Hockey season is upon us and the Hamilton men’s ice hockey team has been hard at work for the past couple of months in preparation for this season, with hopes of winning the programs first ever NESCAC championship.

The team is coming off of a very successful season last year where they finished with an overall record of 13–10–3 and a record of 10–5–3 in NESCAC play. The team made a playoff run that unfortunately ended in the NESCAC semifinals when they lost to top-seeded Trinity 2–1 in overtime.

Although the team’s top two leading scorers both graduated last year, they are returning many key players including All-NESCAC defenseman Nick Rutigliano ’22, forward Nick Ursitti ’20, and starting goalie Anthony Tirabassi ’20. The team is also welcoming seven first years into the mix: Sean McAvoy, Sean Thompson, Cade Groton, Fred Allaire, Tommy Tanner, Nick Hawkins, and Sam MacBean. Five of these first years will be joining an offense who averages 2.94 goals per game and the other two will join a veteran defensive group.

The team has a deep bench as ten of the returners garnered 8 or more points last season. Ursitti ’20 and Rutigliano ’22 led the offensive charger with 15 and 17 points respectively. This year, the team will also be looking to Sterling Bray ’20, Joey Moore ’22, Bennett Morrison ’20, Jon Beniers ’21, Jordi Jefferson ’22, Justin Felhaber ’21, Josh Labonte ’21, and Sean Allen ’21 to be steady point producers.

This will be Rob Haberbusch’s 9th season as head coach of the team. He currently has 89 wins under his belt and if all goes well this season, he will be looking to collect his 100th win for this program.

The team starts the season traveling to Amherst College for a game on Saturday Nov. 16th at 7:30pm and then they return home to Russell Sage Rink for an out of conference game against Bryn Athyn on Sunday Nov. 17th at 5:30pm.