Last July, Brett Boeing was in the middle of the process that he hoped would lead to a moment like Friday.
Entering his senior year at UMass, Boeing’s hopes of turning pro had plummeted after two seasons with the Minutemen. He knew he needed to make changes to accomplish a childhood dream, so he went to work with UMass strength coach Clayton Kirven last summer in an attempt to make one last push.
“Growing up every kid who plays college hockey dreams of playing pro at one point,” Boeing said. “Before the season, I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen. I wanted to play pro, but I knew I needed to have a good season and I had to put that extra effort in last summer to build up my résumé and build up my stock so I would have a chance to get interest from teams.”
The offseason work was the catalyst for his red-hot start to the season with eight points in the Minutemen’s first nine games. He finished with 10 goals and nine assists while being shuffled up and down the UMass lineup, a career year for the Barrington, Illinois native.
Then three months after playing his final game for the Minutemen in the national championship game, the chain reaction of last summer came full circle.
On Friday, Boeing signed a one-year deal with the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL to begin his professional career. Although the Walleye are affiliated with the Detroit Red Wings, the franchise does not own his rights because he signed with Toledo and not Detroit.
Boeing is the fourth member of last season’s team to sign a pro contract since the Minutemen lost to Minnesota Duluth in the national championship game.
“I had a bunch of opportunities and I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Boeing said. “If I wanted to go to Europe or if I wanted to stay in the States, so I looked at everything and figured out what would be the best for me.
“Toledo is obviously one of the top organizations in the ECHL. Their GM (Neil Neukam) just won back-to-back executive of the year awards and they’ve had a lot of success over the past couple of years.”
What the Walleye saw in Boeing was the same thing that coach Greg Carvel said made Boeing so critical to UMass’ success this season — versatility. In addition to sliding up and down the lineup based on injuries, Boeing was the Minutemen’s best penalty killing forward and a capable substitute on the power play.
He’s an ideal forward for a league like the ECHL where most teams play only three lines in order to develop players for the next levels of the pro system.
“This year you saw me play power play, penalty kill, all situations, so that was one thing they liked that they said,” Boeing said. “Even my agent (Michael Gionta) said just to be so versatile in the pro game … with the constant turnover, they see me as being able to fill in all different roles and work my way up eventually.”
Boeing is working out with Kirven and some of his former teammates in Amherst this summer as he trains for his new life as a professional hockey player. He said the plan for this summer isn’t too different from the one he had last year with an emphasis on conditioning, which Boeing said was a major key in his success last season.
He’ll continue to skate with the Minutemen, who are on campus, until he’s called off to training camp in September when to start his journey.
“Nobody really wants to go to the real world yet,” Boeing said. “I still feel like I’m living in a little bit of a fantasyland here doing something I absolutely love. To get the chance to play pro hockey, not many people get to do that and make money at something they love to do. I’m going to go to the rink happy as a clam, excited to play pro hockey.”
DeMICHIEL PROMOTED — UMass announced Tuesday that coach Greg Carvel promoted Jared DeMichiel to associate head coach for the upcoming season.
DeMichiel works primarily with the Minutemen’s goalies and penalty kill unit, helping both set records last season for UMass. Matt Murray set the program wins record with a 20-5 mark in goal while Filip Lindberg set the record for goals against average at 1.60 in 16 appearances.
UMass also ranked fifth nationally in penalty killing with a 86.9 percent success rate down a man, which also set a program record.