From Montana Kaiman
By Maxwell Johnson
On Oct. 2, 2021, a new iteration of Griz club hockey was set to play its season opener.
The team’s general manager, Tucker Sargent, hoped around 200 fans would show up, enough to fill Missoula’s indoor rink to a little under 20% of its capacity. Not only would it bring some energy into the building, but it would also give the club hope of surviving.
Sargent hoped he had finally created a formula that worked. The first incarnation of Griz hockey had folded due to lack of financial support.
Sargent swung the rink doors open to let fans in. He nervously surveyed the crowd outside. Before him waited a crowd of over a thousand, with a four person wide line stretching across the fairgrounds out onto South avenue. Where previous teams averaged a couple hundred or maybe 600 fans during their peak, tonight the Griz had sold out the rink and attracted 1,300.
“We rely on our fans. Without the fans, it wouldn’t be possible,” Sargent said. He also credited the success to the intense initial marketing push, including a partnership with ESPN Montana and bringing on sponsors, like the Desperado Sports Tavern, the Montana Club and Kettlehouse Brewery, as early financial supporters. But the very first backer for club sports was Sargent himself, who added $500 of his own money to the club’s account to get it started.
The push to get the club visible “elevated it immediately,” Sargent said. It had to be professional. And it had to feel like something big, not just a club sport for kicks.
Over the next four years, Sargent continued to build on that night’s initial success. Sargent brought on more event staff, expanding the original crew of six to 24. He added a student section of bleachers, built a stable foundation of veterans and brought in youth talent to complement it. This year, for the club’s fifth season, a new DJ will emcee before a roaring barn of fans.
“We’re going to start kind of encouraging more of a tailgate atmosphere prior to games this year. So we’re going to have music playing outside the rink about an hour beforehand, and making it more of a party,” Sargent said.” I just want to make it a big deal, big rallying point for the students and community in Montana.”
But to become a rallying point, Sargent would have rally the support for the team first.
The most amazing day in the world
The massive turnout was something that surprised six former Missoula Junior Bruins players on the team. The Bruins were part of a minor prospect prep league until the team moved to Rapid City, South Dakota in 2024, in part due to a lack of fan support.
“We knew some of the kids who played for the Bruins, and they were ones that we talked to initially saying, ‘Aye, we’re going to start this,’” Sargent said. “It was a nucleus to build around. And then, they had contacts … coaches started talking to other kids around the league.”
That opening night the team was able to field a squad just two players short of a full roster, and with an electric crowd behind them the Griz mauled MSU 4-2 in its season opener.
“To me it was the most amazing day in the world,” Sargent said. It’s a tall compliment coming from Sargent, who was part of a national championship-winning Griz lacrosse team in 2007 and later went on to coach the team to multiple national appearances.
It’s that roster, and the roster of players after that Sargent said helps keep fans and teammates coming back. With each year, the club drew in more experienced players, meaning more wins, which in turn brought the fans in.
He said it helps that hockey is also one of the top national sports. “People who don’t know sports know what hockey is,” he said.
The Griz would keep the victories rolling, winning its next two games against Gonzaga and beating MSU at home again, before taking its first loss of the season against MSU the next day.
The Griz would finish the season with a cumulative record of 12-9-1-1 and home record of 8-4-1-1, the latter two numbers representing overtime results.
But that success wouldn’t be possible without the original Griz hockey, a team put together piece-by-piece, just like Glaricer Ice Rink itself.
The original Griz and Glacier
The first iteration of Griz hockey came together a couple of years after Glacier Ice Rink opened in 1998. Eric Penn, Glacier’s first youth hockey director, helped start the team alongside UM students from the Midwest and East Coast.
The rink, propelled by community fundraising support and run as it is today as a nonprofit, was just getting off the ground, but the passion for college hockey was always in Missoula.
“Our rink, as I like calling it, was a retrofitted cow barn, it was chain link fence [instead of glass] and the games were really popular and even back in the day we got 600-700 people,” Penn said, recalling the fanaticism of the home crowd. “The games we did get at home, they were loud and passionate and they would be climbing up on the chain link.”
The rink’s walls consisted of a few semi trailers parked to block out the sunshine surrounded by a dirt lot that turned to mud in the winter. Locker rooms finagled together wherever they best fit, at one point requiring players to walk through animal pens, then a carpet, then the crowd to get to the ice.
It took a small cohort of dedicated community members alongside Glacier staff to create the current rink with solid walls, glass, a second outdoor ice sheet and the largest recreational hockey league in Montana.
As for the team itself, funding came almost exclusively through player dues, which primarily covered ice time and jerseys. Scott Cable played on the team between 2008 and 2012, when the price to participate was approximately $800.
“There was a really wide range in how well [club] programs were run, you know we played University of Idaho, Boise and Montana State. Eastern Washington had an [established] rink and recruiting,” Cable said.
The Griz’s club, on the other hand, was almost entirely student run. The team’s president balanced the duties of a general manager while also being a student and a player.
Cable joined the team as a freshman in 2008 when the team’s coach was Barret McDonald, the son of NHL hall-of-famer Lanny McDonald. Back then, the team had 50 players try out, had consistent organized practices and played a full schedule of games.
The team would occasionally pack the barn for a Brawl of the Wild game, but otherwise the average attendance sat around 100. But that would ultimately be as good as it got for the Griz, as the next season they lost their coach, then much of the team leadership the next year.
“By the time I was a senior the program had essentially folded,” Cable said, adding that the team had gone from playing around 30 games his freshman year to roughly 10.
When combined with the cost of dues and the significant drop in quality, the team struggled to recruit new players. The couple of grants provided to organized club sports teams via the Associated Students of the University of Montana was not sufficient to meet the inherent cost of the sport and ice time.
A few dedicated players tried to keep the program running and even asked Cable if he was able to coach the team, but he had moved back to Alaska and wasn’t available.
The team ultimately limped along for two more games the next season before going completely silent. Then along came Sargent.
A blessing in disguise
Without Griz hockey, this left the Missoula Maulers, a junior team like the Bruins, as the only competitive team in town. They received moderate support from fans and put together a fantastic 38-12-2 season in their final year, but the owner chose not to pay for a moderate increase in ice time fees and disbanded the team after the 2015-2016 season.
They were quickly replaced by the Missoula Junior Bruins the next year, but Missoula struggled to rally around the relatively middling team and in early 2021 it announced its relocation to Rapid City, South Dakota, leaving the ice empty going into the 2021-2022 season.
“When the Bruins left town, there was just sort of a void and it felt like this is the time like, you know, ‘Let’s jump in right now and give them something,’” Sargent said. “I’ve heard other people in town talk about wanting to start another junior program or whatever, and my sense was, why would you want to start a junior hockey team … when you can just start a University of Montana Griz hockey team where the Griz are the strongest brand in town?”
Sargent had seen how strong the Griz brand was as general manager of the school’s club lacrosse team. He could also pool resources like the lacrosse team bus and event staff, and he had the knowledge to market the team as well. Sargent enlisted his wife to help secure early sponsors.
Alongside a popular interest from a host of committed coaches, Glacier staff, and fans, as was seen in the Griz’s first season, Missoula set a stable foundation for a team. Now it was time to make it happen.
The new Griz in town
All that entertainment and ice time comes at a cost. Anyone who makes the team this year will have to pay $3,500 to play for the season. Due to the team’s status as a club, not an official NCAA sport, athletic scholarships or cost waivers are not available for players.
According to Sargent, over half that cost goes to travel expenses such as paying for the team’s bus driver and hotels while a sizable chunk goes to paying for the team’s gear and ice time. The latter cost around $60,000 a season.
“Obviously, we wish everyone was on scholarship, [but] that just doesn’t happen.” junior defenseman Alexander Neibauer, said.
Neibaurer once compared paying for dues with buying a fishing license after a conversation with a fishing guide. The guide asked how much he would be willing to pay for a fishing license and if he would still pay for one if it was $500. The answer from Neibauer was yes, because he loves fishing and he’s similarly willing to pay a lot to play hockey.
It’s an obvious thread shared between all the players, and Sargent, their general manager.
“You do hockey because you love it, you play hockey because you know it’s not easy,” he said. “You go to practices, [they’re] tough, they’re early, the game’s hard, it’s physical, you’re tired, but intrinsically, if you’re at that level of hockey, it’s because you really do love it and to be able to play in front of fans that share that passion is a really magical thing.”
Looking forward to this season they want to keep pursuing that love while thanking the community for theirs.
“I remember when I was little watching my high school team being like, ‘Those guys are awesome.’ So for me to come out on the ice and a little kid’s like, ‘Can you sign my jersey?’ It’s just like, ‘Yeah, man, of course,’” said Gray Wagner, a sophomore forward on the team. “When we wear that Griz hockey sweatshirt, kids look up to us, so we know how to act and you’re kind of representing Griz hockey in the community. You don’t know who’s ever watching, so it’s awesome to just [know] those little kids think the world of us when we’re coming on and off the ice.”
As for Sargent, he is looking forward to this upcoming season, not just for the games themselves but the energy at the rink when the players take the ice.
With the success of both Griz hockey and Griz lacrosse which Sargent managed beforehand, he was recently named the assistant director of club sports at UM, where he hopes to help and manage more teams.
“It’s a lot of work. You’re not going to get rich doing it… it’s more fun than lucrative, for sure, but for me, it’s worth it,” Sargent said. “I mean, it brings, you know, kids in Montana that otherwise wouldn’t come here. It feels really good on game day when you see 1600 people screaming and having a good time and knowing that you’re responsible for that fun that everyone’s having. So it’s definitely more of an emotional thing.”
In addition to the DJ, Sargent also has figure skaters hit the ice during halftime. For him, it’s not just a sport. It’s being an inspiration for kids, hearing the roar of the fanatical fans from the bleachers and the sheer level of entertainment every night on the ice.
(Originally published at https://www.montanakaimin.com/features/the-bear-roars/article_82f4976f-f909-4540-a952-28545813d0ac.html#tncms-source=article-nav-prev)
