Our Crowdfunding Groups
We are Texas Ice Hockey, the University of Texas's club ice hockey team. Texas Ice Hockey participates in the ACHA, the American Collegiate Hockey Association, at the D2 level. The team was founded in 2001, and this year marks the 19th season a club hockey team has been fielded at UT. This year we are fortunate to have the opportunity to play an outdoor game at Cotton Bowl Stadium following the NHL Winter Classic. The Stars play the Predators on January 1st, and we are set to battle Texas A&M on January 5th. Before detailing how this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, it is important to understand the hockey's influence in Texas.
Hockey is one of the fastest growing sports in the country, especially in Texas. While hockey may seem lost under the Friday Night Lights of Texas football, Texas is home to the Dallas Stars (NHL), Texas Stars (AHL), and the Allen Americans (ECHL) at the pro level, and the Amarillo Bulls, Corpus Christi Ice Rays, Lone Star Brahmas, and Odessa Jackapoles (NAHL) at the Tier II Junior level. Texas has produced many NHLers including Hall of Famer Brian Leetch, Seth Jones, and Blake Coleman. Hockey is beginning to gain traction at the collegiate level, partly due to the founding of the TCHC (Texas Collegiate Hockey Conference) in 2016. We hope to help further the expansion of hockey in Texas by providing students to continue playing a sport they love and by contributing to the hockey community in Austin.
This event will accomplish this by promoting exposure of the hockey team, which will attract more fans to games, players to UT, and children to the rink for their first skate. Hockey is meant to be played outdoors - with modern technology (and good weather), this is even possible in Texas. It is extremely fitting to UT's biggest rival, Texas A&M, at this special event. In addition to providing our players with a once-in-a-lifetime experience, this game will spread the Texas Ice Hockey brand and increase our draw of fans to games, hockey players to the University, and children to the sport. The Winter Classic will most likely not return to Dallas in over 30 years, as the NHL is attempting to hold it in various locations and it is easier to host it in northern states, so it is the only chance for teams in Texas will have to play sanctioned games on an outdoor rink.
But most importantly, why should you donate? How will your donation provide an impact? Your donation will: help expand hockey in Austin through the exposure this event will provide, provide our players and fans with a once in a lifetime experience, and beat Texas A&M. Further, if we hit our goal of $3,000, we will use extra fundraised monies to pay help pay for a charity event that would benefit local youth in Austin.
The returning player with the most points in the 2018-2019 season is Nicolas Samadian, who had 24 points! Nicolas scored 12 goals and added 12 assists last year, and is now the team captain!
Wayne Gretzky is the all-time NHL leading scorer with 2857 points in his 20 year career. He is the only player to ever score more than 2000 points in his career, and is widely regarded as the best player to play the game - hence, he is known as "The Great One".
Scoring three goals in hockey is known as a "hat trick". It is a special event in hockey in part because of its difficulty to achieve, but also because of the tradition of throwing your hat on the ice when someone scores a hat trick at a game you attend!
A Texas Hat Trick occurs when a player scores 4 goals in one game - everything is bigger in Texas!
PogChamp is an emote on Twitch that is used to express great excitement. $3,000 would cover the entire cost of maintaining the ice, and we will spam PogChamp in your chat if you single-handedly covered the cost of our Winter Classic game!
