MITCH HORUCY
Sports Editor
After a successful career playing AAA hockey, Anthony Carambot was set to head to Roosevelt University to continue his career.
Located in Chicago, Roosevelt University is a member of the Great Lakes Six Hockey Conference, or GL6.
It’s ACHA Division I, which many believe to be just a step below NCAA Division III, with some of the top end teams competing with and beating NCAA Division I teams.
Carambot worked back from a torn labrum as well as a hip impingement surgery.
However, all his hard work was nearly for nothing after he received heartbreaking news from Roosevelt just two weeks before the start of the semester.
“Two weeks before I was supposed to fly out, I got an email that my financial aid package was revised, and it just…it was just unaffordable,” said Carambot.
After receiving this news, he went right back to work.
He attended classes at City College of New York, closer to his hometown of Washington Heights, N.Y.
Almost every day, he took an hour-long commute to Queens to train for three hours, hoping for another opportunity.
During his time back home, he emailed almost every club hockey program in the Northeast.
“Almost like a Josh Allen, I reached out to everyone,” said Carambot.
It was this time when he sent an email to Fredonia’s club hockey head coach, Aaron Alpern, explaining his situation and his desire to play.
After a short talk, including some film being sent over, Carambot was set on Fredonia.
He’s started to fully embrace the underdog role, with the team losing a lot of players and him losing out on an opportunity to play ACHA Division I.
“I didn’t want my story to end,” said Carambot. “It won’t end here either.”
With the season still being young, he’s had a good start to his college career.
Off to a 2-0 start, Carambot has posted a .971 save percentage and a 1.00 goals allowed average.
After graduating both starting goaltenders, along with 12 other skaters, the team has hit a full roster turnover.
Having to not worry about the goaltender position is a great problem to not have in a time like this.
“Him, along with Rian Kunkel, have been great for us early in this season,” said Connor Heer, a 2025 graduate of the team who returned to the team to be an assistant coach.
“Similar to what we had last year, it’s a 1A [and] 1B situation, not exactly a starter and backup,” said Heer.
While the adjustment from Washington Heights to Fredonia has been smooth, Carambot misses one thing dearly: the food.
He mentioned that his neighborhood is predominately Dominican, having countless options of homemade food at his dispense.
That isn’t exactly the case in Fredonia.
“There’s a Peruvian restaurant, 10-minute bike ride from here, I will go on my scooter just to get some food that’s close to home,” said Carambot.
While Carambot is excited to help build this program, he wants to use this experience to help his career continue.
As the hockey operations coordinator for the Fredonia NCAA team, he wants to use that experience to possibly get his foot in the door and turn it into a roster spot.
The team is off to a 3-3-0 start early in the season, with their next home game on Nov. 9 at 4:45 p.m. as the team takes on Mercyhurst.