SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio has been without a professional hockey team since the Rampage left town, but the sport\u2019s local fan base is finding a new team to support. <\/p>\n
Since 2023, UTSA hockey has helped fill that void, giving the Alamo City a college-level team in ACHA Division II with growing ambitions and a strong South Texas identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have predominantly South Texas boys on our team, which I think is really cool,\u201d UTSA hockey head coach James Hiebert said.<\/p>\n
The Roadrunners feature players ages 18 to 30, including students pursuing careers as doctors and dentists. <\/p>\n
On the ice, they bring a physical, fast-paced style while competing against programs such as Texas A&M, Texas, TCU and rival Texas State in the Texas Collegiate Hockey Conference.<\/p>\n
This season has brought a new level of focus for UTSA. <\/p>\n
Competing in a conference for the first time has given the players a clearer goal and a higher level of competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing in a conference this year, it incentivizes the guys to work toward something,\u201d postgraduate right winger Travis Sorce said. \u201cIt\u2019s allowed us to compete at a much higher level.\u201d<\/p>\n
UTSA hockey operates much like a professional organization, even though it is player-funded. <\/p>\n
The team does not have its own locker room and shares San Antonio\u2019s two ice sheets with other users across the city. <\/p>\n
Still, players and coaches say those challenges have not slowed the program\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t give up on these guys, you can\u2019t give up on the school, you can\u2019t give up on the hockey community in San Antonio,\u201d said junior defenseman and team president Justin Trevino.<\/p>\n
That hockey community has started showing up in force.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s like the coolest thing ever,\u201d freshman forward Henry Pinkerman said. \u201cI think that with the amount of fans we get and how loud they get, it\u2019s pretty sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorce said the support has exceeded his expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would\u2019ve never thought that San Antonio would bring that kind of fire, but that\u2019s what we\u2019re about here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As UTSA continues building its program, the team hopes to keep growing its fan base and help strengthen youth hockey in South Texas, keeping local talent developing in a city still hungry for the sport.<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio has been without a professional hockey team since the Rampage left town, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1116,82,84,83,154,3439,161929],"class_list":["post-480158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-hockey","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-sports","tag-utsa","tag-utsa-hockey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}