It has been tough to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of the NCAA and Division I college hockey over the past few years. From the Covid-19 pandemic granting athletes an extra year of eligibility, to the explosion of the transfer portal, along with NIL money and the current House settlement that may put roster caps at 26 athletes, it seems like things are changing daily at this point. 

Despite all of this noise and hubbub, one program is attempting to ignore all of these new distractions and is focused on starting a Division I men’s ice hockey program literally from scratch.

Tennessee State University, a Historically Black College/University (commonly referred to as an HBCU), announced back in June of 2023 that it would be starting, eventually, a men’s ice hockey team. The news made lots of waves online and plenty of people voiced their support for the school based in Nashville, which is set to become the very first HBCU to offer ice hockey at the Division I level. 

After the initial support from hockey fans around the globe, there have been plenty of ups and downs with getting this Tigers team off of the ground. Multiple skaters have been recruited by head coach Duante Abercrombie and have committed to joining the roster for the fall of 2025, which is when Tennessee State has said it has hopes of starting competition as an Division I independent, but things were quiet on the news front for a while until March of this year when Coach Abercrombie posted a video online asking for donations in order to make the men’s hockey program a reality.

Youth Hockey Hub’s Tony Scott recently traveled to Nashville to find out more about what is next for this program and whether college hockey fans in five or ten years will remember the TSU program as an odyssey, a team that achieved great success after facing adversity, or an oddity, looking back on the venture as one that was a peculiar blip in the history of the sport - perhaps like the now defunct Division I program at Alabama-Huntsville. 

While in Nashville, Tony talked with Assistant AD of Communications and Creative Content and Director of Hockey Nick Guerriero and found that there were many positives to be associated with the newest team in college hockey but that there is also still plenty of work to be done to get the Tigers up and running ahead of the inaugural 2025-26 season.

In the original announcement of the addition of men’s ice hockey at TSU, which came at the 2023 NHL Draft in Nashville, the university said that the Tigers team would start at the club level in 2024 and would eventually advance up to Division I, with a specific timeline to be determined. Well, to make a long story short, that ended up not happening. The Tigers did not field a club team in 2024 and instead decided to just make the jump up into Division I as an independent for the 2025-26 season. 

This actually created some difficulties for the school though in its venture into the sport. The Nashville Predators and the NHL, who are ‘partners’ with the Tigers to help get the program off the ground, wanted to see the team start at the club level, as originally announced, and then eventually make its way up to Division I, so the sudden jump up into becoming an independent at the DI level certainly wasn’t what they were expecting or planning for. 

Starting a brand new college hockey team is not cheap and TSU needs, at a minimum, about two-million dollars to support the squad in its first season in 2025-26. Many on social media were under the impression that the partnership with the NHL and the Predators meant that the university would receive funding and support from the two organizations but the reality is much different. The NHL gave the program $250,000 through its Industry Growth Fund but the Nashville Predators have donated a total of zero dollars to the team and, in fact, will likely be charging the Tigers for ice time at the Ford Ice Center Bellevue. 

Where does this leave Tennessee State? Well, it leaves them with a large financial burden to fill. They are a long way from a two-million dollar need for Year 1. In a previous article written by College Hockey News, the school says it could still make things happen with just one million dollars, but that would be a fairly dire, bare-bones situation. It doesn’t help that the university is in the midst of a debt/budget crisis, battling low enrollment numbers and is currently on its third president in the past year and a half.

There is some good news though too - it’s not all negative. The roster, under head coach Duante Abercrombie, is under construction and there are plenty of recruited/committed players that are set to step foot on campus this fall and make history with the Tigers. They have a full schedule lined up and will, as of this moment, be playing plenty of games in 2025-26, including a season-opener against Boston University at Bridgestone Arena on Oct. 4 at a time to be announced - though, a bit of a bummer that the match will allegedly be played late at night after a Predators game has concluded. The team will play contests against both Division I and club opponents at Bridgestone and Bellevue and there is a plan in the works for a game at F&M Bank Arena in Clarksville, Tennessee, too. 

One athlete that is set to get to campus this fall is former Holy Family and Edina forward Trey Fechko, one of the very first skaters to publicly commit to TSU. The current 21-year-old has aged out of his junior hockey eligibility but is currently skating and rehabbing an injury prior to joining Division I hockey with his younger brother Marcus, who has also committed to the team.

“Being one of the first players to play for TSU is an opportunity to be part of something truly unique, something greater,” Fechko told Scott about his decision to jump into the brand-new program. “From the first conversation I had with Coach Abercrombie, I knew this was going to be a special opportunity to help grow the game and be part of the culture/traditions that are prevalent at a HBCU.” 

There are plenty of other recruits who will age out of their junior eligibility this fall and will head to campus. Most of the recruits currently hail from Canada and compete in leagues like the NAHL and BCHL, but there are also committed skaters coming from Michigan, Massachusetts, Tennessee, New York, and even South Korea, to name a few. The athletes who are choosing to commit to TSU are doing so for the love of the game, considering that the school does not have the budget to offer athletic scholarships to those on the team at this point. 

“Hockey has given me a lot of great experiences,” added Fechko. “Now having the ability to bring hockey to others who have not experienced it before is very inspiring.” 

As of now, the program is a go for 2025-26 but it has a long road ahead if it wishes to continue on after that. Currently, it is just a small roster list of recruits and head coach Abercrombie, but that’s enough to get things up and running for Year 1. There are currently no other staff members yet on the squad’s roster and it's likely that Director of Hockey Operations Nick Guerriero could end up behind the bench for the inaugural season of competition.

More information about the inaugural season for the Tigers will be announced in the months to come. 

To help support men’s ice hockey at Tennessee State you can text TSUHockey to 41444.