From The Detroit Jewish News
By Steve Stein
Ryan Berke helps the Indiana University club hockey team win a national championship and gets his career back on track.
Ryan Berke’s dream was to play hockey in an NCAA program.
After four years of playing junior hockey with stops in Georgia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, that dream didn’t come true. But there was a silver lining in the disappointment.
And a national championship.
Berke played this season for the Indiana University club hockey team. For the first time in the storied program’s 55-year history, the Hoosiers won a national championship.
For Berke, the national championship was the icing on the cake in a season where his love for hockey was rekindled.
“Sometimes, you don’t realize what’s right for you,” he said. “I love where I ended up. Playing junior hockey felt like a job. There was a lot of pressure. Maybe that would have been the same playing in an NCAA program.
“Club hockey has the right balance of seriousness and the fun of playing the sport you love. Also, my team at Indiana is a family. The best hockey family I’ve ever been a part of.”
Hockey has been a huge part of Berke’s life.
In addition to playing junior hockey, his journey has included playing for Detroit in the JCC Maccabi Games from 2016-18 and being a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. open division (ages 19-40) team at the Maccabiah Games in Israel in 2022.
The 21-year-old freshman left wing from Farmington Hills had 10 goals and 10 assists in 29 games this season for Indiana. He also was a member of the team’s top defensive line, which was assigned to cover opponents’ most dangerous line.
“Playing good defense has always been a part of my game,” Berke said. “[Indiana coach] Andrew Weiss is the first coach who has seen the value of it and put it to good use.”
Indiana beat Miami (Ohio) 5-4 in overtime on March 15 in the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division 2 national championship game.
Just before the Hoosiers scored the winning goal on a power play at 10:35 of overtime, Berke helped kill off a Miami power play.
So what was Indiana’s path to the national championship?
Sixteen teams enter the ACHA Division 2 national tournament, which is a grind. The teams in the national title game play their fifth game in five days.
Indiana made it into the Final Four with a 2-1 record in pool play. The Hoosiers’ final pool win was a 7-3 victory March 13 over Michigan State. Indiana beat Lindenwood 3-1 on March 14 in the national semifinals.
While he was thrilled to carry the Radakovich Cup on the ice at the Centene Community Ice Center in Maryland Heights, Mo., just outside of St. Louis, after Indiana won the national title, Berke said he felt better for his older teammates.
“I was so happy for them because they lost in double-overtime to Iowa in the national semifinals last year,” he said. “Like I said, this team is a family.”
Indiana finished 31-7 this season.
After winning back-to-back championships in the Tri-State Collegiate Hockey Conference, the Hoosiers were knocked out in the first round of the conference playoffs by Michigan.
Indiana and Miami are conference rivals. Miami beat Indiana 2-1 and 5-1 in their two regular-season conference games. That made the Hoosiers’ national championship win over the RedHawks even sweeter.
Berke first learned about the Indiana team from his Detroit-area trainer, Brad Lutsch, who played for the Hoosiers.
The team and university seemed like a good fit for Berke from the get-go.
“The club team is the hockey team at Indiana,” he said. “There isn’t an NCAA team. And the Kelley School of Business there is excellent. I’m thinking about a career in construction management.”
The Indiana team is very involved with youth hockey in the Bloomington, Ind., area, including running summer camps.
And it draws good-sized crowds to its home games at the historic Frank Southern Ice Arena in Bloomington. The arena was built in 1967 but not enclosed until 1988. It received $300,000 worth of renovations in 2000.
Some 400-500 fans attend Indiana home games in the 200-seat arena.
(Originally published at https://www.thejewishnews.com/sports/i-love-where-i-ended-up/article_eebb1bdc-ed2a-11ee-beff-33dba0370167.html)
