Playing the role of the old guy on a college hockey team might not be so bad after all. Especially if being the old guy means you have more collegiate hockey experience than most players in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

Bowling Green’s hockey team has its own old guy in assistant captain Tyler Knight. Knight has skated out onto the ice for 142 games in his Bowling Green career, more than any other current Falcon.

His accumulated collegiate experience has helped him become a presence on the ice, especially late in games. The senior recently led a Bowling Green third-period comeback in a game against Wayne State at the Joe Louis Arena. Knight scored two goals in a span of less than ten minutes to tie the game at 3-3. The Falcons went on to win after Mike Falk’s goal with 13 seconds left.

Knight has a history of late-game heroics. Last season, in a game at the BGSU Ice Arena, Knight scored the game-winning goal against Notre Dame. He also scored a game-winning goal against Michigan when he was a freshman and assisted on a game-winning goal against Ohio State later that same season. Despite his resume of late-game goals and assists, Knight has a modest outlook on his late game prowess and his ability to score or assist late in games.

“I haven’t really noticed that. I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes,” Knight said. “I’m always trying out there and sometimes it just goes in.”

Captain D’Arcy McConvey and head coach Scott Paluch have different outlooks on Knight’s presence in the third period and his ability to change the outcome of the game.

“He always does what he has to do,” McConvey said. “More specifically, he’s timely. He makes timely goals and timely plays. With his experience he’s pretty much been through it all, all the ups and downs. Definitely at a time at the end of the game when you need a goal, he’d be the type of guy to go to.”

“To be a guy that when you’re down in the last minute and the game is on the line, there’s a lot of people looking at those type of guys to make the plays and he’s done that for us,” Paluch said. Knight admits that he seems to thrive under pressure, in late game situations. He’s the type of player that wants to get the puck and help the team win in any way that he can.

“I always want to be out there during important times in the game when we’re down by a goal or up by a goal and there’s not much time left,” Knight said. “That’s just something I think a lot of the players like to do. Just have a lot of the pressure, a lot of the emphasis of the game on them. It’s definitely something that I like to have.”

Knight has proven that he is a leader on the Bowling Green team, with numerous big plays late in games. He has also proven that he is someone his young teammates can learn from.

“Anytime you have an older guy, the younger guys are going to look up to him whether it’s me or the other guys on the team,” Knight said. “Coming in, even though there are a lot of them [younger players] and there are only a few older guys, they look up and see what you do, see how you present yourself, and I think just by watching what the older players do, they can learn a lot.”

After lettering in his first three years at Bowling Green, Knight has developed into a more versatile and physical player in his fourth season, according to Paluch.

“We’ve had him playing the right wing, we’ve moved him to center. He’s been the guy that wherever we’ve asked him to play, he’s gone out and he’s done it hard,” Paluch said. “I think that’s a credit to Ty. He’s been a hard-working player, he’s been a tremendous student and I think he’s been a really good leader for us.”

Although this season was Knight’s first and last season playing under the direction of Paluch, he envisions the team doing well next season and in the years to come.

When the Falcons start their second season under Paluch next October, Knight hopes to be playing professionally. His teammates know that hockey’s “old guys” are difficult to find and even more difficult to keep.

“A guy like Ty is always hard to replace,” McConvey said. “He brings so much physically and he can score goals, so it’s going to be hard for someone to step up and fill his role.”