First, let me extend my thanks to Jackie Nicholson and her team for inviting me to contribute to this edition of the Tigers Athletics Report! My name is Andrew Keller, and I work for RIT University Arenas as the Assistant Director for Ticketing, Sales, and Brand Advancement. 

Despite having a variety of responsibilities throughout the year at all of our managed venues, my team and I spend much of our time working closely with Athletics and the Men’s and Women’s Hockey teams to make each and every game at the Gene Polisseni Center the best atmosphere in NCAA Hockey!

I went to as many games as I could during my time as a student here at RIT, and truthfully, attending a game my senior year of high school was a huge factor in deciding to become a Tiger. Fast forward to today, and I enjoy being on the “other side” of game days and making it possible for all of you to attend now.

My day-to-day responsibilities for RIT Hockey primarily focuses around managing the ticketing operations both at the RIT Box Office and on www.rittickets.com. I create season ticket packages, single game tickets, Ritchie’s Kids Club memberships, and more. When our Division III teams make it to their respective NCAA Tournaments, I also help with ticketing those events. In the past few years I’ve been able to sell tickets for NCAA Men’s Lacrosse, Women’s Volleyball, and Women’s Soccer, and I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to work with additional teams such as these.

I am very excited for the start of the RIT Hockey season; the building has been too quiet this summer. This has been our strongest off-season for ticket sales in my seven years here, and I can’t wait to start seeing everyone as the 2023-2024 campaigns begin.

Our fans bring the energy each and every game, and everyone that I talk to in attendance says that the atmosphere at our games is the best in Rochester. I consistently hear that it makes them want to come back to more games throughout the season and be a part of it all. I’ve worked ticketing jobs in almost every venue in the Rochester area, and I would have to agree with those comments. You all make the in-game atmosphere the best there is, and I would highly encourage anyone who has not attended a Men’s or Women’s Hockey game before to do so this season and be a part of that!

I look forward to seeing you out at the GPC this season cheering on the Hockey teams. When you decide to grab your tickets, come see us at the GPC Box Office from 10:00am-6:00pm Monday-Friday, or purchase your tickets at www.rittickets.com.

Go Tigers!

Hello Tiger Country!

Can you believe it is October? Time flies when you are having fun. Our student-athletes returned to campus in late August. They arrived eager to start preseason. We got right to work and embarked on the short journey to our the start of the season.

It was awesome to welcome our class of 2023 to our ice. We have our first international player from Lativa. A local player from Greece, N.Y., and two players with rich family history with RIT. We were on the road for our first two weekends playing ECAC opponent RPI and NEWHA opponent Assumption college.

RPI was fast, gritty and backed by a strong goaltender. We split the weekend with two ties. An improvement from our previous matchup. Assumption was young, strong-skating and energized, playing their first games in program history, and we came away with two wins.

Week three the Tiger Fans welcomed us back to the Polisseni Center to take on the No. 4 Minnesota. We started the 2023-2024 Season with an awesome, rowdy crowd. Our fans are the best in the land! We unfortunately, dropped two games to the Golden Gophers, however our team showed GRIT and competed. Our staff and players cannot wait to see how our season turns out if we continue on our upward projection.

If you have been following our program, you know we are building ‘brick by brick.’ Our players have bought into showing up every single day to get better, be a great teammate and leave RIT Women’s Hockey the best it can be. We hope you continue to join us on this journey!

Lastly, we welcomed back our 2011-2012 National Championship Team last weekend as part of Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend. A huge congratulations on their induction into the RIT Athletics Hall of Fame. 

GO TIGERS!

Celeste - RIT Women's Hockey

Greetings From RIT Men's Hockey

I am writing this letter in the hopes that you are doing well and are looking forward to following this year’s Tigers in our quest for another Atlantic Hockey Championship and NCAA Tournament bid.

Last year we reached one of our goals in winning the AHA regular season title, but fell just short of a NCAA Tournament bid. We did have four players earn First-Team All-Atlantic Hockey Association accolades.  

Carter Wilkie was named 2022-23 AHA Player of The Year, Aiden Hansen-Bukata, Defenseman of The Year and Cody Laskosky was named Best Defensive Forward of The Year.

With a strong nucleus returning and five excellent first-year players who are all eager to make an impact on our program, we are excited to see where this team finishes the season, and look forward to vying for another Atlantic Hockey regular-season and playoff championship this season.  

We have a strong leadership group led by fifth-year captain Caleb Moretz and five assistant captains Elijah Gonsalves, Gianfranco Cassaro, Aiden Hansen-Bukata, Cody Laskosky and Carter Wilkie.

We have a challenging non-conference schedule which was highlighted by Notre Dame at the Blue Cross Arena last weekend during Brick City Homecoming Family Weekend. We play Hockey East power New Hampshire over Thanksgiving and Liberty League foes Clarkson and St Lawrence.

We hope everyone can join the Pep Band and always entertaining Corner Crew for all of our home games.

We hope to see you at the Polisseni Center

Wayne Wilson - RIT Men's Hockey

Tigers In The News