PHILADELPHIA — Mike Vecchione always dreamed of winning a national championship. He didn’t dream of winning it with Union College.
The 21-year-old Saugus native grew up watching all the big Hockey East schools — Boston College, Boston University, New Hampshire, Maine, and so on. He could envision himself playing at any of those schools. But Union? He had never even heard of it.
But through a series of twists and turns, that’s where Vecchione ended up. In Schenectady, N.Y., at a school with an enrollment of just over 2,000 and just two Division I teams — men’s and women’s hockey.
Seven months after arriving at Union for the start of his freshman year, the Malden Catholic graduate scored two goals in the Frozen Four and won that national championship he had always dreamed of winning.
“I don’t really know how to describe what it feels like right now,” Vecchione said after Saturday night’s national title game. “I’m just so overwhelmed with joy.”
Originally, Vecchione’s plan was to play at one of those big-name Hockey East schools. He had committed to UNH in March 2010, during his junior year at Malden Catholic. The next year, he helped lead the school to its first Super 8 title. Then he went out to Nebraska to play for the Tri-City Storm of the United States Hockey League, a plan he and the UNH coaching staff had agreed was best for his development.
But things hit a snag during that 2011-12 season in Nebraska, and he wound up decommitting in early December. At the time, Vecchione said UNH had asked him to play a second year in the USHL — something that wasn’t a part of his original agreement with the school — and that the coaching staff had “overcommitted.” On Saturday, Vecchione simply referred to the falling-out as a “miscommunication.”
Whatever the exact situation, Vecchione was back on the market. He knew he’d probably end up playing a second year in the USHL anyway since it was so late in the recruiting process for the 2012-13 season, but he still wanted to find a new school.
One of the first coaches he heard from after decommitting was Union assistant Joe Dumais. Vecchione talked to a few Hockey East schools (he declined to name which ones), but he couldn’t stop thinking about Union. The Dutchmen’s run to the Frozen Four that spring made the school even more attractive. Here was proof that he could compete for national titles there. In August 2012, just before the start of his second year with Tri-City, Vecchione finalized his commitment to Union.
“A couple years ago when I decommitted, they were going to the Frozen Four, and I was like, ‘That’s Union College.’ They just kept saying it was a rising program,” Vecchione said. “They really wanted me to come here. It’s a great school academically. I know one day hockey’s going to end for me, so I’m going to need a great education, and Union’s going to give it to me.”
When he arrived on campus this past fall, it didn’t take long for him to make an impact. The 5-foot-10 center scored three goals in his first six college games and wound up finishing the first semester with 13 points in 18 games. But then he came down with mono and missed a month.
The illness didn’t derail his season, though. Vecchione registered a goal and an assist in his first game back and never slowed down the rest of the way, eventually earning a promotion to the team’s top line playing between Daniel Carr and Daniel Ciampini. He put up seven points in four ECAC tournament games to help Union win its third straight league championship.
He was held off the scoresheet in NCAA regionals, but then he posted a goal and an assist in Thursday’s national semifinal against BC, as his Dutchmen knocked off one of those teams he had dreamed of playing for.
Vecchione capped off his storybook freshman season with a goal in Saturday’s championship game, a 7-4 win over Minnesota that gave Union its first national title. Perhaps fittingly, his goal came not on his first shot, not on his second, but on a third opportunity, as he kept battling in front of the net.
Union wasn’t Vecchione’s first or second option growing up. Until two years ago, he could never have imagined himself playing there. Now he can’t imagine being anywhere else.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Vecchione said. “I couldn’t be happier with this series of events and how everything turned out. It’s just unbelievable how everything fell into place like this.”