By Brandon Thomas
Cornell Athletic Communications

Freshman Friday (and, for this year, the Sophomore Spotlight) is a Q-and-A feature with new members of the men's hockey team. This is the fifth of 14 installments this year, featuring sophomore defenseman Tim Rego.

Q: You've been here for part of a couple years now. How are things going?
A: They've been good so far. Last year, being here for the 3½ months to Thanksgiving helped me adjust to the systems and the culture here. And then, obviously, this year being pretty much normal with everyone being vaccinated it makes the jump back into the full swing of things a little easier. So it's been going really well.

Q: Is there a pretty big difference in going from half a year to a whole year?
A: Yeah, it's a pretty big difference. There were some aspects that were the same – just meeting the guys and being off ice with them, that's pretty much the same – but being in the rink full time and practicing with the coaches every day and playing games is a big step up from what we did last year. I felt it's gone pretty well so far, and it's been a lot of fun.

Q: And here you are, finding yourself in the top six on the blue line right off the bat. In terms of style of play and getting used to the speed of the game at this level, has everything been about you would have expected so far?
A: I was pretty fortunate to get put in the lineup right away from (the exhibition against) Princeton. I'm just trying to make the most of it. Speed was a big thing, in terms of what I worked on this summer to tried to get acclimated to. I would skate with a lot of guys that are in (ECAC Hockey) and even across other programs in Division I. They told me it was a lot faster game and speed was definitely something I needed to acclimate to. It took me a couple of weeks to get used to it, but so far it's been what I was expecting and it's going well.

Q: That's not a surprise, in that you come from a pretty hockey rich area south of Boston. Are there any Cornell ties that you've tapped into as you got ready to come here?
A: There actually haven't been a lot of guys near my age from that area that have gone the Cornell route. But there's a couple of Ivy League guys I knew threw prep school that are at Harvard and a couple guys I knew from (my time in) western Canada with Brooks that we'll be playing against soon.

Q: So let's talk about your playing style. It was pretty evident even right from those first exhibitions that the moment you get the puck, you're headed north. Was that always the kind of style you brought?
A: I was always a defenseman, but I wasn't always so offensive. Back when I was growing up and going through U14 and U16, I was a pretty stay-at-home defenseman. And then when I went into prep school my sophomore year, I sort of made the transition. My skating that year improved a lot. So I finally had the tools to jump into offense, and ever since then I've always been a two-way defenseman that focused a lot on the offensive side.

Q: By that time, you were already drafted by a major junior team in Quebec and all. But it feels like that's kind of a late stage in the game to make such a drastic change in terms of how you play. Was it just the improvement in skating that brought that on? Or was there a specific coach that encouraged the change?
A: It was a lot of my skating, but then also my coach from prep school allowed me to have a lot of free reign with it. He allowed me to make a lot of mistakes with it and grow into being an offensive defenseman. Right away, it benefited me and the team. I just kind of kept working at it, and it just turned into what it is today.

Q: What else can you tell us about your time at Williston Northampton School? You obviously grew into your game a lot there, even if it's not regarded as one of the powerhouses of the New England prep scene …
A: It was a lot about playing time. The coach (Derek Cunha) came up to me right away and let me know I'd have an opportunity to play a lot even as a 15-year-old playing against a lot of older guys. There's a strong movement within the program of (having more) guys who go on to play in college. Nick Schofield played at Stonehill, and Max Willman was drafted by to Buffalo and went on to play at Brown and BU. So I could see there were guys that found their lane through there, and Coach Cunha was great about letting me make mistakes when I was younger to help me grow into the game without benching me for it. I'd say a lot of the opportunities I got and the amount of freedom I got to play the way I wanted to play really helped me.

Q: There was a time you were committed to Holy Cross, which is close to being a hometown school for you. But you're obviously here now, so what can you tell us about how that went down?
A: I committed to Holy Cross during my senior year, because at the time it made the most sense. It's obviously a great program, and I have a bunch of my friends that are going to play there. But when I went out to juniors (with the AJHL's Brooks Bandits), it was about 10 games into the regular season and I started to get a lot of interest from other schools. My coach kind of pulled me aside and made sure I knew the option was available to look at other options, if I still wanted to. So after I de-committed, then I heard there was Ivy League interest – and because I grew up where I did, being so close to New York and Boston, I always kind of had Ivy in the back of my brain. So when I heard Ivy schools were interested, I was pretty dead set on going to an Ivy League program.

Q: That whittles it down to six. What made Cornell the one?
A: Cornell was the prominent Ivy League school that was interested in me after I de-committed. When I was younger, I kind of looked into Cornell a little bit -- and at the time I de-committed, both the men's and women's teams were both #1 in the nation. That was pretty hard to overlook. So that took me to my official visit, and I loved it here. So here I am.

Q: Did you get to come to a game here?
A: No, I couldn't come to a game because of scheduling. It was pretty bang-bang (timing) right from de-committed. I came on a Monday, actually. I saw a practice, I hung out with some of the guys in the townhouses and a hockey house in Collegetown. I loved it from the second I was here.

Q: So it sounds like your time in Brooks was significant – and for you, a New England kid, it was really a pretty big move for you. What can you tell about your time there?
A: I took kind of an unorthodox cross-country approach that you don't usually see from Massachusetts kids. But the coaches at Brooks approached me in prep school and said it would be a good opportunity to come out there and play with them. So I played for those coaches in a summer tournament, and we got along well, so I decided to go out there. They gave me an opportunity right away – playing time, power play, and I loved the systems they were running. It's similar to here at Cornell. I just took off from there. I had a really good year, and it brought me here to Cornell.

Q: Brooks is regarded as a really strong program – but even by their standards, you guys had a really dominant year when you were there. What was that experience like, and did it make you think about or approach games any differently? Because we had Jeff Malott '20 come through there, and he spoke about how professional of an organization it is …
A: It was a lot different going from prep school to there, because my prep school was middle-of-the-road to low top (tier). Then to go to Brooks, where they just won the RBC Cup (Canada's national Junior A championship) and everyone around Canada knows Brooks as one of the top teams. It is all business right away. You see their program and then compare it to colleges, and it's pretty much identical in terms of practice and the amount of video and lifts we do. But, yeah, it was a pretty crazy year. Right away, we set a record for consecutive wins to start a season – I think it was 25 or 26. That just set the tone for our season, and we were on a heater going into the playoffs – but, unfortunately, Covid canceled it.

Q: We know the feeling …
A: Yeah, so that was sad. But it was a great group of guys and a great coaching staff out there. I'm thankful for that time out there.

Q: You're enrolled in Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration here. What are you hoping to do with that degree someday?
A: I'm not sure yet. I actually didn't know about the hotel school until I came here. It seemed like it was a good fit for me, and I like it so far with my semester and a half. It's been fun so far, and I can't wait to see what I want to do with it.

Q: I think I saw somewhere that your sister works in design. Now you're in a hotel school. Those are pretty different fields. So it begs the question – what do your parents do?
A: My mom studied as a chemist in college and actually works in a company with my aunt that tests people for early detection of tuberculosis. It's a brand-new startup out of Sweden, but she's based in Mass. She loves it there, and so does my aunt. And my dad's an engineer. He makes devices for surgeries, like ACLs or shoulders. And then there's me and my sister, who are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. One's playing hockey in college and the other is designing clothes out in L.A. It's pretty cool see the differences within our own family and how we come together.

Assistant director of athletic communications Brandon Thomas is in his 11th year as his office's primary contact for the Cornell men's hockey team. He can be reached at brandon@cornell.edu.

Freshman Fridays (and Sophomore Spotlights)

•  Oct. 8: Joe Howe
•  Oct. 15: Justin Ertel
•  Oct. 22: Jack Lagerstrom
•  Oct. 29: Sullivan Mack
•  Nov. 12: Tim Rego