Growing Georgia Tech hockey club fighting for final playoff spot

Peacock, the longest-tenured member of the club, saw the team in some of its best years earlier in his career. Now, the fourth-year defenseman’s focus is split between leading Tech on the ice and handling many of the day-to-day logistics of the team.

Unlike NCAA-sanctioned teams, college clubs such as Tech hockey are run mostly by students.

Veteran players such as Peacock and vice president Brendan Germano handle many “front office” tasks like the team’s weekly schedule, recruiting, the website, social media and renting ice times as the Jackets have no home rink on campus.

Much like many NCAA teams, leaders like Peacock and Germano try to improve the player experience as much as possible. That keeps current players coming back and draws the interest of prospective recruits considering other Southeastern programs like South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Clemson.

“As little as you think (it matters), creating a game-day staff, your social-media presence, everything goes into driving more players to come, driving friends to come, driving revenue so that we can make dues cheaper or take buses, which make players want to come back,” Germano said.

Another challenge facing club programs like Tech hockey is the fast turnover. Most students spend only four years with the team, meaning leadership positions quickly are passing from one player to the next.

Germano is planning to graduate with an MBA this spring. The 27-year-old graduate student will pass his duties to 21-year-old undergraduate Zachary Keschner, who is in his second year with the team.

“My goal — and I’m sure they’ve done great on the board this year — is building into a program that has strong foundations year by year and also is growing,” Keschner said. “We have a lot of stuff that we want to do next year that I’m hoping will bolster the program to new heights and keep future teams in a position to compete with all the other schools that maybe have a lot more resources than us.”

Tech’s influence has grown alongside its competitors, according to Peacock. Southern college hockey, even at the club level, has gained significant momentum compared with Peacock’s first year at Tech.

“On average, the club hockey competitiveness level has gone up significantly, even in just the four years I’ve been here,” Peacock said. “Still amateur, but less ‘amateur hour.’”

Peacock also has seen fan interest spike in recent years. Students take fan buses from the downtown campus to nearby hockey rinks, like Atlanta IceForum (Duluth) and The Cooler (Alpharetta), for home games.

A small portion of Tech’s marching band has even shown up for home games, bringing a college sports sound to the metro Atlanta arenas.

“Being in the southeast, it’s almost treated like your school’s team,” Germano said. “It’s vastly different than club hockey in the northeast. That’s where I was playing, and it was more so about the product on the ice and less about Instagram, fan engagement.

“We pack this place, and we never had that.”

The Jackets will hope for similar crowds at The Cooler this weekend. Tech and Vanderbilt are fighting with Ole Miss for the last two playoff spots in the CHS Division 2 North standings.

The Rebels are ranked third in the standings, the Commodores are ranked fourth and the Jackets are just outside the playoff picture in fifth.

The matchups between two similarly ranked teams with playoff spots on the line made Tech-Vandy the ‘Game of the Week’ for College Hockey South.

“We’re not gonna just go out there and beat them on skill, but whoever competes the most is gonna win these two games,” Tech coach Colin Roberts said. “It’s that simple.”