Ice hockey is a huge deal in Glen Rock, N.J., a little borough on the periphery of New York City’s glow where Meg Emery grew up. She’s been a New Jersey Devils fan since forever. She had a Martin Brodeur poster on her bedroom wall, and when the Devils won the Stanley Cup in 2000, when she was in fifth grade, she went to the gala outside the arena to see everyone parade around with the trophy.
She was a manager and statistician for her high school hockey team, and when she started the college search, an ice hockey program was a prerequisite. That was before Emery visited JMU and fell in love with the campus, the climate and the friendly people and figured the lack of a hockey team or club wasn’t that big of a deal — she could always start one herself.
So she came, and last January, halfway into her freshman year, she started her campaign to organize JMU’s first ever ice hockey team. For the next seven months, she plugged away at everything required by the folks at University Recreation — gathering letters of interest, completing a sport risk assessment, earning welcome from the American Collegiate Hockey Association, pushing papers to organize club finances — and in August, it all paid off. JMU endorsed the club, with Emery, now a sophomore, as president and 11 players on the roster (Emery doesn’t play hockey herself; she just loves it).
“She was the one that did pretty much everything,” said junior Doug Fordham, the vice president of the new hockey club. “For her to come in here and single-handedly get the team started says a lot about who she is.”
As soon as Fordham heard about the new club, he ran out and bought new equipment. Since he’s a goalie, it set him back about $1,000. Because hockey’s an expensive sport (practice time at the Charlottesville Ice Park runs the team $250/hour; league dues were $1,050), club members pay $600 to play the first semester, then $300 for the second semester, Emery said. Next year, the hockey team will be eligible for some school funding, which should help, though they will be competing with the 40 other official JMU club sports for the same money.
“There’s always been talk about [starting a team], but she was the one who took the initiative to actually do it,” said Sean Hollern, a freshman center who was excited by the rumors he heard about JMU’s hockey club-to-be last year while shopping around for a college.
Emery, Fordham, Hollern and the rest of the team carpool to Charlottesville every Wednesday for an 11:30 p.m. practice — as the new kid on the block, JMU Ice Hockey got the red-eye slot after the U.Va. hockey teams.
The group usually grabs something to eat at 7-Eleven after practice and gets back to Harrisonburg somewhere around 2:30 a.m. By 9 a.m. Thursday, Emery (usually a little bit exhausted by now) has to be at work at the JMU ticket office, and then hustle to a sports management class by 11. She’s working on a kinesiology major with a sports management focus, plus minors in business and communications. She wants to work for a professional hockey team after college. Emery’s dream job is a community relations gig with the New Jersey Devils — staging promotions, banquets, signing parties and so forth.
She’d even take a job with the minor league Lowell (Mass.) Devils if that’s what it takes to get a foot in the door. In the long run, though, she wants to live in the New York metro area and work for a professional hockey team, and all options are on the table, even if it means a job with the hated New York Rangers.
“If I had to [do that] I would,” Emery said. “[But my family] would be kinda mad … they would not be happy.”
On Oct. 18, the first ice hockey team wearing JMU jerseys took the ice in Lynchburg against a club team from Liberty University. JMU’s skills, Emery said, were roughly on par; their numbers were not — 11 skaters on the team, minus a few who couldn’t make the game meant JMU had two substitutes. Final score: Liberty 19, JMU 3.
“I was happy when they got the three goals,” Emery said.
It’s been almost a year since she got all this started, and now, for the new team she created, there’s nowhere to go but up. On Jan. 16, JMU plays its second game, against VMI. Interest in the club has been increasing; numbers should be up and the prospects should improve soon.
At the end of the first period against Liberty, JMU was down 5-0 but enthusiasm, for the sheer joy of playing, on the bench ran high.
“We were having a blast,” said Fordham.
