Learn the ins and outs of Drexel Ice Hockey | The Triangle
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Learn the ins and outs of Drexel Ice Hockey

Jan. 31, 2025
Photo courtesy of David Wagstaff | Drexel Hockey

What happens when your university does not have a Division 1 team for you to play in? You create your own. This is exactly what Drexel’s Ice Hockey team did in 1978. Today, the program has over 65 student-athletes competing on two teams within the American Collegiate Hockey Association. Competing at the D1 level in the ACHA, Drexel has achieved significant success. The M1 team has won seven league championships since 2001. 

Drexel Ice Hockey is considered a club sport. This classification means that they do not receive funding from the university and their athletes cannot get athletic-based scholarships. Conversely, they do not have to follow NCAA recruiting rules and are allowed to play as many games as they want. 

Even though ice hockey is an official NCAA sport, Drexel does not sponsor a D1 team. This is likely due to a variety of factors, including a lack of facilities and costs. However, these factors have not stopped the team from running a successful program. As Drexel’s largest club sports team, its program operations rival some D1 teams. This season, the M1 team will be playing 29 games, nearly equal to the 31 games on the men’s basketball schedule. 

The operations of such a large program are something not lost on Zach Sprung, a fourth-year player on the team and an executive board member: “The biggest thing is the amount of money we shuffle in and out on a yearly basis. Our operating budget is anywhere from a quarter of a million dollars to $300,000 in any given year.” 

Being classified as a club team, the team has challenges that D1 teams do not have to face. One of the most challenging factors is funding. Like most club sports athletes, each hockey player has to pay out-of-pocket to fund the team. However, the price per player is much larger than the dues for other club sports. “This year, the division one team paid roughly $5,000 [per player] for the season, and division two paid $3,500,” said Sprung. On top of the gear needed (helmets, sticks, gloves, pads and skates), these dues go toward uniforms, travel, referee payment, hotels and ice rink fees. 

Since Drexel does not have a hockey rink, the team plays and practices at the University of Pennsylvania’s Class of 1923 Ice Rink. 

Sprung says, “[Penn] does a lot for us. They take great care of us. We occupy a decent chunk of their ice time, but it is tough because they need to constantly raise ice costs since their costs are going up every year. That makes our budget go up by 5-10% every year. I would say a third to half of the budget goes to ice costs.” 

Because Penn also has a club ice hockey team, finding times to use the rink is difficult, “Penn gets first dibs, but it comes down to cost. Primetime ice is about $500 an hour and off-peak hours is around $375 an hour.”

Despite the numerous challenges of being a club team, the club hockey scene is thriving across America. One advantage is there is more opportunity for competition. The ACHA, an organizing body of club hockey, has over 460 men’s and women’s hockey teams. In comparison, there are only around 150 men’s teams across three divisions in the NCAA, allowing for more competition, especially against schools that are not in the same NCAA division as Drexel. 

Recently, the door was open to raising club ice hockey to the NCAA level, but it ultimately did not happen. Even though he is optimistic, Sprung understands the challenges and realities of moving ice hockey to the NCAA level at Drexel. “Our school lacks school spirit, so even if you were to add hockey as an NCAA sport, it is going to be very seldom to succeed. You look at our basketball team which is supposed to be our ‘premier sport’, and the only game that I have seen have more than 100 students was the homecoming game this past weekend.”

Sprung thinks that the biggest benefit of becoming a D1 team is receiving help from the university. “You need support. We are talking about a quarter of a million [dollars] that is coming in and out and it is tough for seven students running a board to make it successful. We do the best we can every year, but it is very difficult and we are putting a lot on our players financially to have to try to cover because our university doesn’t support us like a lot of other bigger universities.” Even without the support from Drexel, the M1 team has been very successful, most recently winning their league’s conference tournament in 2024.

Knowing that they are unlikely to receive more support due to the current structure of club sports, ice hockey tries their best to be self-sufficient. “We would love to receive support but we understand the reality and the landscape of it. I understand that club sports are hurting for people. Orlin [Jespersen] and Zach [Apt] are doing all they can, but they just don’t get a lot.” 

“I would love to be recognized as a full varsity sport, I think we have definitely earned it. I do not know if it will ever happen, I just think we will always just sit in this weird spot as a very large club, but I think varsity is scared of our funding requirement. But we are not even looking for the funding, we have been so self-sufficient to this point that if we could get funding, it would be nice to lower the player dues, and take some of the burden off of them. But the biggest thing is getting support. We have so many moving pieces,” Sprung said. 

Drexel Ice Hockey is an example of what a group of dedicated student-athletes can achieve within the club sports system. While a path to becoming an NCAA hockey team seems unlikely, there are still opportunities for Drexel to support the team, whether it be financially or operationally. No matter what happens next, ice hockey will continue to thrive because of the resilience and commitment of its student-athletes. 

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity