UNLV hockey sees winning as key to growing program

UNLV’s hockey team is a club sport by definition, but it does not stop them from running the program as if it were an NCAA Division I team.

Operating with that mindset has helped the Skatin’ Rebels have their best season in program history. They are 26-5 and the No. 4 seed heading into their national tournament on Friday.

After having its 2020-2021 season canceled due to COVID, UNLV had a successful return to the ice this season. The Skatin’ Rebels went on a 16-game winning streak and won a midseason tournament in Chicago, where it beat three of the American Collegiate Hockey Association top-five teams.

Winning and becoming a yearly national title contender is the main objective for head coach Anthony Vignieri Greener, who would like to see the sport eventually make the move to Division I.

“We just need to focus on winning right now, and then the money will come,” Greener said. “There’s a lot of moving parts, but I think that we are on the right track.”

As a club sport, UNLV hockey does not receive any funding from the athletic department. The team receives most of its $500,000 annual operating budget from donors. The rest comes from game-day revenue and fundraising efforts.

They have received help from the Vegas Golden Knights, who have provided offices, a locker room and gym for the players at City National Arena, where they play their games. One goal for the program is to have its own facility, adequate for a Division I team, that would help with a transition.

“If we can put together a blueprint together with the Vegas Golden Knights on (a facility), that would be really big,” assistant coach Nick Robone said.

The Skatin’ Rebels success has caught the eye of many across the city and campus. UNLV athletic director Erick Harper was in attendance March 4 for UNLV’s game against Oregon.

Harper, who has taken note of the program’s success, cited funding as the main hurdle for any sport looking to obtain NCAA status.

“If we’re gonna do anything with adding, we’re gonna do strategic planning,” Harper said. “You have to do feasibility studies and make sure that you’re meeting all the parameters that you can support. Again it all goes back to the funding.”

One program UNLV has looked to as a model to make the transition to NCAA Division I is Arizona State, which had a successful club program. The team has had conversations with Arizona State coaches on how its transition went, as UNLV tries to do the same.

“We were trying to take everything good that they could give us, with all their information and use that to our advantage,” Greener said. “Having that in our back pocket has really helped us.”

As UNLV prepares to compete for a club sport national championship, both Greener and Robone don’t want to get too far ahead of themselves. Becoming an NCAA Division I program is a long-term goal, but making a deep run in this year’s national tournament is the first step to achieving that goal.

“We want to win at this level now and if we make the jump down the road to Division I, then that happens,” Greener said. “But right now I want to continue to get bigger, better and win at this level.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on Twitter.