Tom Lynn / UW Athletics Tom Lynn
Mike Hastings behind UW hockey players, gesturing and talking.
Hastings has the Badgers working and winning.
Regent Street was bustling last Friday night as University of Wisconsin volleyball fans heading west to the Field House crossed paths with men’s hockey fans moving east to the Kohl Center. Bars and restaurants in between were full and red stocking caps defended against a damp snowfall.
According to the official tally, 7,229 fans bought tickets to see the volleyball Badgers sweep Miami to advance to the NCAA regionals. Meanwhile 9,859 tickets were sold for the hockey game against Ohio State. That second stat is a significant improvement over the apathy that surrounded Badgers hockey a year ago.
While the athletic department publicly reports as “attendance” the number of tickets distributed for games, the number of those tickets actually redeemed or “scanned” at the venue more accurately reflects interest in these teams. According to an April 26 Wisconsin State Journal story by reporter Todd Milewski, who regularly files open records requests for the numbers, only 4,540 of the 7,040 tickets (64%) distributed for the Dec. 2, 2022, game against Michigan were actually scanned.
The Kohl Center’s capacity for hockey is 15,359.
I attended that game with a group of guys that occasionally assembles on weekend mornings at an east-side outdoor ice rink to play a game roughly resembling hockey. We bought our seats for prices that were not hard to fit into our budgets.
The enthusiasm for the UW men’s hockey team has not returned to where it was 30 years ago, when weekend series played at the Alliant Energy Center (née Dane County) Coliseum were raucous affairs and dominated the winter sports calendar in Madison. But under first-year head coach Mike Hastings, the Badgers are playing a much more exciting and competitive brand of hockey than they were a year ago.
In the 2022-23 season, the Badgers shot the puck at a .081 average — scoring 94 goals on 1164 shots — while their opponents shot .110. That straightforward statistic makes it easy to see why they finished the season with a 13-23-0 record and coach Tony Granato, a legendary player in the mid-1980s for the Badgers, was fired after seven seasons.
Enter Hastings, who assembled a 299–109–25 record at Minnesota State over 11 seasons. He’s been named national coach of the year three times. And while it would have been unrealistic to expect a quick turnaround in his first season behind the bench, the Badgers have jumped out to a 12-4-0 record and sit in second place in the Big Ten. They have swept two-game series against perennial powers Minnesota and Michigan.
More important, the hard work that Hastings preaches is evident in how the Badgers emphasize the little things during a game. Defenders scrap to keep the puck in the offensive zone, all players sacrifice to block shots in the defensive zone and, most apparent to a casual fan, they move the puck. Passing is what makes hockey a thrill to watch in person and these Badgers are quick and precise with the puck.
By the time Minnesota and Notre Dame show up on back-to-back weekends in early February, it might be more difficult getting a ticket to see this squad.
