Can you just reach into your pocket, dig around and find some credit. And then hand it to Peter Belisle, his coaching staff and the dedicated players that he coached this season, because they deserve it.

The strides that UMass Boston’s hockey program has made in just one year are amazing. Last season, the Beacons weren’t much more than a blip on the radar for many of the ECAC East’s members. Finishing with a 5-20-1 record, they had amassed five more victories than the season before, but they were still far back from the pack.

In his second season with the stagnant program, head coach Peter Belisle and his deep hockey roots took grasp of the team and rounded them into form and brought them back from the doldrums and into the light. The team, under Belisle’s tutelage and Jeff Pellegrini’s intense recruiting, found its way back to relevancy once again for the first time in almost ten years.

There were so many of the first-time-in-a-long-times for the Beacons this year, it might seem long-winded to include them all. The team won more games (11) than it had in nine years, they beat Middlebury College for the first time in 17 meetings, they won an ECAC East playoff game for the first time since 2000, they beat a team on the road in a playoff game for the first time in 19 years, and they appeared in United States College Hockey Online’s national rankings for Division III hockey programs. All apologies, but I couldn’t find the last time that happened.

They received one vote. And that one vote is important to everyone on that team, everyone who helped them get there, and it is important to our school as well. “It’s a good step for our program,” goalie Ryan Donovan said after the Babson win, who knows how important it is for the team. “I’m sure it gives guys more drive to stay and be bigger part of what’s going on next year.” That vote and that playoff win will help the Beacons continue to bring in talented players like they did this year.

Last season, the Beacons had to travel to Norwich to play the first round of the ECAC East tournament. The team had already accepted defeat so much so that Belisle told Jeff Pellegrini to stay back and start recruiting for this season. Hey, did they take a page out of the book of Danny Ainge and the Boston Celtics? At the same time? Sacrificing one season for the next worked for the Green, and it worked for the Beacons, too.

One year later, as Pellegrini said after the team’s mesmerizing and emotional win at Babson College on March 1, the team doesn’t go into games hoping to win anymore, they go into them expecting to win. “We show up to every building we go to expecting to win the game,” said an elated Pellegrini. It’s been an overhaul, a mass mindset change that started with Belisle, and it won’t end until he and his coaching staff leave and stop bringing in the best players great recruiting can find.

That great recruiting brought in the ECAC East Goalie of the Year, All-ECAC East first-teamer Ryan Donovan and Eric Tufman, a member of the All-Rookie team. Tufman’s amazing rookie season was only slightly overshadowed by another lofty freshman from Salem State College, Justin Fox. Fox won Rookie of the Year in the conference. His one extra goal in one extra game in the regular season seemingly made the difference.

But you know what? That one game helped turn Eric Tufman into a better hockey player and a better competitor; someone who knew their potential but also knew that the plug could be pulled at anytime by his coach. Belisle, who benched Tufman one game into the season to “wake him up,” comes from a hockey-rich family, and what he brings to UMass Boston is hockey class, hockey knowledge and hockey leadership. Even though he comes from Division I hockey, he doesn’t come across as aloof. If anything, he comes across as a man who shoots from the hip and doesn’t sugarcoat anything. Yet, he is also referred to as a great leader and as a father figure for many of the young men on the team whose parents are hundreds or thousands of miles away.

This team is on the way up. They are only graduating one player who contributed to the team, and I’m sure Belisle can’t wait for next season to start. He’s probably figuring out a way for his third line to be more productive already.

Kris Kranzky, Eric Tufman and Matt Atsoff are the fuel that runs the Beacons. Peter Belisle is the glue that holds them together.