April 4, 2024 | SPORTS | By Michael Braithwaite
Less than two weeks after the Colorado College Hockey team concluded its first winning season in over a decade, nine of its rostered players entered the NCAA transfer portal, according to Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald.
A player entering the portal does not necessarily mean that they won’t play for the Tigers next season – defenseman Connor Mayer ’23 entered the portal after last season before deciding to return for another year at CC – but it does signify the player’s desire to explore the option of playing for other collegiate programs.
Six of the declared transfers – forward Ray Christy, forward Logan Will, forward Tyler Coffey, forward Danny Weight, defenseman Chase Foley and defenseman Nicklas Andrews –– are seniors, members of the final collegiate class to gain an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While CC does offer one graduate program in the education department, only two players have taken advantage of the program in recent years: Mayer and former Tigers defenseman Bryan Yoon ’22.
Foley became a defensive stalwart of the team in 2021, playing in 23 games and making his presence known on the ice. The defenseman scored the first CC goal in Ed Robson Arena history in a 2-1 loss to St. Lawrence University on Oct. 8, 2021. Mayer bookended his collegiate career by adding the final two scores to his career total of three in the Tigers’ conference tournament series against Omaha in mid-March.
While not dominating the stat sheet, Andrews and Christy each grew into terrific players during their respective collegiate careers. Andrews, a defenseman from Canton, Mich., has already committed to play at Michigan State next season, according to Schlossman, returning closer to home to play one final year of collegiate hockey.
Weight, a 2021 offseason transfer from Boston College, made an immediate impact upon joining the team for the 2021-22 season, but found playing time hard to come by this past year as younger forwards dominated the group. If he does leave CC, he will do so with three career goals and 17 career points in a Tigers’ uniform.
Will and Coffey, the final two seniors to enter the portal so far, have both been foundational players for the team since their first season in 2020, becoming two of the more decorated active forwards during their four years in Colorado Springs. Coffey will likely finish his Tigers career with 23 goals and 31 points, with Will not too far behind with 21 scores and 52 points of his own.
In addition to the six seniors, three underclassmen entered the portal as well: defenseman Nikolai Charchenko ’26,forward Noah Serdachny ’26 and defenseman Antonio Fernandez ’27. None of the three players appeared in more than five games in the 2023-24 season.
Charchenko was lauded as a member of the 2022 recruiting class as a defender who “eats pucks for a living” according to CC Hockey Nation on X. But the defenseman only appeared in one game during his two years as a Tiger: a 6-3 loss at Air Force in October 2022.
Similarly, Fernandez was billed as a defenseman with high-end scoring potential before his 2023 recruitment to CC, placing sixth in the U.S. Hockey League with 40 points from 2022-23. But the defenseman only tallied one total shot in his two-game CC tenure, seeing playing time against the University of Denver and Miami University of Ohio.
While Serdachny appeared in 17 games and scored a goal in his first season with the Tigers, his playing time decreased to just five games this season amid the influx of young and highly skilled forwards.
The transfer portal is open until May 14, which gives plenty of opportunity for more players to enter before the window closes. But until then, these players – apart from Andrews – will be weighing their options and deciding where to continue their collegiate hockey careers.