Michigan State Spartans men's ice hockey

Early history

The Spartan Ice Hockey program traces its roots back to the first informal varsity team that began in 1922 playing an independent NCAA Division I schedule. On January 11, 1922, Michigan State played its first intercollegiate hockey game, a 1-5 loss to Michigan.

Michigan State finished 0-3 in the 1922 season and picked up its first win during the second season on February 11, 1923, 6-1 over the Lansing Independents. The team did not play the 1923-24 season but returned for the 1924-25 season. The 1924-25 season marked the first time the program had a head coach, John Kobs, who also coached the Michigan State Spartans baseball team. Kobs' tenure at Michigan State lasted six season before the team was suspended for 19 seasons. During which time the team compiled a record of 8-18-1.

Harold Paulsen was hired as the varsity ice hockey coach at Michigan State on August 1, 1948 following the suspension of the hockey programs during the years of the Great Depression and World War II. Before recruiting or coaching, Paulsen oversaw the renovation of Demonstration Hall into an indoor rink with artificial ice-making capabilities. On January 12, 1950, MSU played its first game since 1930, losing to Michigan Tech 6-2. Paulsen struggled through his first two years at Michigan State with a 6-25 record. MSU athletic director Ralph Young felt the hockey program's progress was inadequate and Paulsen resigned. Following the 1951 season, Amo Bessone accepted the head coaching position at Michigan State University. Bessone would remain at MSU for the next 28 years.

Amo Bessone era

When Bessone arrived at Michigan State, the ice hockey program was beginning its third full season after being reinstated. That same season, in 1951-52, the Spartans joined Colorado College, Denver, Michigan, Michigan Tech, Minnesota, and North Dakota as founding members of the Midwest Collegiate Hockey League (MCHL).

Amo Bessone won his first collegiate hockey game as head coach on November 29, 1951, when the Spartans defeated Ontario Agricultural College 8-2. The Spartans struggled with six losing seasons before Bessone turned things around in his seventh season as coach. In 1957-58, Michigan State enjoyed its first winning season. The following season, Bessone guided MSU to a Big Ten championship and a berth in the NCAA tournament. The tournament was MSU's first NCAA tournament appearance. The Spartans defeated Boston College 4-3 in the semifinals and advanced to the schools's first championship appearance. The Spartans lost the 1959 national championship game in overtime 3-4 to North Dakota. MSU finishes the season 17-6-1. Michigan State became a charter member of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) in 1959. The WCHA was a reincarnation of the loosely affiliated Midwest Collegiate Hockey League and Western Intercollegiate Hockey League that disbanded following the 1957-58 season. Bessone and MSU struggled during the first five seasons of the WCHA. Again, Bessone turned things around with a winning season in 1964-65. The following season, Bessone coached Michigan State to an improbable NCAA National Championship.

MSU began the 1965-66 season 4-10, but rebounded winning 12 of their last 15 games including defeating the defending national champion, Michigan Tech, to win the WCHA playoffs after finishing sixth in the regular season. The win earned MSU a spot in the 1966 NCAA tournament. In the national semifinals, Bessone upset highly favored Boston University 2-1 with a goal by Spartan forward, Doug Volmar. In the national championship game, Bessone and the Spartans faced Len Ceglarski's Clarkson team that owned the national-best record of 24-2. On March 19, 1966, Michigan State beat top-ranked Clarkson 6-1 victory to give Michigan State is first national championship. Len Ceglarski and Amo Bessone shared the Spencer Penrose Award as the national coach of the year in 1966. The national title and coaching award cemented Bessone's legacy as a coach. To this day, Bessone's 1966 Michigan State team remains one of the biggest underdog stories in NCAA ice hockey history. The total number of team victories (16) and team winning percentage (.551) is the lowest of any NCAA ice hockey champion. MSU made the NCAA tournament again with a strong WCHA playoff finish in 1967, but lost 2-4 in the national semifinals, a rematch of the 1966 NCAA Tournament against Boston University.

Bessone began the 1970s with six straight winning seasons. During Bessone's time coaching the Spartans the team won MSU won its first Great Lakes Invitational by defeating Michigan Tech 5-4 on December 28, 1973.

As MSU hockey was building momentum, Munn Ice Arena opened October 25, 1974, when Michigan State hosted Laurentian. That same season saw the first sellout crowd in Munn's history when the Spartans defeated North Dakota 6-2. A season later, in 1975-76, Bessone guided MSU to its best WCHA conference record of 20-12-0 before Minnesota knocked MSU out of the WCHA playoffs in 6-7 triple overtime loss. Minnesota, who had finished below Michigan State in the conference, received an NCAA tournament bid instead. Bessone announced his retirement effective at the end of the 1978-79 season after three straight losing seasons. Bessone coached his final game as head coach on March 3, 1979, when the Spartans defeated rival Michigan 5-3.

Ron Mason era

After Amo Bessone retired from Michigan State University, the MSU Athletic Director, Joseph Kearney, hired Ron Mason as the Spartans new head coach. Mason was named Spartan head coach on April 1, 1979, and spend the next 23 seasons at Michigan State. It was a rough start in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association for Mason as he compiled a record of 26-46-2 over two seasons. Michigan State joined the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) in 1981 and over the next few seasons Mason turned the hockey program around. The Spartans won CCHA playoff championships the first four straight seasons of the conference in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985. MSU would win a second national title in 1986 when the Spartans defeated Harvard 6-5.

In 2000 CCHA coaches and athletic directors unanimous voted to renamed the CCHA championship trophy to the Mason Cup in honor of Ron Mason, who was a key figure in establishing the conference in the early 1970s prior to his tenure at Michigan State. During the 2000-01 season Michigan State finished first in the regular season and advanced through the CCHA Tournament winning the first ever Mason Cup. That same season the Spartans made a Frozen Four appearance by beating Wisconsin 5-1 before losing to North Dakota in the Semifinal game. On October 6, 2001, the Spartans hosted an outdoor game at Spartan Stadium against rival Michigan known as The Cold War. The school would set an attendance record for an outdoor hockey game as 74,554 fans attended. The game ended in a 3–3 tie.

Mason led Michigan State to seven CCHA regular season titles and a conference-record 10 CCHA tournament titles. In addition, MSU under Mason made 19 NCAA tournament appearances during his 23 seasons with the Spartans. He coached MSU to five NCAA Frozen Fours, two National Championship appearances, and one National Championship. Mason coached two Hobey Baker Memorial Award winners, Kip Miller in 1990 and Ryan Miller in 2001.

Rick Comley era

Rick Comley was announced as Ron Mason's successor as head ice hockey coach at Michigan State University in March 2002. Comley led the Spartans to a tournament appearance in 2004, his second season as MSU's head coach. After losing to Northern Michigan in the 2004 CCHA Tournament the Spartans received an at-large bid to the 2004 NCAA Tournament. Third ranked MSU fell to second seed Minnesota-Duluth in the opening round 0-5.

Comley's Spartans returned to the NCAA Tournament in 2006 after missing the NCAA Tournament in 2005. Comley guided MSU to a second-place CCHA finish in the regular season and a CCHA Mason Cup Championship in 2006. Michigan State advanced into the 2006 Tournament with an automatic bid. The Spartans defeated New Hampshire 1-0 before losing to Maine 4-5 in the East Regional Final.

In the 2006-07 season, Michigan State was preseason ranked No. 5, which was MSU's highest preseason ranking since October 2001. The team earned an NCAA Tournament bid after finishing the regular season with a conference record of 15-10-3. Comley led MSU to defeat three higher-ranked teams en route to the national championship including No. 1-ranked Notre Dame in the Midwest Regional final. In the Frozen Four the team defeated No. 4-ranked Boston College in the National Championship game on April 7, 2007, by a score of 3–1 in a game that saw Michigan State score three unanswered goals in the third period.

In December 2010 the Michigan State Spartans and Michigan Wolverines played a second outdoor game at Michigan Stadium. The game, known as The Big Chill at the Big House, took place on December 11, 2010. 104,173 fans filled Michigan Stadium and watched as Michigan beat Michigan State 5-0. The attendance broke the 75,000 of the Cold War and 78,000 of the 2010 IIHF World Championship and set a new attendance record for a hockey game. Later that same season on January 25, 2011, Rick Comley announced that he would retire at the conclusion of the 2010-11 season.

Tom Anastos and Big Ten Conference era

In September 2010 Penn State University announced that the university was elevating its men's and women's American Collegiate Hockey Association club programs to varsity status. Then-CCHA commissioner Tom Anastos publicly stated that the CCHA would strongly consider adding Penn State as the conference's 12th member. On March 21, 2011, the Big Ten Conference announced plans to sponsor men's ice hockey starting in 2013–14 season. Michigan State along with CCHA rivals, University of Michigan and Ohio State University will leave the CCHA to join University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin from the WCHA and Penn State to form a six-team Big Ten Hockey Conference. Less than a week after the Big Ten's announcement Michigan State announced that former CCHA Commissioner, Tom Anastos would become the 6th head coach in the history of the program. Anastos is a former Spartan hockey player who played for MSU from 1981-85. He is also the former coach at Michigan-Dearborn (NAIA) from 1987–90, and compiled a 68-37-7 record. He later served as an assistant coach under Ron Mason from 1990-92.

Anastos picked up his first NCAA DI coaching victory with Michigan State in the second game of the 2012 Icebreaker tournament with a 3-2 overtime win over Air Force. The Spartans finished the 2011-12 season ranked 5th in the CCHA standings and received a first round bye in the CCHA Tournament. The Spartans faced fourth-seeded Miami (OH) in the second round, in the best-of-three series Michigan State was swept 0-6 and 1-4 in two games. Despite being swept by Miami, the Spartans finished 15th in the Pairwise rankings and became the final at-large bid selected for the 2012 NCAA Tournament. The bid marked the team's first appearance in the NCAA post-season since 2008, the team was placed in the East Region held at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In the game, Union College took an early lead and held the Spartans to a single goal in a 3-1 win over Michigan State in the East Regional semifinal. The game was the first meeting between the two programs and also the first win in the NCAA Division I national tournament for the Dutchmen.

Season-by-season results

This list reflects the modern era of Michigan State hockey. The NCAA began sponsoring hockey as a championship sport in 1947-48.

Notable alumni

Over 500 Spartan alumni have gone on to play professionally, including over 60 current and former NHL players and Olympians:

Spartan Hobey Baker winners

The Hobey Baker Memorial Award has been presented annually since 1981 to the outstanding college hockey player in the United States by the Decathlon Athletic Club of Bloomington, Minnesota. The award is named after college hockey great Hobey Baker of Princeton, a member of both the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minn., and the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Also a standout in football, he is also a member of the National Football Hall of Fame. Baker's brilliant skating and stickhandling abilities allowed him to dominate the college game and lead Princeton to the Intercollegiate League Championship in each of his three years of varsity hockey (1911–14). He added to his physical prowess the exemplary qualities of being a completely unselfish sportsman and an opponent of publicity. Facts about Baker's career often sound more like myths, such as the story of his playing every second of a 73-minute game against Harvard, or the claim that he was penalized just twice during his career, and both times the mere suggestion that he had violated a rule of the game nearly drove him to tears. To date, two Spartans have won the Hobey Baker Memorial Award: Cousins Kip and Ryan Miller.

Spartan center Kip Miller was the recipient of the 10th Hobey Baker Memorial Award in 1990 after leading the nation in scoring for the second consecutive season with 101 points on 48 goals and 53 assists. A two-time first-team All-Central Collegiate Hockey Association honoree, Miller was recognized as the league's Player of the Year after leading the conference in scoring for the second straight season with 36 goals and 38 assists for 74 points. In MSU's career record books, the two-time first-team All-America selection finished third in goals (116), assists (145) and points (261). He closed out his career among the NCAA's top 25 all-time point producers. Over the course of his four seasons, the Spartans won three CCHA regular season and playoff titles and amassed an impressive 132-45-9 record. The 1989-90 Hockey News/Bauer College Hockey Player of the Year also led the Spartans to their ninth consecutive NCAA tournament appearance as a senior.

In 2001, Michigan State goaltender Ryan Miller backstopped the Spartans into the Frozen Four as the number-one team in the nation. Miller shattered the NCAA record for career shutouts in just his second year of college hockey, with 18 overall. The sophomore's selection made him just the second goaltender ever to win the Hobey Baker. Minnesota netminder Robb Stauber was the first, in 1988. To win the award, Miller edged forwards Brian Gionta of Boston College and Jeff Panzer of North Dakota, who tied for second place in the balloting. The native of East Lansing, Michigan, posted 31 wins with a .950 save percentage and a 1.32 goals against average, leading the nation in all three categories. His 31-5-4 record in 2000-2001 included 10 shutouts to also lead the nation in that statistic. Miller, the CCHA Defensive Player of the Week five times during the season, was previously named a First-Team All-American and CCHA Player of the Year, as well as being a member of the all-conference first team. He holds four league and seven school netminding records. Ryan was a general business management major with a 3.07 grade point average. Off-ice activities for the All-Academic goalie included volunteering with the D.A.R.E. drug-resistance program, reading to elementary-school children and giving tours of the dressing room — sometimes during games. Ryan Miller currently plays for the NHL's Buffalo Sabres and Kip Miller plays for the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL.

Spartan Hobey Baker finalists

The Spartans have had 14 players among the top 10 candidates for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, including 1990 winner Kip Miller and 2001 winner Ryan Miller. Goalie Ron Scott was the runner-up to Bowling Green's George McPhee in 1982.

Coaches

As of progression of 2014–15 season

Program records

The following are the Michigan State school records. Statistics are accurate as of the 2010–11 season.

Note: Italics indicate a player is still an active Spartan.

Career