While back home in Barnstable, Massachusetts on winter break from his season in the United States Hockey League, Linden Alger decided he didn’t know if hockey was going to pan out.

Dreaming of going to the University of Massachusetts, Linden started to fill out an application to attend the school just as a student. While filling out the application, he decided to wait to send anything in just in case any opportunities arose with the Massachusetts hockey team.

Just a few weeks later, the 19-year-old finished his game for the Youngstown Phantoms when his teammate told him someone was waiting for him in the hallway. Linden came out and was faced with then-UMass assistant coach Jared DeMichiel.

Growing up as a Massachusetts kid, UMass was a university Linden always knew he wanted to play for but didn’t know if it would ever come to fruition for him. After DeMichiel told him there was a spot open on the Minutemen’s roster for the 2020-21 season, Linden couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The second the words came out of DeMichiel’s mouth, he needed no time to think before saying yes to the offer and becoming a Minuteman.

“I didn’t even have to decide, I knew right then and there I was going to come [to UMass],” Alger said.

With his family visiting him that week, Linden quickly told them the news that he was offered a spot on his dream team. A visit to see Linden became emotional for his family, realizing that day was an important one in his career.

“It was pivotal,” his mother, Charlene Alger, said. “He knew he had something at that point, somebody was interested, and he played really hard after that.”

When offered a spot at UMass, Linden finished up his season in Ohio and headed back to Massachusetts to start preparing for his freshman season with the Minutemen. Linden’s freshman season was less about playing and more about learning from the senior leadership. 

A mentor for Linden during the jump was defenseman Colin Felix, who spent all four of his seasons with the Minutemen and captained the team in his final season. Felix became a mentor for Linden as he navigated college hockey for the first time.

The summer before his freshman year, Felix was an outlet for Linden to go to when he had questions about UMass. Felix was a junior when Linden came in and despite the gap in experience, the junior was consistently the guy Linden leaned on in the two seasons they spent together.

Felix related to Linden after he struggled in his freshman year to find consistency.

“[Felix] was a great role model for me,” Linden said. “Consistently throughout the year, we’d hang out, he’d check in on me. Then the year after that, my sophomore year, we still had that relationship. I was still going to him for anything I really needed.”

He knew he wouldn’t get much playing time but it wasn’t the first time Linden had to fight for a spot on a team. He found himself in underdog situations throughout his hockey career, dating back to when his dad, Rich Alger, was his youth hockey coach.

Because his father didn’t want to show his son favoritism, he wasn’t afraid to bench Linden when needed. Even if that meant keeping his son on the bench for special teams, Rich would do it.

Once Linden hit 18 years old, he moved away to Ohio to play for the Phantoms. Things didn’t pan out exactly how he wanted to start his USHL career.

To start the season, Linden was a healthy scratch, struggling to earn ice time. When his parents came to visit, it was common that Linden wouldn’t be playing.

With hard work and determination, he eventually made it to the starting pairing by the end of the season.

“He just kind of keeps trudging forward and trying to make the most of his opportunities,” Rich said. “Sometimes he’s a guy that has to play from behind a little bit to get a chance.”

Because of the challenges Linden faced at a young age, he understood the importance of taking advantage of any opportunity. That’s exactly what he did with the Minutemen.

With names that included Zac Jones, Matthew Kessel and Marc Del Gaizo on the backend, Linden knew as a fresh face on the team, he would take the year to learn from the future NHL players. While at first he was happy to watch from the sidelines, he slowly changed his mindset as the year went along.

“I realized I want to have a role on this team and I want to have an impact on the games and do whatever I can to help this team win,” Linden said. “So I switched my mindset from just being happy to be here to really wanting to have a role and contribute to the team.”

As Linden headed to the Mullins Center or the Community Ice Center for practice, he took away what he could learn from each defenseman. If he saw something Kessel did well in practice, he wasn’t afraid to try to apply it to his own game.

The high caliber of both the defense and offense sent UMass to the NCAA National Championship during Linden’s freshman year.

The hockey team stayed in Amherst all season that year, not going home for Thanksgiving or Christmas break due to COVID-19. The extended time with one another built a strong bond throughout the whole team, a bond that Linden has taken with him. 

“That [2020-21] senior class was such a good group of kids,” head coach Greg Carvel said. “That group got close because of COVID, they had no choice but to hang out with each other, nobody else. I just know how tight [the team was], how connected they were.”

