NEWS RELEASES

“And now the starting lineup for your George Mason Patriots!” 

The PA announcer’s words echo off the sterile cinderblock walls inside the ice rink.

“…at defense, #14 Nick Baltas and #17 Nick Grrrrrose!” 

Baltas and Grose stand shoulder-to-shoulder on Mason’s blue line without their helmets, commemorative 30thanniversary patches visible on the chest of their gold jerseys, watching the flag on the wall as the National Anthem plays. They fidget, shifting their weight and sliding their skates forward and back. 

Baltas is a couple inches taller and a few years younger than his defensive partner, though the two slim, dark-haired players appear similar in all other ways. It’s his third game with the team, while Grose, despite playing for Mason only a semester so far, is already regarded as a leader in the locker room and on the ice. 

As the anthem swells to a finish, Baltas and Grose lift their hockey sticks to shoulder height and, in unison with the four other starters, tap them to the ice in salute. They glide back to the bench to grab their helmets before taking their place for the opening puck drop.

Along the glass separating the game from the fans, Bruce Baltas and Peter Grose watch their sons line up together. They reminisce about 30 years earlier when they lined up for an opening puck drop during the team’s inaugural season, which they had worked so hard to make happen. 

***

Nick Baltas remembers flying. 

The piercing cold air hitting every part of his exposed skin and the bright glare of the sun against the ice as he zoomed across the surface, his little legs pumping off-rhythm to try to keep up with the pace. He remembers his father’s face hovering above him and the reassuring pressure of the hands under his arms, never letting him fall. 

Baltas’s dad, Bruce, had him out on ice skates as soon as he could walk. He started playing hockey when he was four years old. His dad coached his youth hockey teams in his early years and, after Baltas surpassed Bruce’s coaching abilities, continued coming to all of his games. 

Baltas heard a lot of stories when he was growing up about the early days of Mason hockey. His dad and his uncle, Eric, were both on Mason’s inaugural team in 1989 and helped get the fledgling program off the ground in a place where hockey wasn’t a popular sport. They grew it out of nothing, which was “pretty miraculous,” Baltas said, since the team didn’t even have a coach. The players motivated each other to propel the team forward. 

One of Bruce’s teammates was Peter Grose.

***

Peter grew up in Canada, but his family moved to Alabama when he was 15 years old. There was no hockey at that time in Alabama so it was a big deal when, as a graduate student at George Mason in 1998, he met other like-minded students to form a hockey team and allow him to return to the sport he loved.

Peter, Bruce and Eric Baltas and their teammates spent a year working hard to convince the ACHA to allow them to join. Mason was finally accepted to play in the league beginning with the 1989-90 season. They had to scramble to find acceptable apparel and equipment for their uniforms to meet the ACHA requirements, designing home and away jerseys and finding matching socks, helmets and pants. 

Mason’s practices were run by a fellow player who had NCAA hockey experience, rather than a coach. The team practiced early in the morning and traveled up and down the East Coast for games. Despite their rookie status and the challenges of starting a club team, Peter, the Baltas brothers and the rest of the players managed to win a quite a few games in that inaugural season.

The bond forged through the struggles of Mason hockey’s early years endured and teammates stayed friends. Baltas remembers often accompanying his dad over to the Grose house, where Bruce would visit with Peter, and Baltas would join Peter’s sons, Alex and Nick, on their backyard ice rink to play hockey.

Baltas started college at Clemson University and played for its ACHA Division III team for a year and a half before transferring to Mason at the start of the spring 2020 semester. 

Now, he enjoys sharing a piece of his dad’s history as he plays for Mason. The two of them talk before and after every game, discussing strategy, opponents and play on the ice.

When Baltas notched a point in his first game for Mason, his dad was cheering him on from the stands. He quickly proved he belonged on the team, earning top minutes as part of the starting defensive pair with, fittingly, Nick Grose.

***

The Grose family has become something of a dynasty for Mason hockey. Nick’s dad helped found the team, his older brother, Alex, is an All-Star forward-turned-assistant coach and head of recruiting, and Nick had a breakout season in his one and only year with the team before becoming Mason’s first player to go pro. 

Alex played for Mason as a graduate student during the 2017-18 season and was a key player in securing the team’s first trip to Nationals, where he then recorded five points in three games. He set the team record in penalty minutes for a single season (113) and was named to the All-Atlantic Region Second Team in addition to being a conference and league All-Star.

Since transitioning to behind the bench, Alex has played a large role in recruiting top talent – including Nick Baltas – as the team prepares to transition to Division I for the 2021-22 season. Mason had initially planned to move to D-I last fall before the pandemic forced the ACHA to postpone, then cancel, the 2020-21 season.

Alex also coached his younger brother through Mason’s last and best season in Division III.

In Mason’s annual alumni game on Feb. 29, 2020, Baltas moved up to forward so he and his dad could be on the starting line together for the green team. Peter didn’t play in the game this year due to an injury, but the Grose brothers played together on the white team, a partnership responsible for setting up two of the team’s five goals en route to the white team victory.

Grose previously played with Alex for two years on their high school team, during which they were an indomitable duo, ranking in the top five players in the state both years and receiving All-Met recognition.

After playing three years of junior hockey in Canada, Grose attended Ohio University, where he played two years of ACHA D-I hockey. For graduate school, he decided to follow in the footsteps of his dad and older brother by studying at their alma mater, George Mason University.

Grose had an immediate impact on the team when he joined in 2019, demonstrating not only his own talent but also a talent for lifting up the players around him. He finished his breakout season with a 19-40—59 record and several honors, including being named to the ACHA DIII All-American First Team and All-Atlantic Region First Team.

The two goals he scored against California University of Pennsylvania clinched Mason’s highest regional ranking and the team’s first automatic bid to the 2020 National Championship tournament – although the tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus. 

***

Last fall, Baltas and Grose went their separate ways but continued to play hockey.

Baltas started his junior year, studying economics and playing at Mason’s twice-a-week practices (held in accordance with all COVID-19 protocols). Now that he has two semesters with the team under his belt, he’s hoping to take on more of a leadership role in the fall when they start navigating their first season at D-I, similar to his father and the inaugural team forging their own path in the ACHA. 

Grose signed with Olofströms IK, a professional hockey team in Sweden, in July for the 2020-21 season. It was initially unclear whether the travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus would prevent him from joining the team for training camp and exhibition games before the season began on Sept. 20, but Grose made it to Sweden and has recorded three assists through eight games.

He’s the first player in Mason history to sign with a professional team and had been in talks with three different teams before signing with OIK.

But the history he and Baltas made by playing for the team their fathers started – and playing key roles in the team’s unprecedented success – says just as much about the life-long bonds of the Patriots as it does about the growing strength of the program. 

(Headline photo, from left to right: Peter Grose, Nick Grose, Nick Baltas, Bruce Baltas.
After Nick Baltas’s first game with Mason where he recorded his first point against George Washington University on Jan. 17, 2020.)