The man behind the ice: Hockey’s Handy man

Since Kirk Handy took over the hockey program, Liberty ice has been hot

The hockey program at Liberty University has evolved dramatically over the past two decades. When it first began, hockey was an irrelevant, inexperienced club sport that had no home ice rink to play in. In the last 10 years, Liberty’s hockey team has become one of the most prominent ACHA teams in the country and is housed in a high quality collegiate facility in the LaHaye Ice Center. All of these accomplishments would have been impossible without the hard work and driving passion of the man who has been the hockey coach at Liberty for 11 years, Kirk Handy.

From a young age, Handy was indoctrinated to love hockey.

“A lot of my immediate family members, aunts, uncles and other relatives were big into hockey. But my dad had a huge passion for it,” Handy said. “I think, early on, him coaching me had a big influence on my life. He invested a lot of time and energy into getting me into the sport.”

After playing college hockey for one year in Canada, Handy decided he wanted to attend a Christian university and heard good things about the academics and hockey program at Liberty. Upon attending Liberty, Handy met his wife, Jannie, whom he married five years later. In late 2001, Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr. called Handy back to the hockey program, this time to be the head coach.

When he returned to Liberty, Coach Handy was in the midst of Liberty transforming not only the hockey program, but also providing them with an arena to play in.

“I think something I’ll never forget about Dr. Falwell was his fervor to see an ice rink here on campus,” Handy said. “I questioned it sometimes when he’d say like ‘Hey, we’re gonna have an ice rink here’ and I thought ‘Really, we’re gonna get one? We’re in Lynchburg, Virginia.’ I mean, I hoped everyday we’d get one.”

“It was neat to see Jerry Falwell’s vision for Liberty and our vision for a hockey program come together,” Handy said. “Obviously, Dr. Falwell always had the vision for this place, and I believe the hockey teams, the ice rink and what we’re doing down here is just a part of that vision that he started in 1971.”

Dr. Falwell’s dream for the hockey program to be successful has become a reality under Coach Handy. In the past 10 years, Liberty has won at least 25 games four out of the past five seasons, jumped from a Division II program to Division I program and made 3 National Championship appearances between DII and DI according to libertyflames.com.

For this season, the Flames are 13-6-2 and ranked No. 6 in the recent ACHA poll in the first week of December, according to ACHA.org. So far, Handy has liked what he has seen from his team.

“I think, overall, the progression since August has been something we’re very proud of as a coaching staff,” Handy said. “We’d like to see us continue on the progression we’ve worked so hard at for the first couple months of the semester so we can set ourselves up for a good run (in the spring).”

The Flames look to finish out the semester on a high note as they take on the No. 1 ranked team in the country, Penn State, this Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 4 p.m.