MATT VOLZ
Sports Editor
This is the second of a two-part series highlighting Fredonia’s 1993-94 hockey season. Part one can be found in Issue 6.
It’s been 30 years since the Blue Devils tore through Division III on the way to a 29-1-4 record and a third-place national finish.
A year after the magical 1993-94 season, Fredonia embarked on another deep run, finishing 24-5-4 and going all the way to the national championship game.
The Blue Devils lost that championship game in 1995, a 1-0 loss that marked the end of the college careers of many of the team’s stars.
Five players from those teams were later inducted into the Fredonia Athletics Hall of Fame: Craig Conley, Jim Pinti, Eric Preston, Jeff Lupu and Doug Florkowski.
The 1993-94 and 1994-95 teams were also later selected into the Hall of Fame together as “Teams of Distinction”.
In the three decades that have followed, many of them have gone their separate ways and begun their own journeys.
They haven’t all stayed in the area, either.
“We’re in Detroit, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Florida … [We have] a few guys still in Western New York, a couple guys in Rochester, a guy in Pittsburgh,” said Marty Diamond, who currently lives in Tennessee. “We’re all over the place, pretty much.”
Some of them went on to pursue professional hockey in various leagues.
Conley, one of the team’s All-Americans, played a couple of seasons in the now-defunct Colonial Hockey League (CoHL), most notably putting up 39 points in 59 games across three different teams in 1996-97.
He later played two seasons with the Fort Worth Fire of the Central Hockey League (CHL), recording better than a point per game in both campaigns.
The CHL has also since disbanded, having ceased operations in 2014.
Conley finished his hockey career playing in the Texas-based Western Professional Hockey League (WPHL), recording 13 points in 23 games with two different teams in 1999-2000.
The WPHL ceased operations in 2001, shortly after the end of Conley’s career.
Today, Conley resides in Arizona, as does the former All-American and team captain Pinti.
Pinti also briefly played in the CoHL, playing five games with the Utica Blizzard in 1994-95 and recording four points.
The Preston brothers, Eric and Brad, spent time in both the CHL and WPHL.
They actually played together for a couple of teams, suiting up for the Oklahoma City Blazers of the CHL in 1997-98 and the Central Texas Stampede of the WPHL in 1999-2000.
That year marked Brad’s final pro season, while Eric played 29 more games with the Stampede in 2000-01.
Eric currently lives in Arizona, and he said he still skates with Conley and Pinti on occasion.
Brad didn’t go too far after graduation, as he lives in the Rochester area.
Diamond also played professionally after his Fredonia career ended, including stints in the CHL and WPHL.
His best professional season came in 1998-99 with the San Angelo Outlaws of the WPHL, recording 61 points in 66 games during the regular season and adding nine points in 12 playoff games.
Before that, however, Diamond had one small issue.
He never graduated.
Following the 1993-94 season, Diamond had no more eligibility to play college hockey, but he was still 30 hours short of receiving a degree.
In 1996, while he was playing with the Lakeland Prowlers of the former Southern Hockey League (SHL), he received a phone call from a familiar voice.
It was Jeff Meredith.
“I don’t care what you do afterwards, but you need to get back up here and finish [school],” Diamond remembered Meredith saying in the phone call. “This is what you have to do because I told your mother that you would get done [with your degree] here. You haven’t yet.”
Meredith brought on Diamond as an unpaid assistant since Diamond couldn’t play at the collegiate level anymore.
That season, the Blue Devils reached the SUNYAC final, ultimately falling to Plattsburgh.
Diamond also finished his degree, taking 35 credit hours across the fall and spring semesters.
After graduation, a ceremony that featured then-Bills coach Marv Levy as its keynote speaker, Diamond recalled Meredith asking him the same question many graduates face: “What are you going to do now?”
Diamond told his coach that he would return to professional hockey.
“Good. At least I can check this one off my list,” Meredith said. “Thanks for coming back.”
Even after three decades, many members of the 1993-94 Blue Devils stay in touch.
Diamond said they have multiple different group chats, and former players often chat about various topics.
One day this past March, Meredith was sitting at his kitchen table at 5 a.m. eating oatmeal for breakfast.
At the same time, he was receiving texts from several of his former players who were at a casino in Las Vegas.
“It’s special,” Meredith said of the bond between the group. “They were just a great group of guys.”
The impact that the team had on the community was immeasurable, too. Several players remembered being treated like celebrities around town.
Dave Simpson’s jersey still hangs in Coughlan’s Pub, as the Coughlan family was a significant hockey booster in those days.
Simpson, who now lives near Brad Preston in Rochester, said he brought his son to Fredonia recently, and his son was surprised to see the lasting impact of his father and the team.
“My son was blown away that we had made that much of an impression that a bar owner would still have our jersey hanging in a bar 30 years later,” Simpson said.
Pinti also noted that he, Conley and Eric Preston still feel connected to the community despite the fact that they all live on the opposite side of the country.
“We’re still in touch with Perry [owner of Old Main Inn],” said Pinti. “We always get together, have a couple of lunches together and reminisce.”
When the Blue Devils host Plattsburgh and Potsdam next season, many members of the 1993-94 team will be back in Fredonia.
“I already booked my plane ticket,” said Pinti.
Pinti estimated that at least half of his former teammates will make the trip.
The legacy left behind by these Fredonia hockey teams may not include a national championship, but the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons still remain the best in program history.
Their success on the ice led to far more than just a few banners, though.
It created a lifelong bond between a group of men who, three decades ago, came together and created a lasting impact that the campus and community will surely never forget.
