To the Greatest Fans in the World,

We don't even know where to begin with this one. Our final number from the MinuteFund was $5,795 from an astounding 79 donors. We also raised $2,577 from our fundraiser at the Olde Towne Tavern, an additional $3,000 from the ECSA Grant and a whopping $873.57 from the University. It is incredible the support that we received from all of you, exceeding anything that the University did for us and blowing us away with your generosity.

A thank you is simply not enough to express how grateful we are for everyone's support over not only the last week in Iowa, or during the month of fundraising, but over the course of four years of bringing this program to the top. As freshman we started our careers with some of the founders of this Roller Hockey program. We lost in the regional quarterfinals as freshman, unaware of what the national tournament even was. Our sophomore year we struggled so badly that we finished tenth in the ECRHA and did not even make the regional tournament. One year later, this team entered regionals weekend as the fifth seed and made a run to the Regional Championships. One month later, we qualified for Nationals for the first time ever as the twelve seed and shocked everyone, including ourselves, by making it to the National Championship. We thought last year was special, until we started out this season 14-0 and ranked number one in the country. 

We lost back to back games on Long Island in late February to St. Joseph's and Robert Morris, turning over the top spot in the East and in the nation, finishing the year as the fourth ranked roller hockey team in the country. We lost to a good Cortland team in the regional semi-finals, and were crushed to not play in the ECRHA Final this year. 

We knew we had a shot at a National Championship and that was the number one goal on everyone's mind. Perhaps we got ahead of ourselves coming into the tournament and we ran into a very good, very fast California State Fullerton team in our first game of pool play, dropping the first game of Nationals 5-4. This was exactly the wake up call we needed. 

The boys regrouped, got back to playing our game and defeated the second ranked Arkansas Razorbacks and the sixth seeded Robert Morris Colonials. We won Pool B and earned a bye to the sweet sixteen against Syracuse. Stomping Syracuse 11-4 the boys were on a roll. Next up was number three seeded Tennessee, the team we beat in last year's quarterfinal. We took them down in a close one 7-6, sending us to the semis against number one ranked Saint Joseph's. 

UMass and St. Joseph's have played several times over the course of our roller careers, every game being decided by one goal, including one that went into overtime earlier this year. They handed us our first loss in February and we knew we needed to take care of business. Jumping out to an early 3-0 lead, and holding on to finish the game with a 6-2 win over number one sent us to the Finals for redemption against Cortland.

Not only was it redemption for us against the team who beat us in regionals, but it was redemption for all of the guys on this team who felt what it was like to lose a National Championship in 2015. The game was a battle. We carried a 2-0 lead over Cortland from the first period all the way through. We gave up a goal with about 4 minutes remaining in the third, but a huge penalty kill sealed the deal as your Minutemen clinched our first National Championship in program history by a score of 2-1!

Now it has all come full circle. From an unranked, unknown team that could not qualify for regionals two years ago, to the 2016 NCRHA National Champions! A huge thank you to everyone who supported us along the way as this Championship would not be possible without the help of our friends and family.

Thank you to the guys who started this program back in 2008. Without your hard work of putting this team together none of us would even know what roller hockey was. To all of our captains and teammates in the past who recruited and built this program from the bottom up, thank you for everything you have done. None of us realized as freshman how much work, time and effort it took to run a program until this year, and we want to thank you for all of your hard work from day one. The support from the alumni has been incredible and to all of our alumni, thank you.

Whether you donated online or attended our fundraiser, streamed the games live or kept in touch with us throughout the trip, thank you to everyone who was a part of this incredible run. We could not be happier to tell all of our supporters that we are the 2016 National Champions because without all of you, this would still be just a dream. 

Sincerely,

Your University of Massachusetts Minutemen - 2016 NCRHA National Champions

Hi everyone,

We wanted to update you all on where we stand with our fundraising efforts thus far. Our fundraiser at OTT this past Saturday was a HUGE success. Thank you to everyone who came out to support the team. We had over 200 people attend and between attendance, our 50/50 raffle and our raffle for a board of scratch tickets, we made $2,767! Granted, $200 of this was used last night in our final practice of the season, but we are able to proudly say that even after practice our $2,567 net profit is over $1,000 more than our expected return!

The MinuteFund is also blowing us away. Currently sitting at $5,430 with one day left to go we are extremely grateful for the outpouring of support from all of our friends and family. Whether it was a donation via the MinuteFund or coming down to OTT on Saturday, we can not thank you all enough for the support for this team.

The boys fly out of Logan tomorrow night and begin pool play on Wednesday morning at 11am against Cal State Fullerton. You can watch all of our games via rollerhockeylive.com and we hope you can find some time to sneak that on to your computer at work!

Once again, thank you for everything that you do for this team. We are off to Nationals because of all of you and we are very grateful for your help. Please follow us along the way as we look to make everyone proud and play our best hockey of the year over the next week. You can track our success and check up on our schedule and results via https://ncrha.org/team.php?team_id=57434&area=schedule and watch us live on rollerhockeylive.com.

Thank you to the best family and friends out there for making this trip a reality!

