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QuickTake:
From sweaty bus rides to packed nights at The Rink Exchange, Oregon hockey has come a long way.
An hour before the puck dropped on the final home stand of Hunter Voyles’ final season with the Oregon hockey club, the lumberjack of a defenseman needed more time.
The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder from Mission Viejo, California, came to Eugene after playing two years of junior hockey in Boston. After five seasons with the Ducks, the hulking, mustachioed graduate student in UO’s master of science management program had too many stories to choose from when asked for one to best sum up his career.
But he settled on one from the start.
It was 2021, a year before the Oregon club made the leap from the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s Division II level to Division I. The Ducks opened their season against Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.
In 2026, a trip like that likely includes a flight. Back then, it meant a 30-hour bus ride from Eugene to Arizona, with players propping open windows and emergency exits with duct tape for ventilation. The Ducks opened with a scrimmage against Grand Canyon’s Division I team before a real game against the Division II team the next night.
“We’re showing up to the rink and guys are in their suits and UGGs because our shoes are under the bus,” Voyles said. “We showed up like 15 minutes before puck drop, got dressed, hopped on the ice and beat them. It was a huge moment for us.
“And then we turn around the next day and got beat by the D-2 team. I always say that travel hurts you that second day.”
Coming into last weekend’s home series with Oakland University, Voyles had more than 100 career games with the Ducks to his name. He’s been with the Ducks for the ascent to club Division I status. He’s been with the Ducks as they cycled through three coaches in three years.
And he’s been with the Ducks during their recent growth cycle. Coming into Friday’s game, the Ducks had pre-sold more than 900 tickets and expected a crowd upwards of 1,500 fans at The Rink Exchange at the Lane Events Center. Oregon played 10 games this season at the rink on the fairgrounds, and those around the program said most of them carried a similar buzz to the one around the facility on Friday night.
An hour before the game, fans were already gathering in the concourse, where they could buy 50/50 split-the-pot tickets and rubber ducks to chuck on the ice between periods. Members from the Ronald McDonald House worked a table where they raffled off a signed Oregon hockey jersey.
Lines formed at tables where volunteer students Bella Pagel and Olivia Mok sold merch.
Pagel started working with the program two years ago after coming across the team’s Instagram account.
“I’m a senior, and it’s really cool to see how much it’s grown since my freshman year,” Pagel said. “There’s a lot of talk about the Big Ten and NCAA hockey and is Oregon going to make the move? And honestly, I feel like it’s at a good level now. It’s a good balance.”
NIL? Not here
The NCAA conversation never strays too far from Oregon hockey these days.
Ever since Oregon joined the Big Ten Conference — where Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Penn State and Notre Dame field NCAA Division I teams — players said they’ve been getting asked more about whether that includes the Ducks.
It doesn’t, though Voyles understands the confusion. Let’s face it: Oregon isn’t exactly a hockey state. And while the NCAA and ACHA are both four-letter acronyms and both feature very good hockey players, that’s about all they have in common.
Oregon hockey players each pay a $3,500 fee to be part of the team. They help raise money, secure sponsorships and, in some cases, run the shuttles that ferry fans from campus to the fairgrounds.
They also had to hire their own coach.
Jack Hyman, 34, has served as Oregon’s head coach and general manager since 2023 and came to the Ducks for the full-time gig after a series of Zoom interviews with student members of the club’s board. While Hyman does have important in-game and roster-building duties, he said a big part of what he brings to the equation is lightening the load for the players.
“I’ve been here for three years now and I have every intention of being back here for my fourth year. Before that they had three coaches in three years, and you just can’t build off that,” Hyman said. “I’ve taken a lot off the players’ plate so that they can focus on hockey, which makes them play better, because they’re not worried about 100 logistical things before the game.”
Before Friday’s game, Oregon players arrived at the rink in suits a couple of hours before faceoff at 7:30 p.m. They made their way to the back of the rink to their upstairs locker room, complete with an inflatable Duck outside. As members of Oregon’s club dance team arrived and began practicing their routines, hockey players loosened up outside the locker room by forming a circle and juggling a soccer ball. A football whizzed through the air, too, as fans began to file into the stands.
“We didn’t have crowds like this 20 years ago,” said Erb Erl, who’s volunteered on game days for the UO club since 1998. “We used to have 10 o’clock games, and we’d be lucky if there were a couple of hundred people here.”
About 30 minutes before faceoff, the Zamboni came on to clean the ice. The stands were buzzing, and Voyles needed to get back to the locker room.
More than likely, his competitive hockey career is coming to an end after this year. And while he knows he has a future of beer-league hockey ahead of him — “I will play until the day I die,” he said — there’s something about these home games in Eugene he knows he won’t be able to shake.
There’s the winning, of course. But it’s also the 7:30 a.m. practices, the long road trips, teachers who don’t give club sport athletes the same leeway as NCAA athletes, Zoom coach interviews and the feeling of turning Oregon into a “hockey school” that Voyles won’t be able to replicate anywhere else.
And one day, he said, it would be cool if Oregon ever got an NCAA team — joining Arizona State and the Alaska schools as the NCAA Division I programs west of Colorado. But for now, this is what Oregon has. And after more than 3,000 fans packed The Rink Exchange over the weekend to watch Oregon claim wins of 9-3 and 6-3, what Oregon has is a pretty good show.
“Oregon is a hockey school,” Voyles said. “That’s been our quote from my freshman year. Oregon is a hockey school. It’s not just football.”
