10/2/2026

Club Hockey: William Paterson University vs. The College of New Jersey @ CURE Insurance Arena (Trenton, NJ)

A look at college sports outside of the NCAA

I've talked about quite a number of NCAA-sanctioned college sports on this blog, but today, we're discussing college sports OUTSIDE the NCAA (as well as the super unknown NAIA, which is another national governing body for college sports here in the States).

Club sports are, in essence, intercollegiate sporting events that are not quite as "professional" as NCAA sports (which, as I understand it, is how all college sports are in some countries). In fact, it's not uncommon to see a school have an NCAA (or NAIA) sanctioned team AND a club team, as the club sport is structured VERY differently (for example, the players often have to pay various fees to participate, and most things are student run).

In hockey's case, there are over 400 club hockey teams across the United States; many schools MUCH better known for other sports have club hockey (like some of the SEC schools), and even a few schools which have D-I NCAA hockey programs (such as Sacred Heart) have club teams as well. Much like the "regular" NCAA, club hockey is divided into several divisions, but interestingly, some schools have multiple club hockey teams in different divisions; for example, it seems that The College of New Jersey - i.e. the hosts of this game (TCNJ being just outside of Trenton) - have a Division 1 and a Division 3 team who just dropped down from Division 2 (this game featured the Division 1 team).

I won't go too deep into the history of TCNJ or their opponent (William Paterson University - a school about 20 miles from New York), but both are public schools and I know several people who went to each one (though I will mention that the current "The College of New Jersey" has only been called that since 1996¹). There's also not a TON of information about either program's history, but it should be noted that apparently TCNJ's team was founded in 1977 - don't believe me? Here's proof:

I don't know that much about the club hockey scene, so I can't tell you if this game's result - a 5-3 "Willy P" win - is "expected" or not. All I will say is that in case you're wondering more about WHERE this game took place and WHY I chose to go to this game...I'm not quite ready to talk about that just yet. What I will say for now, however, that neither team had merchandise available for sale - though I wasn't here for college hockey merch anyway...