Adam Eby brings intangibles as Elmira makes most of season

Adam Eby captained the D-3 Elmira College Soaring Eagles to the 2021 UCHC Pat Thompson Trophy on Monday. (Elmira Athletics)

Editor’s note: This feature on Elmira’s Adam Eby appears in the March/April issue of New York Hockey Journal. On April 5, Elmira defeated Stevenson University, 3-0, to win the 2021 UCHC title and the program’s 11th conference championship. Read more about that here and watch the team’s video.

The 2019-20 Elmira men’s ice hockey season ended before anybody affiliated with the team hoped it would.

Despite 17 wins, the most the program had won since the 2010-11 season, Elmira was knocked out of the UCHC tournament by Nazareth in the quarterfinals, 5-2. It also was the first time since the 2016-17 season the team had not reached the UCHC tournament semifinals.

One season ended in unpredictable fashion, and the next started in unpredictable fashion, albeit this time a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t the 3-1 victory over Stevenson that was the surprise, however; it was how the team won that was the surprise.

Senior defenseman Adam Eby, who had scored one goal in 68 games over the course of three seasons, scored two goals in the third period to lift the Soaring Eagles to victory.

“It was fantastic,” said head coach Aaron Saul. “Adam doesn’t care how many points he gets in a game, let alone for a season. It was nice to see the hard work pay off.”

A Lancaster, Pa., native, Eby arrived at Elmira after two years in the U.S. Premier Hockey League, playing for the New Jersey Junior Titans 18-U team and P.A.L. Junior Islanders. Saul got to know Eby in his time with the Titans, who are coached by Mike Haviland. Haviland played at Elmira and knows Saul (Haviland’s son, Shane, is currently a freshman at Elmira). Saul said Eby’s character stood out and made him a good fit for the program.

Similarly, Eby was interested in Elmira from an early stage. “The hockey program, in general, is a historic program,” Eby said. “We play at an unbelievable arena. It fired me up. A core was built up. How our team gets treated like a Division 1 program, how we prepare, the gym, the ice slots, we’re fortunate to have it all at our disposal.”

He made an immediate impact as a freshman, playing in 25 games and tallying five assists, three of which came in his first two games, including two in a 7-4 victory over King’s in his debut.

While he had accumulated eight total points in his first three seasons (one goal and seven assists), Eby acknowledged his role on the team was to help with the intangibles more than putting points on the board.

“I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to come up through the ranks with good leadership in front of us,” he said. “I wanted to be consistent, play hard defensively, and find a way to be a factor every night, whether that’s playing simple hockey in our end, killing penalties. Doing the stuff that doesn’t end up on the stat sheet, that’s the stuff I take pride in. It was doing what I can to help the team win.”

Saul also acknowledged how Eby’s growth and under-the-radar role have helped the team. “He is really probably one of the players over the last decade that improved the most from day one to his senior year,” he said. “His role has changed. He has a lot more responsibility with being the captain. On the ice, he’s worked hard to play his game. He’s always been a good skater, but those little things of where to place your stick, getting stronger, he’s improved and gone above and beyond. He came in and wasn’t ripped but wasn’t skinny, but now, he’s fully matured and strong. He logs a lot of minutes. He can play 20 minutes or 30 minutes if we need him to.”

While the 2019-20 Elmira season was not affected by the COVID pandemic, as the team finished its season a week before the NCAA tournament started, Saul and Eby watched in disappointment as many of their peers had their seasons end abruptly.

In previous summers, Eby has helped work and coach at an ice rink. He said he took advantage of that position when places were shut down due to the pandemic. While he said it was difficult not knowing when the season he was preparing for would start — if it would start at all — he knew his teammates were feeling the same way, and his leadership senses kicked in.

“The best way to go about it, and we voiced it to the other guys, is, ‘We can sit here and complain, but this is an opportunity to be as prepared as possible for the short season we’re going to get. By the time this rolls around, we’ll be 100 percent ready to go because we took advantage of that time.’ ”

When that moment finally did come, Friday, Feb. 19 at Murray Athletic Center, Eby made sure not to take it for granted. “It was kind of cool to take a second before the game to think for a second,” he said. “You spent the last 11 months without playing a hockey game. You’ve been doing everything possible to prepare, doing everything in our power to make sure we were ready to go. You’re able to step on the ice and play a meaningful game. It was a special feeling. It was almost relieving to get to compete again at this level.”

Eby’s leadership and experience are valuable commodities on this version of the Elmira team. Of the 27 players on the roster, nearly half of them — 13 — are freshmen.

While the senior defender enjoyed the brief scoring spree, he shook off the moniker of a goal-scorer and said he was “fortunate to be put in positions where things just went in.” Saul, however, was happy to heap more praise on Eby.

“With so many freshmen, it was good to see your senior captain contribute and win you the first game of the year,” he said. “Adam is a humble guy and will say, ‘I’m glad we could win,’ but it was exciting to see him lead our team. It was very satisfying as a coach.”

He set the tone for Elmira to start the season. The team went 2-1-1 in its first four games in February, including a 10-0 victory over Nazareth. Elmira headed into the last weekend of March with a 5-4-1 mark.

Eby has been happy to be on the ice and wants to leave the program in a good position once he graduates.

“We’ve talked about it the past few months, how we want to go about it this season and the culture we want to build,” he said. “It’s a new group. It’s cool to see how we’ve put in the work every week. Our practices have been unbelievable.”

Phil Shore can be reached on Twitter @PShore15.