Matthew Mayich flew into Phoenix with five days max to adjust, then collapsed on the first formal outdoor workout ASU hockey ran this fall. He is 21. He is a St. Louis Blues draft pick. Family attorney Robert Carey has said he has “zero chance of recovery.” That is the only number that matters, and everything else is noise until somebody treats it like one.
New details from The Arizona Republic’s Robert Anglen on KTAR make the morning of Aug. 20 sound worse than the soft early narrative. Based on descriptions from the Mayich family lawyer, Mayich “started suffering throughout the workout. He was showing signs of not being able to complete tasks. He was disoriented.” After he went down, Anglen relayed, “they did not bring him to a bath. They did not put him in ice.” Instead, per that account, “they instead stood around him, left him on the field laying there,” while players tried to shade him.
I know the reply already forming in the comments. Wait for the full review. Don’t rush. Ziesel’s side disputes the intensity. Fine. Disputes get attributed. The kid still has not left the hospital.
ASU Called It a Review. That Word Choice Is the Tell
Athletic director Graham Rossini went on Burns & Gambo and said the quiet part with a straight face: “This is not an investigation where somebody’s suggesting something went wrong. We’re reviewing the facts and understanding the scenario.”
A sophomore defenseman is incapacitated from what Carey describes as exertional heat stroke with no other contributing conditions, and the AD is out here clarifying that nobody is even suggesting fault. That is L energy in a pressed shirt. Senior VP James Rund is running the internal look. The family wants Phoenix PD, the attorney general, or DPS because they say ASU Police carrying it creates an obvious institutional conflict. ASU has not answered that request as of Anglen’s latest reporting.
Tim Ziesel, the former Green Beret who led the session, had a handshake deal with head coach Greg Powers and staff. No signed consultant policy form. No vetting process. ASU athletics guidelines require both when an outside person works with athletes. Ziesel’s attorney Buddy Rake confirmed that never happened. Ziesel’s camp also says he left before the final activity and before the collapse, and that coaches plus medical were present the whole time. Rake has said it was not a “Green Beret or SEAL workout.”
Family attorney Leonard Aragon alleged the trainer pushed athletes past military-style work and punished anyone who stopped or drank water. Ziesel disputes the grueling label except on tone and cadence. Carey interviewed players who called the session grueling and unbearably hard, and he has said flatly, “My investigation shows the storyline is completely false. This case has shattered [Mayich’s] life. He deserves, and his family deserves, a proper investigation.”
I am not a medical examiner and I am not rendering a verdict. I am reading the paper ASU already wrote for itself.
Five Days, 106 Degrees, and Guidelines That Lived on a Shelf
ASU’s own heat guidelines call for gradual acclimatization over seven to 14 days when athletes return to activity. Mayich, flying in from the Ottawa area, had five days max. First outdoor session. Tempe Fire responded around 8:30 a.m. to a heat-related illness call. Temperatures at response sat in the upper 80s with humidity near 50 percent; the day still climbed to 106. National Athletic Trainers’ Association-based protocols exist on campus. Cold-water immersion is the standard move for exertional heat stroke. The family side says it did not happen in time. Ziesel’s side has not conceded the response failures.
This was dryland in August in Tempe for an ice hockey team. Sprints, planks, bear crawls, teammate carries, medicine-ball runs, cadence and counting. Outdoor. Not sport-specific. ASU’s 2026 portal class ranked first nationally. They were building a brand. One morning and one unvetted handshake can torch that brand faster than any portal haul can rebuild it.
College hockey already fights for oxygen next to football money and basketball glitz. A narrative where an unacclimatized 21-year-old drafted prospect ends up with zero recovery chance, per his own counsel, while the university prefers “review” over “investigation,” does not stay local. It travels. Players talk. Parents talk. Recruits’ agents talk.
Carey’s line about the shattered life is not spin. Mayich is still hospitalized. The family is still at bedside. The consultant form still was never signed. The acclimatization window still got skipped. Rossini can keep calling it a scenario to understand. The concrete details already understand themselves.
