the glass behind him.
This blast to the glass is not to be confused with Cal State Fullerton forward Ezra Gale — your resident team spark plug — throwing himself against the glass like a crazed bug hitting the windshield after scoring each of his two goals in what would become a 5-3 Titans’ victory.
Watching all of this, while a seven-member, student-led brass band competed with hip-hop and The White Stripes’ ubiquitous “Seven Nation Army” blasting over the Great Park Ice Arena PA, Cal State Fullerton junior Katie Bush, watching her first CSUF hockey game after having just discovered her university had a hockey team, later made this observation.
“Oh, I’m coming back. When they play again in January, I’m coming back,” she said.
It bears mentioning that Bush and her sister, Dani — both avid hockey fans who frequent the Honda Center for Anaheim Ducks hockey games — had no idea that CSUF had a hockey team until earlier this fall, when Katie Bush happened to see the team’s informational table during Discoverfest, the annual recruiting “rush” for university clubs.
“I walked past and saw we have a hockey team. I said ‘Since when?’ Every person I tell we have a hockey team says, ‘We have a hockey team?’” Katie Bush said.
Indeed, they do. Oh, and that hockey team that Bush and other fans discovered happens to be in first place in its division. But we’ll get back to that.
Discovering that Cal State Fullerton does indeed have a hockey team is music to Jesse Sczublewski’s ears, almost as beautiful as the percussion serenade the unfortunate Chapman player endured during his two minutes in the box. The second-year CSUF coach, alum and former forward of what the team’s website calls “unofficially the sexiest club sports team 10 years running,” thought he was done actively participating in the game when he graduated in 2016.
No. Like Michael Corleone to his mob family, every time Sczublewski thinks he’s done with the game he started playing when he was 3, he gets happily pulled back in. He may spend his days recruiting for a health care company. But Sczublewski spends his evenings having the time of his life channeling his inner coach.
“This game has given me so much: friendships, experiences, life lessons — all of it,” he said. “Being able to stay in the game is everything. Ask any player, no matter what level they played, pro or youth, what they miss the most and they’ll tell you the camaraderie, going to practice and seeing the guys two, three times a week.
“I love this. I love meeting new players, building relationships, helping them to a common goal that you don’t necessarily get in an adult league. Having that competitive nature and being in that environment, leading these guys at an influential time in their lives is super rewarding.”
You can tell Sczublewski is a natural recruiter in both his day and night jobs. He and team general manager Chris Houlihan preside over a Titans’ team built from the ground up through recruiting, word-of-mouth and, yes, the Discoverfest club rush. The word-of-mouth is how freshman goalie Kat Reyes — yes, the Titans’ club team is open to all genders — arrived. Reyes would stand out against Chapman, stopping more than 30 shots and drawing applause from all over the arena for several sparkling saves.
Reyes was playing high school and junior hockey near her Corona home, appearing on the radar of several Division 3 women’s programs back east. But once she discovered CSUF had a club team, she shut the door on any further collegiate entreaties.
“I didn’t know if they allowed girls on the team, so I tied my hair up for the first skate,” Reyes remembered. “I didn’t want anyone to know who I was. But one of my friends (Ezra Gale), I played roller hockey with, so he came over to me two minutes into the first skate and said, ‘Kat, it’s so great to see you.’ I said, ‘Oh my goodness. Please don’t tell anybody.’ I had my hair pinned up and tied into my gear so nobody would know, but Jesse was super cool about it. They do allow girls on the team, so I got to play. I’m loving every second of it.
“Seriously, it’s like having 24 older brothers. I wouldn’t replace it for anything.”
As for the hockey, NHL stars like Connor McDavid or Alexander Ovechkin aren’t walking through the Great Park doors anytime soon. Neither are local all-stars, such as the Kings’ Anze Kopitar or the Ducks’ Troy Terry. You’re not going to turn on your TV in 2024 and see these players romping up and down an NHL arena near or far from you.
The quality of hockey is roughly equivalent to AAA or AA junior hockey. Sczublewski said the Division 1 level of the American Collegiate Hockey Association, the organization overseeing collegiate club hockey across the country, could compete with some NCAA teams. The Titans compete in Division 2 of the three-division ACHA, along with Chapman, Cal State Northridge, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and Cal Lutheran.
That comprises Tier 2 of the West Coast Hockey Conference, the conference CSUF plays in. Tier 1 includes UCLA, Long Beach State, Grand Canyon, Arizona State, Northern Arizona and defending WCHC champion Loyola Marymount. At the end of the season, the top three teams from Tier 2 make the playoffs, joined by one Tier 2 team from the Northern Division. The two winners will join the six Tier 1 teams in a three-round playoff format determining the WCHC champion.
“The ACHA is the end of the road,” Sczublewski said. “The players we’re looking for are the rare players who understand that and want to get another level of competitive hockey under their belts before they graduate and join the workforce.
“Our target demo we’re looking for in terms of players are guys who play a high level of hockey, but aren’t looking to go to that next level or aren’t looking to turn professional.”
But from the intimate atmosphere to the brass band, to the back-and-forth, enjoyable brand of hockey on the ice, there is no doubt you’ll answer Russell Crowe’s immortal question from “Gladiator”: “Are you not entertained?” in the affirmative. The approximate 350 fans at Great Park taking in Hockey Well After Dark — courtesy of an 8:45 p.m. start time — were into matters from the opening puck drop.
“This is a really good hockey game,” Dani Bush said. “It’s way better than a lot of professional games that I’ve been to. The crowd is way more into it, and being able to sit closer to the ice is a lot more fun. The small environment is good. Everyone really wants to be here.”
These Titans certainly do. Sczublewski has them playing an entertaining, freewheeling, use-the-full-200-feet-of-ice style, one producing an 11-4 record entering the holiday break, the best start in club history. Their only in-division loss came to CSUN, with the revenge match Jan. 28 in Simi Valley.
“There’s a lot of hustle and a lot of drive from the players,” Katie Bush said. “You can tell they want to win; you can tell they know how to win. It’s reflected in their record. You can tell there’s a lot of effort on their part to play the game and play the game well. They’re looking a little better than some of the NHL teams this season. I won’t name names.”
The “unofficial sexiest club sports team” doesn’t mind if you do. When you do, just remember the names they brought to their Instagram page: “On ice assailants, community do-gooders, gentlemen and scholars.
Did you know…? During the Chapman game on Dec. 3, the Titans hockey team amassed 14 garbage bags of teddy bears headed to the Spark of Love toy drive. The bears came courtesy of the fans tossing them on the ice after Caden Fehr opened the scoring.
He said it: Jesse Sczublewski on the culture he’s building for the Titans, “We went on the road to San Jose the week before Thanksgiving. At the beginning of the season, I didn’t hear some of the kids say a word. But on the bus, I heard them. We built a culture of acceptance with this team. There’s a real good group of guys. I had a bunch of my former teammates in my wedding. These guys on this team are building that bond we had. They have a built-in group of friends by joining the hockey team. Everyone is welcome here.”
(Originally published at https://www.ocregister.com/2022/12/29/csuf-hockey-scores-with-players-and-fans/)
