Zac Electrifly

The University of Nevada Reno will field an ice hockey team this season. There are not a lot of details at this point. They will be competing in division two of the American Collegiate Hockey Association. The ACHA is unaffiliated with the NCAA. The ACHA has different conferences than the NCAA. I do not know which conference the Nevada Wolf Pack will be playing in this season. Their home games will be at Reno Ice. They are a club team. I believe that means they do not receive financial help from the school. They do have the backing of Reno Ice. Hopefully that will boost their popularity to the same levels as the Reno Ice Raiders. The Nevada Wolf Pack were the only Mountain West Conference school to not have a men’s ice hockey team. Now all of the Mountain West schools have hockey teams.

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The University of Nevada Reno has had several club hockey teams over the years. The oldest team I know about was in the 1990s. They played at the Reno Sparks Convention Center during the same time as the Reno Renegades of the West Coast Hockey League. That teams seems to have disappeared when pro hockey left Reno. In the mid 2000s their was a inline team. I do not have much information on either of these teams. In 2012 a new club ice hockey team was formed. That team was in division two of the ACHA. They played their home games at the ice rink in South Lake Tahoe. That team disband in 2015. They were using ineligible players and were banned from the ACHA. I do not know the details of the ban. I just know that the ACHA was not going to let anyone who was apart of that team compete in the ACHA so the team disbanded. I do not know if the team or UNR made the choice not to continue the program. In 2018 Nevada Wolf Pack inline hockey was back with the Nevada Hockey Club. They played in the National Collegiate Roller Hockey Association. They played their home games at the Marv Teixeira pavilion in Carson City. The team struggled to stay a float in 2020. The Center of Student Engagement would not let the team practice, hold try-outs or compete. On top of that the NCRHA did not play during the Fall 2020 semester. The team ultimately did not come back in 2021. There were rumors of a return of the Nevada Wolf Pack ice hockey team going back as far as 2021. Now in 2024 the Pack is back on the ice.

Like their 2012 counter part Nevada Men’s Ice Hockey will compete in division two of the American Colligate Hockey Association. I could not find the team on the ACHA website. They are also not listed on the Club Sports page on the University of Nevada Reno website. Their home games and practices will be at Reno Ice. We do know what their logo will be. On their instagram is a logo that matches all of the other Nevada Wolf Pack athletic logos. They appear to be going to use the current Nevada Wolf Pack logos. We have not seen their jerseys yet. Their is no schedule out yet. Currently most of the players appear to have played for Hockey Club Reno Ice. They are holding tryouts tonight. That will conclude with a scrimmage. We might get a preview of their jerseys tonight. More information on the team will likely be released in the future.

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The future could be bright for this team. On top of playing games at Reno Ice, they could also play games at the Tahoe Blue Events center. The 5,000 capacity Tahoe Blue Events Center is the home of the Tahoe Knight Monsters of the ECHL. The Grand Sierra Resort is also build a 10,000 plus capacity arena and ice rink for the University of Nevada Reno. The primary tenant of the new arena will be the Nevada Wolf Pack Men’s Basketball. The new arena will also be set up for ice hockey. If interest in this team continues to grow they could move in there. All of the Mountain West schools now have ice hockey programs. That does not include associate or football only members. What this means is that in the future they could create an ACHA conference with just Mountain West Conference teams. Their is also a possibility that the Mountain West Conference could join NCAA Ice Hockey as a conference. Air Force are currently the only Mountain West Conference school with an NCAA ice hockey program. UNLV has been working towards an NCAA ice hockey team as well. That is something that I have been hoping for since 2012.