The 2023–24 Union Garnet Chargers men's ice hockey season was the 83rd season of play for the program, the 32nd at the Division I level and the 32nd in the ECAC Hockey conference. The Garnet Chargers represented Union College, played their home games at Achilles Center and were coached by Josh Hauge in his 2nd season.
Prior to the season, Union College announced that they had changed the moniker for their athletic teams from "Dutchmen / Dutchwomen" to "Garnet Chargers."[1] Garnet has been the school's official color for 150 years, and the name "chargers" is a reference to "Schenectady’s legacy as a leader in electrical technologies."[2]
Once the season began, Union found itself in a fortunate position as eight of its top nine scorers from '23 had returned. That solid foundation helped the team's offense flourish and average nearly a full goal more per game then they had the year before. The attack was led by defenseman John Prokop, who became the first blueliner in program history to lead the team in scoring twice.[3] The bright sport on offense was the power play, which converted on 21.2% of the teams chances. However, while Union ended the season with the #3 offense in ECAC Hockey, they also had the second-worst defense. While the Chargers allowed less than 30 shots against per game, slightly below what they managed to generate, Kyle Chauvette's first year as the starting goaltender was not something to write home about. The sophomore was inconsistent throughout the season, alternating very poor stretches with solid goaltending.
The result of being pulled in opposite directions was that Union hovered around the even mark all season. Though the team was able to string wins together, every streak was countered by a lull and by season's end the team sat one game under .500. While the team had no chance for an NCAA tournament berth without a conference title, they at least began their postseason chase with a home stand. In one of their best games of the season, the Garnet Chargers rolled over Brown 6–0 and ended up with two short-handed goals in the game. In the quarterfinals, it was the team's power play that let them down. Union went 1 for 8 in the two games with Caden Villegas providing the only real offense in the series. The two losses ended Union's season and ensure the team a losing record for the fourth straight campaign.
| Trevor Adams | Forward | Left program (retired) | ||
| Matt Allen | Forward | Graduate transfer to (Stonehill) | ||
| Owen Farris | Forward | Graduation (retired) | ||
| Michael Hodge | Forward | Transferred to (Holy Cross) | ||
| Greg Japchen | Defenseman | Transferred to (Stonehill) | ||
| Connor Murphy | Goaltender | Graduation (signed with Calgary Wranglers) | ||
| Nick Petruolo | Defenseman | Transferred to (Holy Cross) | ||
| Merek Pipes | Goaltender | Graduation (retired) | ||
| Christian Sanda | Forward | Graduation (retired) | ||
| Bram Scheerer | Forward | Left program (retired) | ||
| Andrew Seaman | Defenseman | Left program (retired) | ||
| Mason Snell | Defenseman | Graduation (retired) | ||
| Chris Théodore | Forward | Graduate transfer to (Vermont) |
| Brandon Buhr | Forward | 21 | Burnaby, BC
| ||
| D. J. Hart | Defenseman | 21 | Stamford, CT | ||
| Jacob Jeannette | Forward | 20 | Duluth, MN | ||
| Cole Kodsi | Forward | 23 | Boca Raton, FL
| ||
| Joe Messina | Defenseman | 21 | Woodbridge, ON | ||
| Eli Pilosof | Forward | 21 | Toronto, ON | ||
| Joey Potter | Defenseman | 20 | Los Angeles, CA | ||
| Aksel Reid | Goaltender | 20 | Minneapolis, MN |
As of August 2, 2023.[4] |}
|-!colspan=12 style=";" | Exhibition|-!colspan=12 style=";" | Regular Season|-!colspan=12 style=";" |
| 36 | 8 | 27 | 35 | 43 | |||
| 37 | 12 | 18 | 30 | 4 | |||
| 36 | 9 | 18 | 27 | 33 | |||
| 37 | 4 | 22 | 26 | 10 | |||
| 35 | 11 | 13 | 24 | 4 | |||
| 36 | 8 | 16 | 24 | 18 | |||
| 34 | 10 | 13 | 23 | 20 | |||
| 37 | 14 | 8 | 22 | 6 | |||
| 34 | 9 | 10 | 19 | 24 | |||
| 37 | 3 | 15 | 18 | 60 | |||
| 36 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 4 | |||
| 35 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 36 | |||
| 29 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 4 | |||
| 35 | 1 | 7 | 8 | 23 | |||
| 37 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 26 | |||
| 33 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 37 | |||
| 35 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 12 | |||
| 15 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 10 | |||
| 22 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 25 | |||
| 16 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 8 | |||
| 22 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 10 | |||
| 21 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |||
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | |||
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | |||
| 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Total | 123 | 215 | 338 | 433 |
|---|
| 4 | 135:27 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 60 | 0 | .923 | 2.21 | ||
| 1 | 21:39 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | .800 | 2.77 | ||
| 36 | 2044:28 | 15 | 16 | 3 | 104 | 865 | 3 | .893 | 3.05 | ||
| Empty Net | - | 39:08 | - | - | - | 11 | - | - | - | - | |
| Total | 37 | 2240:42 | 16 | 18 | 3 | 121 | 929 | 3 | .885 | 3.24 |
|---|
See main article: 2023–24 NCAA Division I men's ice hockey rankings.
| Poll | Week | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 (Final) | ||
| USCHO.com | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | – | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | – | NR | |
| USA Today | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | – | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | |
| John Prokop | AHCA East Second Team All-American | [7] |
| Ben Tupker | Wayne Dean Sportsmanship Award | [8] |
| John Prokop | ECAC Hockey First Team | [9] |
| Liam Robertson | ECAC Hockey Second Team | [10] |