MATT VOLZ
Sports Editor
This is the first of a two-part series highlighting Fredonia’s 1993-94 hockey season.
In Fredonia’s first-ever NCAA hockey season, the 1986-87 campaign, the team didn’t win a single game.
Seven years later, they lost only one.
The 1993-94 Blue Devils’ record of 29-1-4 was the best of any other college hockey team in the country, and it remains the best single-season record in school history.
Going into the season, they weren’t sure how good they would be.
“I knew we were going to be good,” said Craig Conley, a senior forward on the team. “Everything just came together that year.”
The year before, Fredonia finished 11-15-1, and they were bounced in the first round of the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) playoffs.
Part of the disappointing result was due to the absence of high-scoring forward Jeff Lupu, who had taken the year off to return home to Michigan and work with his father after the sophomore had sustained a back injury.
When Lupu returned to the Blue Devils in the fall of 1993, several others came along as incoming freshmen and transfer students.
Defenseman Mike McDonald came from Farmington Hills, Mich. to join older brother Rob on the team. Another pair of brothers, Brad and Eric Preston from Mission Viejo, Calif., also came on as first-year college players.
Head coach Jeff Meredith also recruited a pair of freshman goalies, Eric Pryzkuta from Buffalo and Jason Sirota from Thornhill, Ontario.
Fredonia also got some help from the transfer portal, adding forward Dave Simpson from SUNYAC rival Geneseo and forward Gary Masocco from SUNY Canton.
The new additions enhanced an already talented group that included seniors like Conley, forwards Marty Diamond and Mike Lowe and defenseman Jim Pinti, who served as the team’s captain.
That talent was evident from the first day of practice, as the Preston brothers recalled looking at each other and wondering if they’d made a mistake by trying out for such a talented squad so far away from home.
However, once they made the final roster, they remembered being welcomed with open arms by the team’s seniors.
At the beginning of the season, Meredith instituted a “big brother, little brother” program that paired up seniors with freshmen in an attempt to get the freshmen acclimated to being in college and playing hockey at the Division III level.
Eric Preston was paired up with Pinti, and he specifically referred to the captain as his “big brother” from that season.
Several team members highlighted Pinti’s leadership as being the reason for their success.
“I think if we didn’t have the leadership from Jimmy and from what he did, I don’t think we would’ve been as successful as we were,” said Diamond.
Pinti recalled sitting on the porch of Diamond and fellow forward C.J. Glander’s house on White Street one fall afternoon in 1993.
He said that, in that moment, something clicked and the team decided they wanted to make a run for the national championship.
While it may have seemed like a lofty goal for a team that had never reached the NCAA tournament in its history, Fredonia began the season on a tear that made dreams of a title feel possible.
“We won and we won and we won,” recalled Meredith. “We just kept winning, and it just kept building.”
Meredith recalled significant games against what he called “benchmark teams,” including a tie with conference rival Plattsburgh who was ranked third in the nation at the time.
The Blue Devils didn’t have a problem blowing teams out, either. They steamrolled Scranton 18-0 on a Saturday night in December, only to top it by shellacking conference rival Buffalo State 19-0 in early February 1994.
As a result, Fredonia found themselves ranked at number one in the nation, and they carried themselves with that level of confidence.
“The swagger that our guys had … They’d go into any rink and they knew they were winning,” said Meredith. “They didn’t just know they were winning, they knew they were going to blow somebody out.”
Part of the team’s success came from the team’s lethal power play unit, which featured four All-Americans in Lupu, Conley, Pinti and Lowe, as well as Mike McDonald.
The group was operating at a 50% rate in December, scoring on half of their man-advantage opportunities.
“Our second power play group used to get upset because they never got to go out,” said Meredith.
Fredonia finished the regular season without a single loss, finishing 23-0-3.
They parlayed that success into their first-ever SUNYAC title, beating a Plattsburgh team that had ended Fredonia’s season in the SUNYAC championship two years prior.
The Blue Devils took home several individual awards as well. Meredith was named SUNYAC Coach of the Year, Eric Preston earned Rookie of the Year honors and Pinti was recognized as the conference’s top overall player.
The team had their eyes on a much larger prize, however, as the goal from that fall day on White Street had remained intact.
They began the NCAA tournament with a weekend series against RIT, now a Division I hockey program.
The series was played on campus at Steele Hall Ice Arena, and fans continued to support the team the way they had all season.
The arena was at full capacity, or perhaps over it, for nearly every game. Meredith recalled that on several occasions, the fire marshals had to come in and close the doors because the building had reached its maximum capacity.
However, for the second game against RIT which decided the series, Fredonia was able to sneak in a special guest: then-Sabres captain Pat LaFontaine.
LaFontaine, a Hockey Hall of Famer whose jersey number 16 has been retired by the Sabres, is Diamond’s first cousin.
“They had to sneak him in through the Zamboni door because he wasn’t going to get in. They weren’t letting anybody in through the front door,” said Diamond. “A couple of the guys and Jeff knew he was coming, so they had the arena people push some snow away and they let him park his car where the Zamboni comes in.”
LaFontaine watched from behind the glass as the Blue Devils steamrolled RIT, 7-0, to advance to the Final Four.
Fredonia traveled to Superior, Wis. for the semifinals, taking on defending runners-up Wisconsin-River Falls.
Lupu scored on a breakaway eight seconds into the game, but the Blue Devils struggled to generate offense the rest of the way.
“We were pinned in our end,” said Pinti. “We played a lot of defense that game.”
Despite being outshot by more than triple, an early second-period goal from Lowe and a power-play marker from Lupu brought the Blue Devils within one.
The lead was insurmountable, though. As the final horn sounded, the scoreboard at Wessman Arena read: Wisconsin-River Falls 4, Fredonia State 3.
For the first time all season, the Blue Devils had lost.
They didn’t get the chance to play for a national championship, but a third-place game against Salem State awaited.
Shortly before the consolation game, Lupu learned that his grandfather had passed away.
“I wanted to dedicate that game to him,” Lupu said.
He recorded a hat trick that night, providing the difference in a 7-4 Fredonia win.
“Loops went off,” said Meredith. “He had a great game.”
Today, the banners from the 1993-94 season still hang in the rafters of Steele Hall Ice Arena, with one commemorating the SUNYAC championship and another honoring the team’s third-place NCAA tournament finish.
Several players are also honored on the wall of the arena, serving as a proud remembrance of the most successful season in school history.
Over the past three decades, many players have long since left the area, but Meredith still remains, soon to be entering his 37th season as the head coach of the Blue Devils.
He hopes that one day, the program might return to its former glory.
“Let’s return things to where they used to be because we blew the roof off this campus,” he said.
Meredith said that he and assistant coach Brian Rigali hope to admire the past but stay focused on the future. Their motto for this upcoming season reads, “A proud tradition, a new chapter.”
When the puck drops this fall, fans can only hope that the next chapter will be as exciting as it was 30 years ago.