Tom Stillman understood how his hockey career was going to end. Playing at small Middlebury College in Vermont didn’t lend itself to a fruitful future on the ice. The now-Division III school didn’t put him on the biggest stage in college hockey.
But that stage will arrive at Stillman’s front step this weekend, when St. Louis hosts the Frozen Four at Enterprise Center.
“I wasn’t exactly vying for a national championship,†Stillman said. “I was never destined for the Frozen Four. But it does reach into old memories of playing in college and how much fun that was and how much it meant to me.â€
The arena will host two semifinals on Thursday night: Denver (31-11-1) vs. Western Michigan (32-7-1) at 4 p.m., followed by Penn State (22-13-4) vs. Boston University (23-13-2) at 7:30 p.m. The championship game will be at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
People are also reading…
It will be the third time St. Louis has hosted college hockey's final four, initially in 1975 and then in 2007.
Since the Frozen Four's 2007 visit, a lot has changed. The building has changed names from Scottrade Center to Enterprise Center. Stillman has become the majority owner of the franchise. And the building has undergone massive renovations in the 18 years since the event was last in town.
“Getting the Frozen Four back, as well as getting back wrestling again, bringing NCAA basketball, all of these that, in part, are direct ties to the work we did to renovate and reimagine our arena,†Blues CEO and President Chris Zimmerman said. “When we are able to do that against other arenas and other cities, states that provide significant funding to compete, it’s a big deal.â€
It’s the second consecutive year St. Louis has hosted games in the NCAA tournament. Last year, Centene Community Ice Center hosted the Maryland Heights Regional that featured blue bloods like North Dakota and Michigan, plus Western Michigan, which qualified for the Frozen Four this season.
On the club hockey level, St. Louis is a staple for the ACHA, hosting four of the past five championships.
For hockey in St. Louis, Zimmerman said “it all starts at the top.â€
“It all starts with Tom,†Zimmerman said. “Tom is as deeply passionate about the game as any human I know. He loves the sport. He’s also an intense competitor who wants to win. Having his vision, his commitment to the hockey team and his recognition of the impact the team can have on the community, all of those things really set the tone for the organization we are. It sets the tone for the work that Doug (Armstrong) does on the hockey ops side, and it sets the tone for what we need to be doing on the business operations side.â€
Zimmerman and Stillman go way back, about three decades before Zimmerman became Blues CEO. They played together in New York at St. Nick’s, a hockey club composed of former professional and college hockey players now working in New York.
They met in 1983, and sometimes they would be teammates; other times, opponents. Stillman and Zimmerman played about three years together before Stillman moved to Washington. Zimmerman says now, “My job interview started some 32 years before I came to work for the Blues.â€
“It was the playing against him that I really learned his passion for the game,†Zimmerman said. “Of course, this was no-check hockey, but when you have young, competitive type-A's playing post-college hockey, it can get pretty aggressive. That was my first taste of being on the other side. It’s that old saying: He’s the type of player who you’d really love to have on your team but maybe you don’t want to play so much against.â€
In college, Stillman earned the nickname “Mad Dog†for his on-ice fire. Later on, he earned a new one: Tick Tick, as in a time bomb.
“I’ve seen a little bit of the origins of that name, but fortunately, I played more with him than against him,†Zimmerman said. “But I think it’s reflective (of how) he plays pickleball hard, he loves to hunt and he loves that pursuit. Tom brings a deep passion to all of these activities, and it certainly has been a driver of how we’ve built the team and built the organization.â€
Zimmerman also played college hockey, and it’s the reason the University of Vermont is considered the host institution for the Frozen Four. That’s where Zimmerman went to school.
Stillman, meanwhile, traced his hockey roots back to Minnesota, where the sport is “a way of life.â€
“You were outdoors on rinks in various neighborhoods, playing all day on weekends, after school all the time,†Stillman said. “It’s what you did. It’s a long winter, and it’s a good thing to do.â€
As St. Louis becomes the center of the college hockey world — and after it was the center of the NHL world thanks to the Blues’ 12-game win streak that ended Monday and the center of the women’s hockey world for an afternoon two weeks ago — Stillman is happy to advertise the sport in the city.
“I think it makes me and so many others in the organization want to spread the word, the gospel of what a great game it is and get young people playing, boys and girls,†Stillman said. “And get everyone who’s watching and understanding just what a tremendous game it is. Not only with the fun (part), but I think of a good character-building game because it’s so team-oriented. There’s an element of pulling together on a team, and playing through a lot of adversity, injuries, hitting.
“I think it’s really good character development. You can question whether it really is good character development if I ended up with nicknames like Mad Dog and Tommy Time Bomb. Maybe that’s not so good.â€
