UW-Superior athletes create ’The Hockey Guys,’ reaching 1.3 million followers on TikTok (2024)

Hockey practice, games, working out, classes, homework and everything else that goes along with being a student athlete.

Members of the University of Wisconsin-Superior men's hockey team do all of thesethings and more — while being the stars of The Hockey Guys, a popular TikTok account.

In October 2019, Lawson McDonald started sharing his life as acollege hockey player at Superior on TikTok, from locker room pranks to hitting the ice with his teammates.

"I kind of just realized that nobody in the space was doing it," he said. "I just figured, I'm doing something kind of interesting with my life right now. I'm a college hockey player. I want to make videos and I want to show people what it's like."

Whenever he'd include his hockey buddiesin the videos, he noticed the posts would always perform well, garneringthousands of views and likes.So, he decided to launch a group account called @TheHockeyGuys.

"It did good right off the bat and kept rolling ever since then," he said.

As of Feb. 21, it had 1.3million followersand 34million likes.

The video that 'blew up'

McDonald started getting into making TikTok content in October 2019 under the username @Lawson_McDonald. That account now has 172,600 followers and 6.3 million likes.

"There was no real true purpose to it besides videos that I liked and things that I was passionate about," he said.

About a year later, he posted a video of himself andhockey friends Will Blake, Levi Cudmore and MartanYelle each lip-synching a line from Aly &AJ's "Potential Breakup Song"— a popular TikTok trend at the time.

"For some reason this video we did on Oct. 13 really got a lot of traction and blew up," he said. "It gave me the click of like, 'Oh, wow, for some reason having these guys and the concept that we're hockey players and playing college hockey, it's gonna work.' "

Before the end of the month,The Hockey Guys account was created.

Who theyare, what they do

The group account featuresMcDonald (Lawsy),Blake, Cudmore (Cuddy), Yelle,Jordan Martin (Jmarts), Austin Friesen (Frizz), David Kaplan (Kappy),Jonny Pace (Pacer),Troy MacTavish (Taver) and Coltyn Bates (Batsey).

The videos give a laid-backlook into the team, their friendships and all of the goofiness that ensues.

They've done TikTok trends, like popular dances or audio clips that they can relate to their sport; roller skating; lip-synching; choosingcelebrity lookalikes; game-day superstitions; competitions, such as who's the fastest skater; and more.

"There's a lot of different kinds of things we do and the central thing is just having fun and good vibes and who we are, really," McDonaldsaid.

One of McDonald's all-time favorites? When the guys recreateda scene from "The Mighty Ducks," where they roller skated around town, picking up players from different locations.

"Every video, I kind of vividly remember how it all went down while we were filming it," he said. "Remembering the mess ups, the mistakes and which guys were getting bugged or chirped by the rest of the guys as we were filming. Everything to do with that is always good memories."

The group aims to post between five andseven TikToks a week.And they're always throwing ideas around.

McDonald makes a video plan for eachday and does the majority of the filming — mainly because he likes to, but also because he graduated last May.

"The guys are on the ice," McDonald said. "They're the ones playing college hockey, they're coming off the ice and going to practice and everything or walking to the rink. I'm there to make sure I can film them when they are doing things."

Lawsy's hockey, school journey

McDonald, a Manitoba native, started playing hockey when he was 3 or 4. He spent four years with theWinkler Flyers, a Manitoba Junior Hockey League team, before playing Division 1 college hockey for the University of Nebraska-Omaha for two seasons.

After getting cut, he decided to join a team that some of his former teammates and close friends were on: Superior.

"They were my best friends in the past, so I trusted whatever they had to say good about the school was true," he said. "And I wanted to reunite with them and play with them again."

He transferred to Superior in the fall of 2019.

"When I look back at everything I did in hockey, the part I loved about it was everything that happened around the game, like going on road trips with your team, being in the locker room after a win or practice. It isn't even playing the game exactly for me, it's all the connections and what I got to do as a result of playing hockey. That's the best part about the sport."

McDonald graduated with his kinesiology degree and is now pursuing a master's inexercise physiology atThe College of St. Scholasticain Duluth, which is about 10 minutes from his alma mater andformer teammates.

'The best memories'

"The best memories I honestly have are just the cool things we've done with it and the cool things we got to go to to film," McDonaldsaid.

Back in fall of 2020, the four hockey guys who were in the "Potential Breakup Song" video that went viral were invited to film the trend with animals, including snakes and skunks, at the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth.

"Looking back at how excited we were to go to the aquarium a year ago, and then now, here we are at the NHL Winter Classic," he said.

The guys got to attend that outdoor ice hockey matchup, featuring the St. Louis Blues v. the Minnesota Wild, in January in Minneapolis. They made videos there and werefeatured on the NHL's TikTok account.

"That was a crazy kind of experience and the coolest thing, for me, that we've got to do," McDonaldsaid.

Expanding brand; with podcast, YouTube

One of McDonald's goals with The Hockey Guys account was to hit 1 million TikTok followers. That was achieved inDecember.

"Now, there's actually so much more I want to accomplish before I feel like I truly made something successful," he said. "It feels good and everything, but I have high standards and hopes for what we can accomplish."

Instead of aiming to hit another follower milestone, McDonald is focusing on building a "super strong" community for the team's fans.

To give followers a more in-depth look at their lives, the group launched a podcast, then aYouTube channellast year.

Their"No Bad Days" podcasthas featured interviews with the players and special guests, what the athletes are up to during the week, funny stories and whatever else the guysdecide to "ramble on about." It has more than 30 episodes so far and is hosted byMacTavish, Paceand Martin.

In the future, they plan to add a video component to the podcast as well.

When the group gets together to film TikToks, they also have cameras rolling to catchbehind-the-scenes content for their YouTube videos, McDonald said.

Their YouTube channel has longer-form videos, vlogs (that is, video blogs)and more of the crew's shenanigans.

"I think the next goal really is to turn this into a brand," McDonaldsaid. "We have a following and everything, so let's see what we can do on the business side of it. What can we create that can sustain itself? And what can we do for the long term?I want to provide something for all the guys that we can truly work on."

Contact Hannah Kirby at hannah.kirby@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahHopeKirby.