Six years ago, the Michigan Tech Huskies hockey program was a shell of its former glory. Then-head coach Jamie Russell was coming off of a 4-30-4 season in which the Huskies closed the season on a seven-game losing streak. That was after a 15-game losing streak which was part of a larger, 24-game winless streak.

Russell’s tenure ended with just 15 wins over his final three seasons.

While these numbers weren’t good by any measure of the imagination, they were symptomatic of a larger problem: the Huskies had been on a spiral down since the retirement of celebrated coach John J. MacInnes after the 1981-82 season.

Starting with Tim Watters, who was hired in 1996, the number of seasons the Huskies surpassed nine victories in a season could be counted on one hand: four.

That all changed with the hiring of Mel Pearson in 2011. Pearson won 16 games in his first season. Since taking over, he has not won less than 13 games.

It took four years, but he led the Huskies to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1981, back when Pearson was a player under MacInnes.

Last season, the Huskies earned a share of the MacNaughton Cup. This season, they sit just four points back of Bemidji State in the chase for the cup with a crucial series against the Beavers coming up this weekend.

One of the buzzwords Pearson sent my way in an early interview after accepting the head coaching position here was “culture”. It was his intention to change the Huskies from being a team with a culture than accepting losing into one that expected to win. It is abundantly clear he has already accomplished that given the way the Huskies play these days and the size of the crowds that pack the MacInnes Student Ice Arena.

By comparison, the Finlandia Lions men’s and women’s hockey programs are far younger than the Huskies. The men made the move to NCAA Division III in 2002. The women started in 2004.

Under the tutelage of Joe Burcar, the men’s team won one game in 2002-03 and three the next year, playing both seasons as an independent. They gained entry into the Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association in 2004. In their first year in the conference, the Lions won nine games.

The Lions also featured the two top scorers in the conference in Joe Lewis and Josh Paquette.

Two seasons later, the Lions won 19 games and hosted, and won, the MCHA Tournament, defeating Marian and Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Just two years after that success, Burcar was relieved of his coaching duties and the Lions have not won more than seven games in a season since.

This year, the Lions are 0-21-0 with just four games left after dropping a pair of games with Northland over the weekend in Burcar’s first year back at the helm.

Given how this season has gone, it is easy to look at it from the outside and say that they are at their lowest as a program. However, a number of factors need to be weighed in a discussion of culture change involving the Lions.

The MCHA morphed into the more competitive Northern Collegiate Hockey Association. As of Monday, St. Norbert (No. 3) and Adrian (No. 9) were both ranked in the Top 15 in the country, with Concordia and Marian each receiving votes as well.

The core of this Lions’ team won just one game a season ago and six games over the past two seasons combined. When Pearson took over the Huskies, his seniors had won 15 games prior to his arrival.

The Lions have not played more than a handful of games with the roster they announced as their varsity squad prior to the season. Injuries during their opening weekend forced several players into the lineup each night who did not making the team at the start of the season and further injuries caused the need for lineup changes on a nightly basis.

It is also easy to forget that Burcar and his staff were hired in August and arrived on campus a week after school began. He had no opportunity to recruit prior to the season and spent the fall just meeting the players and getting to know them. He and his staff are hard at work on the incoming class for next season and beyond.

Burcar maintains that the culture has already begun to change despite the record on the ice. When I chatted with him last week, he talked about how the mood in practice is strong despite the record.

While this season is a wash for Burcar and the Lions, the future still looks bright. Freshman Daniel Sarnecki leads the team with seven points in 19 contests. Sophomore Bryce Mitzel leads the team with four goals.

We will see what the future holds for the Lions. For now, it is too early to tell just how successful this coaching coaching staff will be at changing the culture at Finlandia.