Three former Ice Hawks to play for the Lights

There will be college hockey in Havre next season. That's because the Montana State University-Northern Lights will make their debut as a club hockey team this coming fall.

And, the Lights will have a hometown feel on their roster, too.

Northern head coach Jeff Krissek, who has been in Havre now for some time, has been building this roster for the first year of Lights hockey, and he recently announced that the team will feature three former Havre Ice Hawks.

Among the Havre High and Ice Hawk's alumni are, Ethan Roberts, Trent Shettel and Dexter Beck. All three played together at one point on Havre's high school squad, with Beck just finishing his last season back in the spring. Shettel graduated from the Ice Hawks several years ago, while in 2019, Roberts earned the MAHA Mr. Hockey Award, which is given to the Montana Amateur Hockey Association's top high school player each season. Roberts is also one of the all-time leading goal scorers in Havre history.

"These players will help us draw more fans, and build a larger fan base," Krissek said in a recent interview. "Northern draws a lot of kids from right here in this area. Having some local players on the team will help us draw in more people."

Krissek also noted that, the Northern team has signed quite a few Canadian-born players, which was part of the formula Northern was hoping for when it announced it was starting a club hockey program. MSU-N is close to the hockey-rich provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the southern portion of both provinces are extremely close to Havre, and are also fertile grounds for loads of hockey talent.

The Northern hockey program has spent the last year building momentum. While Krissek has been busy recruiting and building his team for the 2020-2021 season, the program has also been hard at work fund-raising. Included in that effort was the Havre Ice Dome hosting a game between Montana State and Providence back in January. The game not only was a fundraiser for the Northern program, but also gave local hockey fans a taste of what club hockey looks like at the collegiate level.

The club hockey in the United State is made up of universities and colleges at all levels that don't field hockey teams as part of the NCAA. The American Club Hockey Association governs the sport, with Division I, Division II and Division III for men's hockey and DI and DII for women's hockey. Northern will compete in DII, with the likes of the Bobcats, Argos and over 50 other programs in the Western Conference, including other Big Sky Conference member schools, like the University of Idaho, Weber State, UC Davis and Eastern Washington and Northern Arizona. Gonzaga and Washington State, as well as the university of Wyoming, also play in the Western Division, and could be potential opponents for Northern in the future, due to proximity.

The Lights haven't announced a schedule as of yet, but they will, of course, play their home games at the Havre Ice Dome.