University of Maine freshman hockey left wing Thomas Freel isn’t going to make friends on opposing teams.
He doesn’t want any.
His gritty, in-your-face style of play agitates opponents.
“I want people to remember me but for not the right reasons,” Freel said. “I like being the guy the other teams don’t like playing against or battling with.”
The 5-foot-11, 181-pound Freel has a goal and three assists for four points through his first nine games, and he has blocked five shots. He plays an essential role for the UMaine men’s hockey team, the hard-nosed power forward — a position vital for winning puck battles and causing havoc by setting screens, engaging defensemen and swiping rebounds.
“There aren’t a lot of guys who want to go and do the dirty work he does,” said UMaine second-year head coach Ben Barr. “The guys rally around him. He goes to the net, takes punishment, kills penalties. He does a little bit of everything.”
He plays in all situations, including the power play and the penalty kill.
“He has earned every second of ice time he has gotten,” said Barr. “He understands what he is. He is one of those guys that you only have to tell to do something once. He already knows.”
Freel’s heritage explains some of his rugged traits. He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and then moved with his family to Ottawa, Ontario, when he was around 6 or 7 years old.
He was a late bloomer and never played hockey in Scotland.
“I saw some of my neighbors (in Ottawa) playing road hockey. I didn’t know what it was. I joined in and loved it.”
He was invited by his friends to join an ice hockey team.
“I showed up at the first day of tryout camp with brand new gear I had never worn before. It was a bit of a Gong Show. I had to learn how to skate in the middle of tryouts,” said Freel.
“The first couple of years were a bit slow but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. I fell in love with it right away and it took off from there.”
He played for several Ottawa junior teams, including the Ottawa Junior Senators in the Central Canada Hockey League last season, where he racked up 35 goals and 26 assists for 61 points in 51 games. He also had three goals and seven assists for 10 points in 10 playoff games.
The league isn’t as prestigious as the United States Hockey League or the British Columbia Junior Hockey League, but Barr said that Freel’s style is well-suited to success at the college level, whereas some high-scoring players in the USHL can’t adapt to the “heavier and harder” brand of hockey in college.
“And if they aren’t scoring in college, it’s a problem. But he’s a guy who, even if he isn’t scoring, he’s still going to help your team,” Barr said. “He is one of those throwback players.”
The 21-year-old Freel feels fortunate that he has been given a lot of ice time at UMaine.
“They’ve given me a ton of opportunities. It has really helped my confidence. I just try and approach every day like a new day,” Freel said. “Whether you succeed or fail the previous day, you bring the same mindset.”
He loves working on his game and enjoys the team’s resources, explaining that he can get in a workout with sports performance coach Codi Fitzgerald or can sneak in a half-hour skate between classes and maybe shoot the puck with volunteer assistant Matthew Vanden Berg.
“Everybody has been so accommodating,” he said. “You get out of it what you put into it.”
He said the biggest adjustment to college hockey is the speed.
“It’s such a fast game. You have no time on the puck,” said Freel.
Freel and the Black Bears, 2-6-1 overall and 0-3-1 in Hockey East, will try to snap a five-game winless streak (0-4-1) at Merrimack on Friday at 4 p.m. and Saturday at 7 p.m.
He is really enjoying playing for the Black Bears and in front of the energetic Alfond Arena crowds.
“It is so special. I don’t take it for granted. I can’t imagine myself anywhere else,” he said.