The 60's & 70's: Hockey Comes South

Tennessee's First Intercollegiate Team, 1967-68
 

Hockey has a long and storied history in the city of Knoxville. Hockey first arrived in 1961 when the Eastern Hockey League's Knoxville Knights took the ice for the first time. Guy Smith, a former Knights player, and coach of the Jr. Knights founded the Tennessee Ice Hockey Club in 1966 for students who were interested in the game of hockey. Smith would serve as the first head coach, along with Gil Champagne, one of the original Knoxville Knights. The team competed against local men’s league and corporate teams for the first year of its existance. Then the decision was made to open intercollegiate play for the 1967-68 team. That squad, comprised mainly of Knoxville-born players who had come through the Knoxville High School Hockey ranks, dropped the puck for its first intercollegiate game on Saturday, November 18th, 1967 against Miami-Ohio at the Ice Chalet.

Forward Dan McDonald, a native Canadian who would become the first of the Ice Vol greats, scored the opening goal in team history 2:07 into the first period as UT won its opening game 7-0. Keith Goodman and Knoxville’s Gunby Rule combined for the shutout win. The improbable Tennessee Ice Vols shocked many other opponents that first season en route to a 15-4-1 record, claiming a runner-up finish in the Inaugural Tennessee Invitational.

Tennessee would face a variety of northern hockey powers in its infancy such as Bowling Green, Purdue, Ohio, and Rutgers—but soon, a new rival would emerge, one that shared UT’s southern roots. In 1973, Georgia Tech became the second southern university to begin and ice hockey program. UT and GT would square off numerous times at the Ice Chalet and n the Omni after Atlanta Flames NHL games. In 2005, Tennessee and Georgia Tech will face off for the 50th time, a milestone in the series that has developed into the oldest and most storied rivalry in southern hockey.

Unfortunately, the cost of traveling to face the northern schools became too much of a burden. Aside from the Tech games, the Ice Vols were relegated to more of a barnstorming team for most of the mid and late 70’s , playing all-star and all-city teams from around the southeast. However, by 1979, other schools had caught the hockey bug. As the game caught on, both Tennessee and Georgia Tech became charter members of the Southern Collegiate Hockey Association, along with colleges such as Alabama-Huntsville, Auburn, Emory, and Georgia State, thus ushering in the modern era of southern collegiate hockey. Through the years, other major southern colleges joined in, including Duke, Virginia, North Carolina, and NC State, as well as Kentucky in 1984, Georgia in 1987, Vanderbilt in 1991, and Memphis in 1994. The state of Florida would also embrace the game as Florida, Florida State, Florida Atlantic, Central Florida, and South Florida would all have programs by the end of the millennium.

Tennessee's First Game vs. Miami-Ohio; Nov. 18th, 1967

Tennessee vs. Dayton
1967

70's Player, and later, winningest coach in team history: Bill Rutherford

Tom Hulsey, 1976