Matthew Mayich collapsed on a Tempe track at 8:30 in the morning, and five days later the only people still speaking his name out loud are the ones on their knees.
Tempe Fire Medical Rescue got the call for a heat-related illness at ASU’s Joe Selleh Track on August 20. It was the first day NCAA rules allowed formal college hockey activities. It was also the first day of fall classes. An extreme heat warning blanketed the Valley. Morning temperatures sat in the upper 80s with humidity that turns a warm-up into a furnace. The high that afternoon climbed to 106. A 21-year-old sophomore defenseman from Stoney Creek, Ontario went down during an outdoor exercise, got treated on the scene, and has been hospitalized in the Phoenix area ever since. Reports through family contacts and prayer participants have described a possible cardiac event and a young man still in a coma.
I have covered enough of these stories to know how fast the league moves on. Draft pedigree becomes a footnote. Transfer rankings become last week’s noise. I refuse to let that happen here.
The Portal Class Does Not Matter Right Now
Matthew Mayich was part of a 2026 ASU transfer portal class ranked first in the country. He arrived from Clarkson after a freshman season of 34 games, seven goals, eight assists, and a team-high 19:47 of ice time among freshmen. Before that he logged 256 regular-season games with the Ottawa 67’s, put up 99 points, and wore an alternate captain’s letter for two years. The St. Louis Blues took him in the sixth round in 2023, 170th overall. On paper he was exactly the kind of mobile, experienced defenseman Greg Powers needed as ASU keeps building toward October.
None of that paper is in the hospital with him.
His cousin, Victoria Beara, spoke during a virtual prayer service on August 25 that packed so full no one else could join. “Even though we are going through this heartbreak, it is truly such a blessing to see everyone praying and just the impact Matthew has had on so many people,” she said. “It’s in God’s hand. Please don’t stop praying and don’t give up.” Beara is married to Buffalo Sabres defenseman Owen Power. Deacon Kevin Barron of the Catholic Community of Buffalo North has been leading the rosary. “It’s been very faith-affirming process. Keep praying for Matthew,” he said. Later he told The Arizona Republic the family is grieving and asked for privacy and for the public’s prayers.
That is the real roster right now. Family. Faith. A packed Zoom room full of people from Ontario who refuse to look away.
ASU’s Silence Is a Choice
Arizona State confirmed a men’s hockey player collapsed during an outdoor exercise and remained hospitalized. Then the university stopped. Athletic director Graham Rossini declined comment. Coach Greg Powers did not respond to requests. The official line from Chris Fiscus, vice president of media relations, was the same sentence you get when an institution wants the story to thin out: “The university offers its support for the student-athlete, their family and all our student-athletes during this difficult time.”
I understand medical privacy. I also understand what a vacuum does. When a drafted prospect collapses on a university track under an extreme heat warning on the first legal day of team activity, the people running the program do not get to disappear behind a boilerplate and call it compassion. Support is action. Support is transparency about protocols when the family is ready. Support is not three days of silence followed by a sentence that could have been written by a lawyer who has never set foot in a rink.
College hockey loves to sell toughness. Desert hockey loves to sell grit. I have watched enough August workouts in this league to know the difference between building a team and gambling with bodies in heat that does not negotiate. Fire crews called it heat-related. Family contacts have spoken of a possible cardiac event. Those two things can live in the same sentence, and both of them demand better than a shrug and a privacy citation.
Keep His Name in the Light
Mayich is 6-foot-2, 196 pounds, twenty-one years old, and a long way from home. He left Clarkson for Tempe because he believed in what ASU is building. The season does not open until October 2 at Lindenwood. The home opener comes a week later against Holy Cross. None of that schedule means a thing if the kid who was supposed to be on the blue line is still fighting for the next breath.
I am not here to prosecute a diagnosis I do not have. I am here to say the obvious thing the machine always tries to soft-pedal. A human being went down on a track in your care. His family is holding rosaries and asking strangers not to stop. The Canadian-Croatian community showed up. The hockey community in two countries showed up. The institution that put him on that track has offered one paragraph and a closed door.
Matthew Mayich remains hospitalized. The prayers are still going. That is the entire story that matters until he wakes up and tells the next chapter himself. Everything else is noise dressed up as process. Keep his name in your mouth. Keep the heat on the people who owe his family more than a statement. And do not you dare treat this like a one-cycle item that expired when the weekend did.
