Sacred Heart began sponsoring men's ice hockey as a varsity sport in 1993. The team was placed in the South Division of ECAC North/South/Central and because they were not able to schedule all of their ECAC South opponents twice the Pioneers played half a conference schedule in their inaugural year. With a full conference slate the following year, Sacred Heart greatly improved their record which continued in year three.
For the 1996–97 seasonShaun Hannah was brought in as head coach and the Pioneers finished with their first winning record and 2nd in the division, narrowly missing the conference postseason.
In the late 1990s the MAAC was mandated to form an ice hockey conference. Two of the ECAC South programs would have to promote themselves to Division I and soon after they were joined by Sacred Heart. With an eye for their new conference, Hannah began offering scholarships to incoming students, a violation of Division III rules, which caused the Pioneers (along with two other ECAC South teams) to be ruled ineligible for any postseason play. Additionally all of their conference games would not be counted in the standings, through they would still be able to play the matches and count the results towards their overall standings.
MAAC
Despite the influx of scholarship athletes, Sacred Heart finished 7th in the first year of MAAC conference play. The team rebounded in the second year, doubling their win total and finishing with a winning record. Postseason success was a little slower in coming with the Pioneers unable to win a playoff game until year 4 of D-I play. During the 2002–03 seasonIona and Fairfield, the two original MAAC programs, both announced that they would end their sponsorship of ice hockey at the end of the season. With only one full-time member still active the MAAC terminated their ice hockey division. The remaining 9 programs banded together and formed the Atlantic Hockey Association which began the following year.
Atlantic Hockey Association
Sacred Heart played well for the first few years of Atlantic Hockey, reaching the championship game in 2004 and 2010 but after Hannah left in 2009, the team took a tumble down the standings. From 2011 through 2018 the Pioneers never finished higher than 8th in the conference. Bench boss C. J. Marottolo was finally able to push the Pioneers out of the basement in 2019 with a 4th-place finish, ending 1 win shy of .500 on the year.
The school announced in 2020 that it would build a $60 million facility for its men's and women's ice hockey programs.[3] After a delayed start, construction began on the Martire Family Arena in March 2021, with a new scheduled completion date of 2023 and a new price tag of $70 million. Martire Family Arena became Sacred Heart's first on-campus ice arena.[4]
Atlantic Hockey America
Shortly after the 2023–24 season, the Atlantic Hockey Association merged with College Hockey America, a women-only league, to form the new Atlantic Hockey America. The two conferences had a longstanding relationship before the merger, having shared a commissioner and conference staff since 2010. All members of the Association and CHA became members of the merged league.[5]
GP = Games played; Min = Minutes played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; SV% = Save percentage; GAA = Goals against average
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