Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota will be opening the doors to its new $70 million Midco Arena in the fall of 2023, welcoming hockey fans to the school’s first-ever NCAA Division I games. But along with the brick-and-mortar needed to build the facility, the new team’s staff has a heavy lift when it comes to creating its roster. Fortunately, they have a little help.
“You only get one shot at building this from scratch so we want to do it right,” said Andrew Boschetto, assistant coach for Augustana’s men’s hockey team.
Boschetto, along with head coach Garrett Raboin, is tasked with building the new Vikings Hockey team, South Dakota’s first college hockey team. They’re using RinkNet , a scouting technology, to facilitate the historically arduous process.
A lot of the other college programs have used it to help expedite this process,” Boschetto said. “That was a big sell for us because we’re recruiting an entire team. We don’t have players to coach yet so we’re watching a lot of hockey. When you don’t have a platform you can lose track of a lot of players.”
RinkNet allows Coaches like Boschetto and Raboin to access notes, player information and analytics anytime and from anywhere. With the platform’s new Pressroom App, they also have access to rosters, live stats and game reports. Overall, RinkNet makes all the information critical to the team building process organized, easily accessible and comprehensible.
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“You can fly all over and look at players, but if you don’t have notes on someone and a track record it’s hard to remember it all,” Boschetto said.
RinkNet is the same technology NHL and junior teams across the country have been using for almost 25 years. The platform covers more than 13,500 teams and 300,000 players each year. In addition to extensive stats, information and analytics, RinkNet can be customized to meet the specific needs of its users, optimizing their decisions. For Boschetto, the most exciting thing about RinkNet is how it enhances communication between staff.
“It allows us all to be on the same page. We’re never going at things blind,” he said.
Which is a good approach if they want to aspire to the school’s history of successes in other sports. Augustana has taken home five championship trophies in other sports, including football.
“The school has a history of being very successful and a culture of winning,” Boschetto added. “It’s going to be a great experience for our students to be able to go into a new facility and take part in Division I college hockey.”
As one of the fastest-growing parts of the U.S., Sioux Falls is a fitting place for the state’s first-ever NCAA hockey team to call home. The city has grown considerably over the last 10 years with the university also experiencing record growth with the second largest freshman class they’ve ever had. The new Midco Arena and Viking hockey team help set the stage for what’s to come.
The Vikings are already filling up their inaugural season with games against Notre Dame and Colorado College. To stay up to date on the team’s schedule or to learn more visit
Augustana men's hockey site.
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