HOUGHTON, Mich – Two weeks ago the Michigan Tech University hockey team honored its six seniors. One of those seniors was Menomonie’s Blais Richartz.
Richartz, a six-foot, 195-pound forward, is wrapping up his five-year hockey career with the Huskies.
Richartz played 31 games in 2023-24 and was an important part of a conference championship team, but didn’t see as much action early in the 2024-25 season. Richartz had to fight his way back into the regular line-up, which he has been doing since January. This season Richartz has seen action in 16 games.
After missing much of November and December, Richartz notched his first goal of the season in his first game back into the line-up against Holy Cross, tying the game at 2-2 in the second period in an eventual Huskies 4-3 overtime win in early January. Richartz added an assist against Augustana in a 4-4 tie. Earlier this month Richartz was selected to the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) All-Academic Team for the fourth time.
During his true senior season in 2023-24, Richartz, a finance major who is now persuing his MBA, was named a CCHA Scholar-Athlete and to the CCHA All-Academic Team and tallied a career-high seven points with three goals and four assists. One of Richartz’s goals came in a CCHA playoff game against Bowling Green, March 9, 2024.
Richartz saw limited action in the 2022-23 and 2021-22 seasons, but was a CCHA Scholar-Athlete and named to the CCHA All-Academic Team both years.
In his true freshman year in 2020-21, Richartz saw action in 17 games and tallied four points with a goal and three assists, including his first collegiate point with an assist at Bemidji State, Dec. 13, 2020. Two months later he recorded his first collegiate goal at Ferris State, Feb. 9, 2020. Tech was 4-0 when he had a point.
Prior to coming to Division I Michigan Tech, Richartz played three seasons in the USHL with the Tri-City Storm, Omaha Lancers, and Lincoln Star. In 144 USHL games, he tallied 50 points on 21 goals and 29 assists.
In the 2015-16 season as a sophomore, Richartz racked up 47 points in 24 games for Menomonie High School and earned second team all-Big Rivers Conference honors.
The Huskies will head into the CCHA tournament at Bowling Green March 7-9.
Layne Pitt is the retired UW-Stout sports information director and also worked more than a decade at The Dunn County News.
Menomonie Collegians is a regular feature of Menomonie News Net. The column is not limited to student-athletes, but may be a former Menomonie area student in a play, forensics, music or any type of collegiate competition. If you know of a Menomonie Collegian, please email [email protected].
The column Menomonie Collegians by Layne Pitt is licensed under a CC BY SA 4.0 International license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
