Ice hockey is as quintessential a northern sport as there is. Kids in Minnesota grow up playing the sport on frozen ponds in the winter and idolizing players from Canada and Eastern Europe. There is nothing about hockey that screams ‘Georgia’. The Atlanta Thrashers, the city’s one-time professional hockey franchise, left town in 2011 for Winnipeg. In fact, in all of the south, only the University of Alabama at Huntsville fields a Division I-caliber college team.
Yet nestled in the competitive American Collegiate Hockey Association, Tech’s men’s hockey team, once a casual club, has reached unprecedented levels of success, making the ACHA National Tournament this year.