Center Shines, Spotlight or Not

If you only read box scores and stat charts, you might not be familiar with Tyler Magura. A goal here, an assist there, but nothing flashy from the sophomore centerman of the Harvard men’s hockey team.

At least, seven points as a freshman and two assists this season haven’t grabbed him many headlines.

But there’s a reason Magura split last year’s George Percy Award for best rookie with Jon Pelle and his 25 points.

And there’s a reason that opposing squads consider Magura the epitome of a pest.

Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 consistently uses the Fargo, N.D. native on the team’s penalty kill, and the pivot’s sheer disregard for his own body has made him one of Harvard’s most successful shot blockers.

And then there’s forecheck, where Magura’s fitness and doggedness wreak havoc on teams’ abilities to set up.

He’s been at it a while. Magura played three years at Fargo South High School—he was Rookie of the Year there, too—and the summer before his senior year, he attended three USHL camps.

Two coaches told him they weren’t interested, and a third, from the Lincoln (Neb.) Stars, promised to get back to him.

The phone didn’t ring until the first week in September. Magura had already enrolled for his senior year at Fargo South, and “I had to make a decision overnight if I wanted to go play in Lincoln,” he says.

He went to Lincoln, but with the arrangement that his diploma would come from Fargo South.

Magura returned home to Fargo towards the end of May—just in time to graduate with a perfect 4.0, tied for valedictorian honors—but he played a second year in Lincoln before college. He spent the first half of that time taking classes at a community college, and he passed the second half working four days a week at a bowling alley—from 7 a.m. until noon, before practice.

At college, “Ty’s been known to curl up in his room with a couple books for his classes,” junior goaltender Justin Tobe laughs.

And Magura is famous for his one-liners: “He has a way about saying things,” Tobe adds, “though some of the stuff is just purely not appropriate for print.”

Harvard, on the other hand, has turned out to be perfectly appropriate for Magura.

He had taken a good look at the University of North Dakota, runner-up in last year’s NCAA championship game, “but Harvard speaks for itself,” he says. “And the hockey program here is superb.”

The Crimson travels to Nodak just after Christmas, and for the first time in a long while, Magura will get to play in front of his old crowd.

Odds are, he’s not going to light up the Grand Forks lamps with a hat trick, though he says that “making a few more plays, trying to add a little more offensive production…that would really improve my game immensely.”

But goals or not, the Fighting Sioux are going to hear from Magura when they’re trying to set up an attack in their own end, and when he sprawls in front of their shots, and when he outlasts them shift to shift.

All the little things that give his teammates chances at the back of the net.

Says Donato, “It’s hard—nearly impossible—for a team to accomplish what it wants without guys like Tyler Magura.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.