-UMRH

Hi Everyone,

Once again, we can not thank you all enough for your incredibly generous donations and the outpouring of support for this team and our trip. We have exceeded our projected donations by almost $3,000 thanks to all of you and are very grateful to have this support behind us from family and friends; you guys are the best!

A quick update on where we stand today:

Last week we were awarded a $3,000 grant from the ECSA Board after a great presentation with them and this money will be covering about 75% of our hotel bill for the week. A huge thank you to them for their support, helping us tremendously in the wake of a disappointing outcome from the Student Government Association.

After meeting with the SGA Finance Committee, we blew them away with our organization, fundraising efforts and the accomplishments that this team has made. The Finance Committee wanted to award us with a $4,000 allocation in emergency funding which would have put us in incredible shape for next week. However, the Student Government Association did not agree with their counterparts in the Finance Committee and overruled their $4,000 allocation. 

Last night, Monday March 28th, we presented in front of the SGA Senate, Executive Board and President. The Senate refused our request for $4,000, shutting down the Finance Committee and allotting us $873. This was disappointing for us to hear, but we of course accepted the money as every penny counts when you're dealing with a nearly $15,000 bill. We want to thank all of those on the Finance Committee, including but not limited to the Finance Committee Chair Julia Nielsen, and Finance Secretary and future SGA President Anthony Vitale on their efforts from the very beginning to try and find us any available money. Unfortunately the SGA Senate was reluctant to help us out like these two were, but we thank them for the hard work they put in, consistently updating us on their efforts throughout Easter weekend. While most of us were home enjoying time with our families, they were hard at work on our behalf.

That being said, we are still in need of all the help we can get. This Saturday April 2nd at 1pm, we will be hosting our National Championship Fundraiser at the Olde Towne Tavern in Amherst Center. The event is $10 per ticket and includes an all you can eat buffet, music, auction and an afternoon with friends and family to support this team ahead of our National's trip. Please share this event on Facebook with anyone who may be interested and we hope to see a lot of familiar faces at OTT on Saturday. https://www.facebook.com/events/1687436674874292/

Please continue to share the MinuteFund page and encourage donations from any friends and family who want to be a part of this special trip. Nationals is just one week away and we are still in need of roughly $3,550 to reach full funding, before having to reach out to players for an additional projection of $200/person just to make the trip. Please continue to share this page and information about Saturday's fundraiser as the support down the stretch will be very crucial for us.

Lastly, whether we reach full funding or not, we want to thank all of you who have been incredibly generous to us in your donations. Without you guys we would not be anywhere close to our fundraising goals and perhaps not even making the trip to Cedar Rapids next week. The support has blown us away and we could not thank you enough for all of your help. 

Please share the MinuteFund, spread the word about Saturday's fundraiser and continue supporting UMRH. Thank you for everyones contributions and let's finish this whirlwind of a fundraising season on a high note. Please help us in this final week and lets get this awesome group of guys to Nationals so we can thank you all with a National Championship trophy.

Cedar Rapids, see you in a week!

Sincerely,

-UMRH

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your incredibly generous donations up to this point! Some good news to fill everyone in on, and some utterly disappointing news to follow. As of today we have officially booked our flights from Logan to Cedar Rapids for Tuesday April 5th and our schedule is up for the pool play aspect of the tournament beginning on the 6th at 10am against Cal State Fullerton. Our registration fees are in, hotels and rental cars being held and we are very excited for the opportunity to compete! 

Unfortunately, the University has not been very supportive of this expensive trip. We just found out today that the Student Government, who allotted us $3,600 in emergency funds last year, has no money remaining to support us and that instead of the $3,600 payment we were told to expect about $600 in support. That being said, the $14,622 total for our trip will be up to us to raise the money our our own.

We are angry and have started pursuing options to meet with upper level representatives to address this issue. With that being said, we need YOUR help to assist in sharing this page with as many friends and family as you possible can. We are extremely grateful for the support that we have received from everyone and we really need all of you in order to have the opportunity to compete for a National Championship. 

Please continue to share this page, spread the word about our team and our mission to generate the maximum level of contributions from everyone that we may know.

Our first season as a team was in 2008; in 2015 we finished as the runner up in the nation and in 2016 we spent the majority of the year as the number one team in the country, qualifying for the National Tournament as the number four overall seed. 

The club sports program at UMass has been fighting for years for further funding and recognition from the athletic departments and the school as a whole. This year, so of you may know about the petition that was passed around to gain support for club sports to have more of a say in athletic decisions and for further resources and recognition across campus for all of our incredible achievements. More on the club sports fight for a better relationship with the University can be found here: http://dailycollegian.com/2016/01/19/administration-and-students-to-discuss-relationship-between-athletic-department-and-club-sports/

We wanted to thank all of you for supporting us, the 19-3, fourth ranked UMass Roller Hockey team. Please continue to share your support with us and remember to catch our games on RollerHockeyLive.com starting at 10am on April 6th.

Our schedule can be found at: https://ncrha.org/schedule.php&event_id=1819&playoff_id=814&area=pools and we hope you all follow along!

Thank you again for the tremendous support, let's bring the club sports further recognition at this school by sending us to Iowa to win a National Championship!

-UMRH