When UMass made the Frozen Four, it was the first time Linden saw his family. His parents opted to make the trip to Pittsburgh to see him after a long time apart.

His parents couldn’t see Linden before the game due to COVID restrictions, but they did see him while walking around the city. He had just celebrated his 21st birthday, and while his family couldn’t run up to hug him, they were excited to see him on the Pittsburgh sidewalk.

Even though the freshman sat on the sidelines for the NCAA Tournament run, he notes the experience as one of his best memories at UMass. In the National Championship game, UMass dominated the whole game against St. Cloud State.

As time ticked down on a 5-0 lead, while Linden wasn’t on the ice, it started to become real that he and his teammates just accomplished something special. In the final minute, the UMass bench was banging its sticks on the board, yelling, ready to celebrate on the ice.

As the horn sounded, the whole team, including the scratch players, skated onto the ice and surrounded Lindberg to celebrate the victory.

“That was awesome,” Charlene said. “Knowing that he put in his time and people would say ‘He didn’t play much,’ but he was a pivotal part of that team regardless of how anybody sees it. In the locker room, as a teammate.”

After everyone skated off the ice, the team had a weeklong celebration with each other and the UMass students.

“It was so fun,” Linden said. “After the game in the locker room, like the whole night, the bus trip back, hanging out with the guys the whole week after, everything about that team [was] so special.”

The celebration wasn’t only a memory that Linden will take with him forever, but it’s also a connection to his father. The year that his dad, Rich, was a fresh face on Boston University hockey in 1995, the Terriers won a National Championship. That same year, Rich struggled to find ice time and was mostly sidelined.

“Those are formative experiences that not everybody gets at the end of the day,” Rich said. “He’ll be forever bonded with those guys as a national champion and whether he was in the lineup or not, he was never treated like he was anything less than a teammate.”

Linden remains the only player on the current UMass hockey roster who was on the National Championship team, but the 2020-21 team has remained close despite the distance. They have a group chat that has stayed active, texting in it every day to stay connected to one another.  

The leadership from those seniors is something that Linden has taken with him now as a fifth-year captain.

When Linden moved onto his sophomore year, two star defensemen left but big names like Kessel and Felix stayed. There were also fresh faces–Scott Morrow and Ryan Ufko–who had an immediate impact, again limiting Linden’s ability to find playing time.

While Linden suited up in 13 games, he didn’t have much ice time during that year either. He still never complained,  taking it as another year to be a voice in the locker room and learn.

“It was just having a year of practicing with the team and getting experience playing against guys of that caliber [that] really helped me kind of get up to speed and I was a lot stronger, a lot faster, my decision making was quicker that year,” Linden said.

Once Linden shifted into his junior season, things started to change for him. He started to play consistently, playing regular shifts to start the season. After being around college hockey for two years, he knew it was time to take advantage of being an upperclassman.  

In just his fourth game, Linden marked a big milestone for his collegiate career, scoring his first goal.

On Oct. 21, UMass took on Union College, coming into the series with a lot of confidence after just sweeping No. 1 Denver. Throughout the night, Linden looked to be having his best game.

The Minutemen had many good looks at the Union net, with the score at 6-1 in UMass’ favor with just a few seconds left.

Just before the end of the game, Linden lifted his stick and slapped the puck with venom past the Union goaltender. As the buzzer officially sounded, the junior and his teammates celebrated, making the 7-1 win that much sweeter.

“That was a fun one,” Linden said. “There was one second left in the game, but I was still so excited. I think it was like [7-1] but I still put my stick up out of pure excitement. I don’t score a lot so when I do it’s really fun.”

After the game, freshman Kenny Connors and sophomore Taylor Makar had only excitement for Linden. The joy from his younger teammates made it clear the impact Linden had on his team.

However, his junior season was put to a close early. 

On Nov. 12 against Boston University, Linden’s family came out to Agganis Arena to watch him play.

After Linden took a fall, he skated around before leaving the ice. His family assumed he was okay after he got up on his own power. In between periods, though, they received a text from Linden that something had happened to his ankle.

During the game, Linden came up to them with his leg wrapped up, not knowing he was walking on a broken ankle at the time. The next day, an x-ray indicated that his ankle was broken and that he would have a long recovery process.

“That was devastating for me,” Linden said. “Especially because I felt like my game was in a pretty good spot and my confidence was up and then I broke my ankle, not great timing early in the season.”

