Arizona State hockey coach Greg Powers has been placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday, two days after seven members of the team asked the university to remove him pending an investigation into the collapse of defenseman Matthew Mayich.
“After thorough and careful deliberation, I believe this is the best move to provide stability for the hockey program,” Arizona State athletic director Graham Rossini said in a statement Wednesday.
Mayich has been hospitalized and on life support since the outdoor preseason workout on Aug. 20, which was led by former Green Beret Tim Ziesel. Per Robert Carey, the attorney for the Mayich family, the player is not expected to recover after exertional heat stroke reduced the flow of oxygen to his brain.
On Sept. 21, school senior vice president James Rund released a preliminary internal review of the workout led by Ziesel. Included in that review was a timeline of events, a summary of activities, weather conditions and the actions that followed Mayich’s collapse near the end of the workout. Mayich was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL Draft.
Greg Powers, who has been the Sun Devils’ head coach all 12 seasons for which they have been a Division I team, did not answer questions regarding the workout or Mayich at media day last Wednesday.
Assistant coach Mike Corbett will lead the team for its opening games at Lindenwood this weekend. An interim head coach will be announced by the school.
Carey said removing Powers is not enough to protect the players, as members of his staff — including associate coach Alex Hicks — remain in place.
“Putting Powers on leave while his best friend of the last decade stays in charge of the locker room doesn’t solve the problem,” Carey told ESPN in an email. “If ASU won’t remove him, even just to err on the side of player safety, then the interim head coach it has promised should have the authority to remove anyone who poses a risk of retaliation against these players.”
In the players’ 26-page letter to president Michael Crow, they allege that the workout was driven by punishment, that Mayich showed signs of distress earlier than reported and that he did not receive any water. The players also wrote that the medical staff was not trained to handle Mayich’s condition and did not follow the protocol for a heatstroke victim.
According to the players, Powers described Mayich’s condition as “just a little heat stroke,” which he had seen “a million times. … After the ambulance took Matthew to the hospital, Coach Powers told us that we working (sic) closer to making the Frozen Four because of the workout and Matthew having pushed himself to the maximum.”
The Rund report does not place blame or identify who is responsible.
–Field Level Media
