Senior captain Jim Slater joked that if not for his teammates, he wouldn't have any friends.
Slater, along with six others who have dedicated significant time and effort to MSU hockey, will formally say goodbye Friday at Senior Night.
Slater, Kevin Estrada, Ash Goldie, Mike Lalonde, Matt Migliaccio, Adam Nightingale and Rod Tocco will take the traditional lap around Munn Ice Arena before the Spartans play host to Notre Dame at 7:05 p.m.
The seniors will be honored for their dedication to MSU hockey and also will take time to briefly reflect on their hockey careers and the friendships they made along the way.
"These guys in my class are my best friends here now, and I hope for the most part we at least stay in touch," Lalonde said.
Lalonde and Estrada even have plans of starting their own hunting and fishing business sometime down the road in Canada.
"We've talked about getting together a fishing-hunting type, lodge-type system where we take people out and guide them around the province in (British Columbia), maybe even in Alberta to go hunting and fishing," Lalonde said.
The seniors all agree the past four years have gone by quickly.
"I knew I was coming to one of the better programs in the country for hockey as well as educational purposes," Goldie said of his expectations for the MSU hockey system.
"It's a great experience. It goes by really quick, and it was a great chapter of my life and I wouldn't regret anything I've done. It's just been a great, great four years."
Nightingale, who was a Lake Superior transfer in 2002, gives much credit to the hockey front office for his playing days at MSU.
"Coach Comley brought me in here," he said. "He took me out of a situation where things weren't going good, and he really gave me a chance so I appreciate that.
"I appreciate a lot of what I got here."
All the seniors said they would like to remain involved some way in hockey, whether it be coaching or playing, and will have a degree to fall back on if things don't work out with those plans.
"It was an unbelievable four years, you get great schooling out of it and I'm going to come away from here with a degree," Estrada said. "It was a great learning experience."
Slater, drafted 30th overall by the Atlanta Thrashers in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft, has a promising future ahead of him.
"I'm going to keep working as hard as I can to get to that next level, and it's going to start right after this year," the two-year captain said of his professional future.
When the seven seniors skate that formal lap this Friday, it will sum up years of hard work, character-building and dedication to the program.
"It's going to mean everything, it's going to be a tear jerker, that's for sure," Tocco said of the lap he will soon take.
Tocco, who has junior athletic eligibility and will forego his final year to start graduate school, played third-string goaltender for the Spartans, and despite not seeing any game-time action, said the experience was "unreal."
"The connections and friendships, we're going to have for years," he said, "That's probably the biggest thing that I've gotten out of it."