The injury he sustained wasn’t unfamiliar to him. During his sophomore year of high school, he had a surgical repair on his ankle and had to miss the rest of the season, just like he had to do as a junior in college.

He got surgery on his ankle the day before the Minutemen traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland for the Friendship Four Tournament. UMass explored Dublin, Ireland and Belfast for multiple days before the tournament, something Linden missed out on because of his surgery.

On top of missing the trip to Belfast, he also missed out on playing at Fenway Park for the Frozen Fenway game against Boston College. Linden grew up a Red Sox fan and was seated in the stands for the game, in support of his team.

Instead of complaining about missing the season and important events with his teammates, he embraced taking on a new role again. He continued to stay vocal in the locker room to contribute to the team in a different way. He became someone the younger guys who weren’t playing could go to for advice, just like what Felix did for him as a freshman.

“I’ve heard him say when he was out of the lineup, there were certain guys that he would talk to that gave him strong advice,” Rich said. “[Linden] kind of owed that to people to pay that forward. [Linden] had some experiences that kids can lean on.”

Linden thought he had a chance to come back at the end of the season, but things didn’t develop the way he wanted with his recovery process. He’d have to wait until his senior season to step back out on the ice.

In his senior year, Linden played a full season for the first time in his college hockey career. He was paired with then-captain Ufko, who was a large part of UMass’ success during the 2023-24 season. This caused him to play big minutes early in the season on a top-four pairing. Linden took away parts of the former captain’s game to add to his own. 

“[Ufko] is probably one of the best players I have ever played on a team with,” Linden said. “He’s not a very flashy player but he’s extremely effective and picking his brain and talking to him both on and off the ice helped me grow a lot as a player. I always wanted to know what he was seeing out there and what he was feeling.”

In Dec. 2023, Carvel started thinking about who would return for the following season. He knew the defense would be young with five key defensemen parting ways with the team.

While three senior defensemen wanted to come back for another year, Carvel had to make the hard decision of who would be invited back for a fifth year. 

When he looked at Linden, it seemed like an easy decision to keep him at UMass. He was loved by his teammates in the locker room, so he’d be helpful as a leader. Linden also never saw a full season in his first three years as a Minuteman, and Carvel felt that he deserved another year.

“It was a nice combination of things,” Carvel said. “He basically didn’t get to play for three years, and I wanted to give him that opportunity to really have a year where he came to campus, knowing he was going to play.”

After he officially decided to bring Linden back, Carvel pulled him to the side after practice before winter break. The head coach asked Linden if he was interested in coming back.

Just like when DeMichiel asked Linden if he wanted to come to UMass when he was 19 years old, he knew he wanted to say yes right away.

Fast forward to three months later on March 2 on senior night, Linden decided to announce to the team that he would be taking his fifth year at UMass. Despite waiting to tell his teammates, once he told everyone, they were excited to have him back.  

“It was so gratifying,” Charlene said. “I feel like it was so well deserved, I was so proud of him, so appreciative of the opportunity for Linden. For me that shows [Carvel] appreciated everything he’s done so it was a huge moment for us.”

In the summer after his senior year, the team voted on who the next captain of the UMass hockey team should be. In a unanimous vote, Linden was voted captain, with his close friends Lucas Mercuri and Ryan Lautenbach elected to wear the “A.”

While it wasn’t announced officially until September, the team knew who the leaders of the team would be deep down for the 2024-25 season.

“We conducted the summer as if we were [captains],” Mercuri said. “Even last year we were all leaders on the team too so once we found out that [Linden, Lautenbach] and I were going to be captains, we were super ecstatic.”

Linden knew how to handle being a captain and leader after being a voice in the locker room early in his college career and being the eldest of four siblings his whole life. He took what he learned from the captains before him, including Jake Gaudet, Trivigno, Eric Faith, Bohlinger and Ufko.

“It’s my job to continue the legacy of amazing leadership and lead by example,” Linden said. “Do the little things right and teach the whole team how to lead.”

Linden wears the “C” on his chest with pride because he knows the tough battle he had to endure to get to the point he stands at today.

Even with taking on a new role, Linden has remained the same guy that everyone who crosses paths with him has adored. The same guy who was marked as a “teddy bear,” who takes every opportunity to learn and who everyone loves in the locker room. 

“He’s someone I look up to,” Mercuri said. “He’s someone who’s just a real rock for our team, emotionally [and] physically on the ice. I’d have nobody else as my captain.”

Kayla Gregoire can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @Kaygregoire.