In Clemson club ice hockey’s short history, there have been a handful of standout players. But perhaps more than anyone else, the rest of the Tigers know how integral their admired captain, Cade Heinold, was to the team’s exponential growth and success over the last few years and how long the program will feel his impact.

The Charleston, South Carolina native proved himself to be more than essential to Clemson’s club hockey program over the last few seasons, a result of his nature as both a player and a teammate. During his time as a Tiger, Heinold has more than made his mark. Not only is Heinold the most decorated player in program history, amassing an impressive 86 points in less than four full seasons, but he was also elected team captain by his fellow Tigers this year in a faithful testament to his character off the ice.

Wins weren’t the main factor for his captaincy. It was the way he treated his teammates — people he now considers family.

“I just want to be remembered as a good teammate,” Heinold told The Tiger. “Someone who loved everybody on the team, no matter who it was. For them to remember me as a good hockey player, you know, that’s good. But I’d want to be remembered as a good person, too.”

Heinold’s mother sparked his love of the game at a young age. An avid hockey lover and former player herself, she fueled her love of the sport by pioneering a league called the “Termites” for young kids in Charleston. Not only did her efforts provide her own children with space to fall in love with hockey, but they also created opportunities for other local kids to try their hand at a sport that’s traditionally less common in the South.

Thanks to his mother, Heinold laced up his skates one day at Carolina Ice Palace, took to the ice with his best friends — the other two members of his “ham and cheese” line — and never looked back.

The Termites were just the first of a long list of teams Heinold would go on to play for. The forward got his first taste of success early. Not only did his peewee team go undefeated one season before he and some of his teammates left Charleston to play for different programs, but he also had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of attending the Quebec Pee-Wee Tournament with the rest of his travel team.

“I moved from Charleston to play on a team in Virginia, the Richmond Generals,” Heinold said. “It was a travel team for peewees, and we got invited to the tournament. It’s a really big tournament for peewees, and it’s a pretty big deal in the city of Quebec. It was awesome. We played in this huge stadium… and I was a peewee, so I was like, ‘Oh, this is, this is crazy.’”

Fast forward a few years, and Heinold found himself moving states once again, this time to play hockey at a private military academy in Indiana called Culver.

While many of his teammates at Clemson spent their high school careers living at home and playing hockey for their public schools with their childhood friends, Heinold packed up his belongings and moved to the “middle of Indiana” for boarding school at age 15.

This time, though, the influence came from his father.

“My dad is from Indiana, and he was a wrestler, so he’d always wrestle against Culver,” Heinold explained. “He just thought it was so cool how these kids would walk in with military uniforms on and they’d come out and be the best wrestlers… He always knew he’d want to send his kids there… give them some structure from the military system, get a great education, and the sports are unbelievable. The facilities are college-level facilities.”

“Culver was an interesting place,” Heinold said. “It definitely built my character a bunch, being in that military system and being independent. I kind of just started college earlier than other kids. That’s what I would think of it as. It was cool… I got to play hockey every day, too, because we had a rink on campus.”

“(Hockey) was like a job for us there,” he added. “It was very serious… Almost every kid from my team went and played juniors after, and a lot of kids went to play D1… It was like being on a college hockey team.”

However, after playing in a high school program for four years that operated like a D1 college, Heinold realized he did not want to pursue a similar path to his classmates, which led him back to South Carolina.

“I was kind of burnt out from high school hockey because it was so taxing for us there at Culver,” Heinold said. “It was all we did… I just wanted to go to college, have some fun, and I found out that we had a hockey team here, so I was like, ‘I’ll try it again.’ I kind of found a new love for the game again with Clemson hockey.”

Heinold discovered Clemson had a hockey team earlier than most of his teammates because one of his brothers played for one season years ago. With the help of a former player, Nick Chesare, Heinold rediscovered the program ahead of his first season — and the rest is history.

“My older brother played one season a long time ago,” he said. “When he went to Clemson, it wasn’t like how we are now. They played maybe one game a weekend or every other weekend, and barely practiced… After that, I didn’t even know if we still had a team here. I had played youth hockey with (Chesare) for one year, and I reached out to him because I knew he was playing here, and he was like, ‘yeah, just come out for a skate,’ so I went out to skate with them.”

The team welcomed him, both as a player and as a friend, instantly and with open arms.

“I was in it for the friendships,” Heinold said.

Since that first day, Heinold will be the first to admit how impactful this experience has been for him.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere without this team, honestly,” he said. “It’s hard to say what it’s actually done for me… All these guys are my best friends now and helped me get through college… I’m just really thankful for all the friends that I’ve made through it. That’s the biggest thing; all these guys are my best friends. And never would have had such a close group of friends in college without this team.”

One of his favorite memories as a Tiger was during the team’s historic season last year. The Tigers advanced to the College Hockey South Division II playoff title game for the first time in program history and advanced to the AAU National Tournament quarterfinals just two years after their first-ever appearance in the tournament.

“Honestly, (my favorite memory) was probably that stretch of the season last year from playoffs through Nationals,” Heinold said. “We were winning so many games — good games too. That was fun to see our team’s work come to fruition and win some games. All I ever wanted for this team was to win some hardware… we were winning games, having a good time.”

In his final comments, the captain wanted to express just how grateful he was to be a part of this special team.

“Clemson hockey is a great group of guys,” he said. “I was honored to be the captain and a leader of the team this year. I’ve just loved every second of it, and I’m just so thankful I found it. It’s been my life, and I’ve met my best friends doing it. So I would just say to someone out there: try to find a group like that for yourself. Anybody coming to Clemson, find a group of people that you share the same interests with, and it’ll take you places.”

After graduation, the senior business management major plans to return to Charleston to be close to family.