University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) men’s
hockey senior forward Kyle Sharkey will continue his playing career after he
signed a professional contract Friday, March 24.

After helping the Pointers make four consecutive NCAA
Division III Tournament appearances and win the 2016 National Title, Sharkey
will join the Huntsville Havoc of the Southern Professional Hockey League
(SPHL).

“I wanted to play pro hockey, that’s something that
I’ve been trying to do for 22 years now,” said Sharkey. “It’s been a goal of
mine.”

A native of Moore, Okla., Sharkey eventually wound up
in Stevens Point after he bypassed his final two years of high school hockey to
instead play junior hockey for the Topeka RoadRunners of the North American
Hockey League, which is open to players between 16 and 21 years of age.

During the week the team would travel for division
games in Kansas, Texas and Louisiana, which made keeping up with a regular high
school class schedule difficult, so Sharkey decided to attend high school
online through the Insight School of Kansas.

“It’s hard to play catch up once you get behind, and
then sometimes teachers aren’t too thrilled that you’re always coming in to ask
for extensions or get late-work packets or missed assignments,” said Sharkey.
“A lot of kids that are still in school and are playing junior or they’re
traveling a lot are starting to do online school.

“I was able to stay on top of it a lot easier, instead
of having to go to each teacher and get packets and make up work for stuff I
missed and try and play catch up, I was able to just be a normal student and
play hockey at the same time,” he said. “Just like any other high school, you
get your classes and then they have it set up in modules, so for each class
they’d have Module 1 and that was due by the end of that week.

“You could work at your own pace, but there was also
online lectures,” he said. “And then everything else was done through online
textbooks.”

Sharkey received his high school diploma from the
Insight School of Kansas and then played a third season for Topeka, before he
was recruited to play hockey at UWSP by head coach Chris Brooks.

“Coach Brooks is a guy that tells you straight up what
he thinks and what he expects from you, and you have to earn everything here,
and so that whole part from a hockey standpoint was exactly what I was looking
for,” said Sharkey. “I came up and visited the school and saw the hockey
standpoint of it, and then also saw the school standpoint in May before I
started my freshman year.

“And coming up here just felt right,” he said. “So it was
an easy choice to come here.”

As a freshman for the Pointers, Sharkey was an
Honorable Mention All-Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC)
selection in 2013-14 and finished second in the conference in goals, as he helped
the Pointers advance to the NCAA Division III National Championship Game and finished
as the National Runner-up.

He earned First Team All-WIAC honors as a sophomore and
was second in the conference in points as UWSP finished as the National
Runner-up for the second year in a row, while last season as a junior he earned
Honorable Mention All-WIAC and was second on the Pointers in scoring and
seventh in Division III with 19 goals.

He capped his junior season with a goal and two
assists in the National Championship Game, as UWSP won 5-1 over St. Norbert to
claim the NCAA Division III National Title.

“It’s been special,” said Sharkey. “Not too many
people are fortunate enough to say that they played in a National Title Game,
and we were fortunate enough to play in three in a row and win it last year.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have a really good group
of guys all four years here,” he said.

A team captain as a senior this season, Sharkey was
named First Team All-WIAC after he led the conference in assists and was fifth
in scoring, while he helped the second-ranked Pointers reach the NCAA
Tournament for the fourth year in a row.

In the NCAA Quarterfinals against sixth-ranked Adrian
(Mich.) Saturday, March 18, Sharkey had a goal with 20 seconds left in the
second period to tie the score at 3-3.

However, Adrian scored a pair of goals in the opening
10 minutes of the third period and added an empty-net goal to win 6-3 and end
UWSP’s run of three consecutive trips to the National Championship Game, as the
Pointers finished with a 21-5-3 record and Sharkey saw his college career come
to a close.

Less than a week later, Sharkey signed with
Huntsville, as he will be one of 12 former UWSP players currently playing
professionally in either the SPHL or ECHL.

A business major with a coaching minor, Sharkey said that
he wants to get into coaching after his playing days are done, and that he loved
his four years at UWSP.

“Playing here in front of our home fans, it’s been
awesome,” said Sharkey. “It’s an unbelievable environment, the students are
great, the local fan support’s great.

“It’s just one of those things that, when it’s all
said and done, you’re really going to miss coming out on the ice and hearing
the band and the students and everybody go crazy,” he said. “We’re a pretty
lucky school, a lot of schools don’t get that support, and we’re fortunate enough
to be one of those.”