Frustrated with limited playing time on one of the top college roller hockey teams in the country, Aydin Shvets had no choice but to start his own program that would eventually match the success of his former team.
Grand Canyon University has established one of the nation's premier roller hockey programs in the National Collegiate Roller Hockey Association since making its Division I debut in 2022. But Schwetz didn't always plan on founding a new program at GCU.
His NCRHA career began at Arizona State University but was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He transferred to Lindenwood University, one of the NCRHA's best collegiate roller hockey teams, where he played in 24 games over two seasons.
Schwetz made a big impact in a limited role, scoring 42 goals and 22 assists for a total of 64 points. His performance helped the team win the national championship in the 2021-22 season. Despite his stellar performance, Schwetz was growing dissatisfied with his position on the team.
“While I was there, I felt like I wasn't given enough opportunities, or at least a fair amount of opportunities,” Schwetz said.
After some tough conversations, Schwetz decided to part ways with Lindenwood to begin a new chapter in his career as a roller hockey player. Guided by his experience in the sport, the Thousand Oaks, California native formed and designed the program at GCU. Prior to his current role as Director of Operations, he played as a forward and served as team president during his two years with the team.
“There was nowhere to go up from Lindenwood. There was no better situation anywhere, so I decided to start a program at GCU and create a situation where I could be happy with my collegiate roller hockey experience,” Schwetz said.
Building a new program from the ground up to compete at the Division I level is no easy feat, and with no scholarships or financial support from GCU, the club relied on players to cover team expenses such as player fees and travel.
“The team fee is $2,000 per player, but the reality is that the cost for the season is about $3,500 to $3,800 per player. We do a lot of fundraising. We get a lot of donors. That's really how we do it,” Schwetz said.
While other Division I programs in the NCRHA offered scholarships to players, GCU had a harder time recruiting players than other schools.
“Guys want to go to those schools and get a scholarship to play,” GCU defensive player Brock LeFever said about the importance of scholarships. “They can't go to other schools and get a scholarship, so they have to pay to play. It makes it really hard for schools like GCU to get players.”
Schwetz had been calling players for months, recruiting talent and building a team ahead of the 2022-23 season. After some persistence, he was able to sign a team of 10 skaters and two goalies before the season began. But his team began to fall apart.
“I was on the phone eight to 10 hours a day all summer,” Schwetz said. “Two weeks before the season started, we had eight to 10 skaters and two goalies. Two weeks before school started, six skaters and both goalies quit at the same time.”
Without a goaltender at the start of the season, Schwetz reached out to his longtime friend, Jay Pacheco, to play goaltender.
“I've played against Jay since we were 4 years old. We're from the same area. I actually got him to quit welding school and play roller (hockey) in college right after he got qualified,” Schwetz said with a laugh, “and now I don't think he's going back to welding school.”
Despite the challenges of building a program, GCU finished its first season with a winning record (15-11-0-2). With the first season over, the program took a big step forward heading into its second season.
The team faced new challenges in their second year in the 2023-24 season, building on lessons learned from their inaugural season. NCRHA Division I teams feature some of the best talent in roller hockey and presented a daunting challenge. Meanwhile, GCU still faced challenges with a lack of roller hockey experience on some of their team.
“A lot of the guys on this team have never played roller in college. There was a big difference between the two halves of the team,” Schwetz said. “Some of our guys didn't even have a hockey bag when the season started. Some of our guys had never played competitive roller when the season started.”
But GCU remained steadfast and began the season with lofty goals of competing in a national championship game. That season, Schwetz taught his players that with hard work and belief, they can overcome even the toughest challenges.
“If you work hard and make something that people really care about, and care about a lot more than anybody else you're playing, good things are bound to happen,” Schwetz said.
GCU improved on its first year with a 17-1-0-2 regular season record and carried that momentum into the playoffs, defeating Arizona State to win the Western Conference championship.
GCU continues to have a great season, and Lopez's win over ASU earned them a spot in the NCRHA National Championships in Auburn, Maine.
“When you win a Western Conference championship, you think, 'OK, let's keep winning. Let's keep going and keep winning battles. Let's keep climbing uphill no matter what way we can,'” LeFever said.
Worried about his team's play heading into the national championships, Coach Schwetz felt the team needed to take a break and regroup.
“As a coach, I've had to take a step back and think, we have too big heads. Our egos are too big. What if we don't do anything between now and nationals? It's going to be really bad because we have a lot of guys on our team that not only have never played roller hockey in college, but have never played high-level roller hockey,” Schwetz said.
GCU finished the round robin with a 3-1 record, with its only loss coming against Lindenwood. The Lopez faced Bethel University in the semifinals and won 2-1 in overtime to qualify for the national championship.
But they will once again face Lindenwood, a two-time champion in a row.
“We were excited after winning the semifinal (against Bethel), that was our ultimate goal. We accomplished everything we set out to do this year and more, so honestly, we just came into this game wanting to have fun,” Schwetz said.
Coming into the national championship game, Lindenwood was the favorite to enter the NCRHA postseason with a perfect record of 21-0-0. To prepare for the biggest game in program history, GCU drew inspiration from the “Miracle on Ice,” the team of American college hockey players that pulled off the biggest upset of all time by defeating the Soviet Union, 4-3, at the 1980 Olympics.
“We were there for probably six days before that and we watched 'The Miracle' (the 2004 film 'Miracle') like seven times, so after every game I was like, 'Hey, maybe something can happen here,'” Pacheco said.
Schwetz knew his team was inferior in almost every way on paper against Lindenwood, but he focused on the one area he knew he could control: his team's mindset.
“The fact is, Lindenwood was stronger than us. They were faster than us. They had more skaters than us. They had more wins than us. They had about $300,000 more than us. They had everything. They had coach rides from game to tournament,” Schwetz said. “They had everything than us, but they didn't care any more than we did. That's what we wanted to make sure we were in mindset going into that game.”
In the final game of the season, Lopez had an incredible performance, defeating Lindenwood University 2-1 in triple overtime. Despite being outshot 55-20, Dylan Guy shocked the players and the crowd by scoring GCU's first shot in overtime.
“When we scored, everybody froze. Everybody was excited, but everybody was supposed to throw everything they had, all their equipment, just throw it. But everybody was like, did we just do that? So it was more of a shock,” Lefever said.
GCU accomplished its goal all season of winning the team's first national championship, finishing the season with a record of 25 wins, 2 losses, 0 draws and 2 ties. Still, Schwetz said the win was unexpected, even though it was something the team had been chasing since the first practice.
“We never expected to go and win a national championship in our second year. It was a 10-year goal,” Schwetz said.
The program has seen rapid growth over the past two seasons and the players will continue to build on that foundation as GCU looks to defend its title when the 2024-25 season begins in October.
“We've set the bar pretty high and I think it's going to remain high. We're going to have that 'we've got to all work together' attitude and continue to hold onto the little traditions that we have,” LeFever said. “I think we're going to do the same thing every year: win a Western Conference championship, go to the national tournament and at least make it to the national championship game.”
