Sometimes Plan B turns out to be the best choice.
Just ask Matt Erredge ’99, who intended to spend the 1995-96 season playing junior hockey with the Rochester Mustangs of the United States Hockey League.
But when that fell through, the Austin High School graduate decided to head to Saint John’s University, where he’d already been accepted, but had no idea what to expect.
“My goal had been to play another year of juniors, but when my junior coach told me they weren’t going to use me, I started to look at other options,” said Erredge, who played in 42 games for the Mustangs in 1994-95 after having helped lead Austin to a berth in the state hockey tournament as a high school junior in 1992-93. “I could have gone the Junior B route – which is like the Tier III teams now – but I had already been accepted at SJU.
“I didn’t know much about the team or how many slots they even had available. I just knew the campus was beautiful, and they had a gold-medal winning head coach so you knew the hockey was going to be first class.”
Because Erredge’s decision was made last-minute, that head coach – John Harrington – did not even know he was coming until he walked into the team’s first preseason meeting.
“I’d talked to Matt and he said he was going back to juniors, but then I walked into the auditorium and saw him sitting there,” said Harrington, a member of the legendary U.S. Olympic Team that won gold at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.
“That was an early Christmas present.”
Indeed, Erredge made an immediate contribution – scoring 15 goals and recording 17 assists as a freshman. As a sophomore, he scored 16 goals and had 20 assists, playing a big part in helping the Johnnies advance to the NCAA Division III final four in Middlebury, Vt., where they finished third overall.
“That team was such a great group of guys,” Erredge said. “We still get together once a year. It really was a bunch of mismatched high school kids. Very few of us had even played juniors. I think I was one of about three guys that had, and I hadn’t even played that much. But John put together a group that had a lot of talent and we really jelled.
“I can remember getting together with the guys right after my freshman season ended. We talked about the fact that we thought we could be pretty good. It was just a matter of going out and putting it all together.”
Erredge continued to improve as a junior and senior, earning All-MIAC and All-American honors both seasons. As a junior in 1997-98, he finished with 33 goals and 60 points, which ties him for single-season school records in both categories.
He finished his career with 91 goals and 171 points, both of which remain program bests. His 80 career assists ties for second place all-time.
“It was easy to see that he had the ability to create offense and score points,” Harrington said. “He just knew how to do that. But he also had a knack for figuring out how to work with whomever the guys he was playing with were and making them better too.”
After graduating from SJU in 1999, Erredge played three seasons of minor league hockey, then embarked on a teaching and coaching career.
The fourth-grade teacher at Kasson-Mantorville Elementary School served as the head girls and head boys coach at Dodge County before spending 11 seasons as a boys assistant coach at Rochester John Marshall.
He then took over the Rockets’ head coaching job prior to the 2021-22 season.
“There are things I learned at Saint John’s that I still draw on as a coach today,” he said. “I think the biggest is the importance of being a great player and person on and off the ice. You can have all sorts of talent, but if you’re struggling with stuff off the ice, you’re probably going to struggle on it as well.
“You have to focus on the aspects of life beyond hockey just as much as what happens at the rink.”
