After some time away, there’s one thing Rico Blasi noticed about the familiar rinks of the CCHA.
“The smell is still the same,” the first-year St. Thomas coach joked in a phone interview Tuesday, reflecting on his team’s recent road trips to Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State.
Blasi, who played at Miami in the old CCHA from 1990 to 1994 and then coached at his alma mater from 1999 to 2019, has a lot of familiarity with the teams from the old incarnation of the CCHA. And as the league has returned in 2021 with many of the same teams from those old days, Blasi is excited his new team can be a part of it.
“The arenas that we’ve been to, Northern and Lake State, having been in the league and played in the league, I have some fond memories of those buildings,” he said. “I’m just excited to be back in the CCHA, and see the logo. It’s a little bit surreal, to be honest with you, but there’s some comfort to it as well. I’m grateful to be here.”
Not only are the Tommies brand-new to the CCHA but they are, as everyone knows, brand-new to Division I. And this weekend, they will host their first-ever true home game as a Division I program with a series against Ferris State at the 1,000-seat St. Thomas Ice Arena.
It will be just a little bit different to their other “home” game, which was Oct. 3 St. Cloud State at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. The Tommies were the hosts and the designated home team on the scoreboard, but the energy levels in a high school arena in the St. Paul suburb of Mendota Heights are going to be slightly different to the NHL rink.
“Playing at the X was great, and we had 4,000-plus fans and a great student section but we still had to pack our bags and get on the bus for a game,” Blasi said. “This will be a different environment, no doubt about it, but our guys are excited about it. It will be tight in terms of space but it will be a lot of fun.”
It’s just one of many firsts that Blasi and the Tommies are checking off the list as they transition from Division 3 to Division 1. The ultimate goal is to have St. Thomas competing at a high level in Division 1, but this is going to take some time.
“Teaching and getting better every day is the most important thing in our process,” Blasi said. “We’re getting there. Maybe not as quick as everybody wants to, but that’s part of making sure that you have a good understanding of where we want to be in the future.
For now, Blasi is focusing on creating a specific St. Thomas culture, which means getting players up to speed with how Division 1 hockey is supposed to be played.
“We want to be a relationship-based program that is process-oriented and takes a holistic approach to the development of the student athlete on and off the ice,” he said when asked about his ideal culture. “We’re going to focus on those areas and continue to hold our guys accountable to that standard. We’re not going to miss on opportunities to teach and develop our student athletes as individuals and our program as a team.”
Currently the Tommies are 0-6 overall but have, aside from a 12-2 loss in their season opener at St. Cloud State, been competitive in every other game. Last weekend against Laker Superior State, for example, the Tommies outshot the Lakers in both games but lost 3-1 and 6-3. And their power play has been quite good — they’re currently 8-for-33 (24.2 percent).
“We still have a lot of work to do in a lot of areas, but we’re throwing a lot of new things at our guys,” he said. “The team has been put together from 12 or 13 different teams, with different languages, different ways of playing. Most of our guys have not played a lot of division 1 games — I’d say 98 percent of our guys. It’s been one that continues to grow, continues to get better, so we haven’t put it all together yet. But we have gotten better in certain areas week to week.
“Certain guys maybe are not used to the cadence of what we do and how we do things. That takes some time. We started school Sept. 8, we had our first game three weeks later. It’s not like we’ve had months of time to get into a routine. But from where we started Sept. 8 to where we are today, I’m extremely happy with the progress we’ve made.”
