The Montgomery name is something akin to royalty for the green Fighting Hawks of the University of North Dakota, but Drew Montgomery’s heart bleeds Colorado College black and gold. 

The CC hockey junior forward is from Grand Forks, N.D. His dad, Tom, played baseball at North Dakota and was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 2003, the same year Montgomery was born. His brother, Dane, played hockey at UND for the last four years. 

But Montgomery found his calling outside the family business, helping restore a Tiger hockey team he cheered on as a kid to its glory days.

“When I was growing up, CC, they had some good teams like the Jaden Schwartzes, those teams. Just the couple national championships here and the opportunity to get this program back to that place was really what I wanted to be a part of,” he said. 

Montgomery will begin his third season with CC on Oct. 3 when the Tigers host UConn at Ed Robson Arena. Last season, he finished with 18 points on 10 goals and eight assists. He doubled his goal total from his freshman season and was top 10 in scoring for CC. He finished the season on a hot streak, earning points in five of CC’s final seven regular-season games. He also netted three of a team-high four game-winning goals in the second half of the season. 

“I did have a good end to the season but that’s not all me, right? That’s the team as a whole, that’s the guys I play with putting me in good spots,”  he said. “Just continuing to build off summer, build off what I did, my body work in summer and bring that into the season. I do come in with some confidence, but that’s not from the individual side, I come in with confidence because I know the guys around me are so good.” 

The trust the Tigers’ winger has in his teammates grew over the offseason. 

Last season was something of a disappointment for the Tigers, who, a year prior, secured the program’s first 20-win season in over a decade, hosted a National Collegiate Hockey Conference playoff series for the first time, and missed the NCAA Tournament by fractions of a percent. Following an 18-18-1 2024-2025 campaign, CC lost several key players to graduation, the pros, and the transfer portal. 

CC coach Kris Mayotte said earlier this year that every one of this season’s returners had opportunities to play elsewhere. For Montgomery, the thought of playing hockey somewhere other than downtown Colorado Springs never crossed his mind. 

“I think it definitely brings a group closer for sure. All the guys who stayed, we all believe in this thing, we all believe we’re headed in the right direction, and we all believe we can accomplish something together,” he said. “I do believe that it brought us just a little bit closer. Now it’s about bringing all these new guys in and getting them up to speed and what we’ve been a part of for the last couple years.”

The process of getting the rookies up to speed may not be as daunting as years past, as a new NCAA rule allows for Canadian Hockey League players to be eligible for college hockey. 

CC has taken full advantage of the change, recruiting several players from the CHL, mostly from the Western Hockey League, to join the returning Tigers next month.

The group includes forward Tomas Mrsic who led the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders with 90 points last season, forward Brandon Lisowsky, who was a top-10 goal scorer in the WHL, and Wilson Björck, who was the second-highest scorer in Sweden’s J20 Nationell league with 67 points.

So while the Tigers will be without the marquee talent of recent years like former forwards Noah Laba, Gleb Veremyev, and Zaccharya Wisdom, CC returns with an elite recruiting class per several hockey outlets, including Puck Preps.

Montgomery has been impressed by his new teammates in practice. 

“From what I’ve seen, they’re great, great players. I think it’s going to be a pretty seamless transition for these guys. Just from the week or so we’ve had of practice so far, they fit in really well. You can obviously tell they have high hockey IQ,” he said. “They’re gonna fit in great, they work hard, they’re all such great kids. There’s definitely so much talent in this class and we’re really excited.”

As a junior, Montgomery knows it’s his time to be a leader for CC. 

“(I’m) looked at as an older guy now, so I gotta step up for sure for some of these younger guys, but really excited for the year. I think we could have a really good team, really special year,” he said.