It’s been seven years since Hobart College junior forward Brendan Howell was playing together with his brother, Hunter, on the same defense pair in Section V high school hockey with the Hilton Cadets.
Now he’s playing a regular shift at center for the Hobart men’s hockey team, who entered the second week in January ranked fifth among all Division III teams in the nation with an 11-2-1 record.
“It’s definitely different from most teams that I’ve been on because we have 18-19 forwards who can all play and we have so much depth that any night no matter who we play, we can play pretty much all of our forwards and feel very confident,” Howell said after an early January game.
“That’s pretty much a first for me – I’ve never been on a team with this much depth. I just go out and control what I can control, so that’s really my mindset.”
Howell had two goals over the first nine games this season. In his first year two seasons ago, he won the team’s Rookie Award after netting five goals and seven points over his first 22 collegiate contests.
After Hilton, Howell stayed local and spent one season with the Buffalo Regals and two more with the Rochester Monarchs, but he was already on the radar of Statesmen head coach Mark Taylor before that period.
“When I was a senior in high school and playing juniors that year, I was talking to them (Hobart) throughout the year…they were probably at the top of my list and it was kind of an easy decision.
“I had never been to a (Hobart) game and then I came out and watched them in their Sweet-16 game, toured the campus and it’s just close to home; a good school and a good hockey program.”
“What I like is he’s as skilled as anybody, is a talented player, and he’s really embraced adjusting his game from high school and junior hockey to college hockey,” Hobart head coach Mark Taylor said.
“He’s playing very responsible, he’s playing honest, he’s playing the right way and eventually you’re going to see the skill part accentuate all of that. What I like is he’s doing a great job as a talent playing the way you have to play.
“It would be crazy not to look in my backyard…but anytime you can get a local kid, you like to do it. I hate to miss one that’s an hour away.”
There are some great stories about how players choose or are assigned their jersey number and Howell’s tale is one of both circumstance and superstition. He wears #90 for Hobart.
“I wore #16 at Hilton and when I went to Regals #16 was taken so I chose #9. Then when I went to the Monarchs I tried to be #9, but it was taken, so I added a zero to it and never changed it. I was going to be #16 when I came here, but that was taken. I had a good year when I was playing for the Monarchs with that number so I just kept it.”
The economics major is in his junior year of college, but the NCAA is allowing athletes to not count the 2020-21 season against their eligibility, so he has two more seasons of college hockey available should he decide to take that route.
And after that?
“That’s a really good question. My brother is a salesman, so I’ve been getting some good insight into the sales life and there are definitely pros and cons to it. Whether it’s going to be sales or more money management, I’m still trying to figure that out.”
A forward since his freshman season in high school, while in eighth grade Howell played defense with the Cadets, which allowed him to play on the same pair with his older brother.
“It was honestly some of the most fun I’ve had because he was a captain and I was a young kid – eighth grader or ninth grader – and he was a senior, so that was really fun because I got to play with him and all his friends and playing in front of the home crowd, so it was my favorite memory.”
