For three Robert Morris hockey players, this weekend, they will be getting the senior night send-off they never thought they’d receive.
Saturday against Canisius (5 p.m.) marks the final regular-season home game for the Colonials in their return campaign after a two-year absence for the program. In May 2021, the university’s previous executive administration eliminated the men’s and women’s hockey programs. But, thanks to fundraising efforts, the prospect of legal intervention, and a wave of community support, the program was reinstated for this season.
Three players bridged the gap between the teams during the hiatus: Cameron Hebert, Gavin Gulash and Matt Hutton. Saturday, they will be honored with nine graduate student transfers who helped repopulate the RMU roster during this rebirth of a season.
“They are all great kids,” coach Derek Schooley said Wednesday. “That’s why we brought them back because they are great kids. They love Robert Morris, and they love the city of Pittsburgh. They were able to show the (new) guys campus. They were able to show guys the city of Pittsburgh.
“While we were putting together a full new team, they had an idea of what we were trying to accomplish, some of the drills we were doing — show a little bit of the way.”
In all college sports, senior nights are common ceremonies for just about all graduating classes. For this group of Colonials, it’s unique. For Hutton, Gulash and Hebert, they didn’t know if they would get such a celebration at all, and if they did, they didn’t know where it would be.
When the programs were dropped, the men’s and women’s players were forced to scatter, having to dive into the transfer portal two months after their seasons had ended. It wasn’t until December 2021 that the school announced it would be bringing the programs back and that play wouldn’t resume until this season.
Hutton (DIII St. Mary’s, Minn.) and Hebert (Saint Francis Xavier University, Canada) decided to transfer to other schools but returned to Robert Morris, even though there weren’t going to be any games for the 2022-23 campaign. Gulash stuck it out the entire time on campus in Moon.
“It wasn’t anything that was your own fault. But it felt weird being on campus,” Gulash said. “I don’t want to say I felt like a loser. But everyone was like, ‘Everyone else left. Why are you still here?’ It was hard some days. You almost lose a sense of identity.
“But you move on, and you grow up a little bit. I like Pittsburgh. I like the school. I made friends here. Hockey is going to end one day. You need an education. So I weighed the pros and cons with the hope of getting our teams back, and it worked out.”
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For the trio, being part of the movement to get RMU hockey back on the ice was worth the downtime of not being able to play in the interim.
“It means a lot,” Hebert said of Saturday’s ceremony. “We waited the extra year, my fifth year waiting for this. I’m excited for it. It’s really full circle.”
As coaches, administrators and donors worked to rebuild the programs, the three Colonials skated with some early commits and a handful of women’s players from the previous iteration of their team who were in a similar situation.
It was roughly a dozen players from the men’s and women’s sides, skating together every day under Schooley and women’s coach Logan Bittle — just constantly practicing with no games in sight for a full year.
It was almost like the movie “The Holdovers,” except with hockey drills — and it lasted a whole year instead of just one holiday break.
“That group of the 12 of us, there were days that were tough,” Gulash said. “There weren’t any games for 10 months into the future. Not every day was fun and easy. But to look forward to days like this, that someday I’m going to have my senior night and my family is going to be on the ice with us. That light at the end of the tunnel helped push us through it.”
What makes the efforts of the three forwards even more notable is that they saw the process through with no promise of playing time or a high-leverage role on the team once it returned. Hutton has only played in three games. Hebert and Gulash are regular contributors in the bottom-six forward units.
“There’s a bigger goal than just me playing hockey,” Hutton said. “I really don’t care if I score 20 goals in a year or if I play two games in a year. It’s about giving these younger guys the foundation that they can succeed for years on and on.”
For Hebert and Hutton, whenever RMU’s season ends in the playoffs, this will be the end of the road for their college career. Gulash is technically listed as a redshirt junior, so he does have another year of eligibility he can take. That’s something he is planning to do at RMU next year. But he wanted to make sure he walked with this class of seniors and the one-year graduate transfers, given the impact they all made together to bring the program back.
Schooley says it’s a group that will always be remembered in Colonials history for its efforts.
“I’m thankful for all of our transfers that came in,” Schooley said. “They took a chance on us. They took a chance on our vision. They took a chance on our history.”
Now, thanks to “The Holdovers” and the rest of the graduating class, the history of Colonials hockey will continue to grow.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
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