UNLV hockey’s Joseph Kaszupski is interviewed after practice at City National Arena in Summerlin Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019.
Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019 | 2 a.m.
The Golden Knights have taken over the hockey landscape in Las Vegas, but they’re not the only team in the area having success this season.
UNLV’s hockey team is ranked No. 11 in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, the top non-NCAA college hockey league in the country. The Rebels have two more road trips this season before they head to the national tournament with hopes of bringing home their first championship.
And UNLV has something the Golden Knights do not: local players.
“I think that the biggest thing for us is to have our hometown kids really, truly experience playing at home in front of friends and family,” team general manager Zee Khan said. “I think it’s special for them to come home and play high-level hockey because they’ve always had to leave. We’re providing them an opportunity to do that here."
UNLV lists three players on its roster with Nevada hometowns: forwards Cody Williams and Joe Kaszupski (both Las Vegas) and defenseman Eric Williams (Henderson). All three are among the top point-scorers for the team, showing that UNLV owes a big part of its success to players born just miles from its arena.
“I had to move away when I was younger and a lot of kids who wanted to keep playing competitive had to move away when they were younger,” Eric Williams said. “But now they have a chance to play here competitively and stay at home longer.”
Williams went to Los Angeles after his sophomore year in high school and played with the Los Angeles Jr. Kings development program. He went to prep school in Michigan for a year, though did come home to get his diploma from Green Valley High School. He played at NCAA Division III Chatham University (Pennsylvania) before transferring to UNLV last season.
Kaszupski’s story is similar. He went to Coronado for two years before going to Los Angeles, then to Division III Endicott College (Massachusetts) before settling with the Rebels. As he finishes his collegiate career, he’s still amazed at where he ended up.
“It wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t possible, so I never even considered it, but as soon as it became a reality I definitely took advantage of the opportunity,” he said. “I came back because I wanted to play hockey in front of my family. I wanted to be around the family and I hadn’t lived at home since I was a sophomore in high school.”
It’s not an accident UNLV ended up with NCAA-caliber players. They grew up in the Las Vegas development path, which is growing to include programs that wouldn’t necessitate a move to California.
At some point, there could be a player born in Las Vegas, trained in Las Vegas and plays his college at hockey in Las Vegas.
“I think growing up, the mentality was we will never put together a pure Vegas team of all kids who want to stay here,” coach Anthony Vignieri Greener said. “The hockey is abuzz here. Why can’t that happen?”
