Matthew Mayich remained hospitalized and incapacitated more than two weeks after collapsing during an outdoor Arizona State hockey practice in Tempe on Aug. 20, turning a routine workout into a case now under university review. Arizona State said James Rund will lead that review.
The reason people are searching his name now is painfully simple: the 21-year-old player has not recovered, and the university has acknowledged it is examining the workout, the policies around outside entities, and its heat-illness rules for outdoor sessions. Arizona State police responded to a 911 call at approximately 8:30 a.m., and the practice took place on a field outside the team’s on-campus arena, when temperatures in Tempe were in the upper 80s.
Mayich had arrived at Arizona State after a long climb through the game. He was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the sixth round of the 2023 draft, never signed with them, played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, and spent one season at Clarkson University before transferring to Arizona State. That background matters because this was not a player at the start of his path, but a prospect still trying to build on it.
What happened next has become the fault line in the case. The family’s attorney, Robert Carey, said Mayich suffered exertional heat stroke that caused a lack of oxygen to his brain and that there were no other contributing conditions. He said the injury was exertion-related heat and described Mayich as incapacitated from the moment he left the field. Arizona State, meanwhile, said the workout was a team event with coaches and training staff present, and that a third party who had previously worked with the ASU Hockey team was also there.
The university said it has policies governing the engagement of outside entities with student-athletes and heat-illness guidelines for outdoor workouts. It also said the review will examine the circumstances surrounding the workout, along with related policies, procedures and training protocols. Arizona State said it wants the process handled with privacy interests in mind and that the review will take the time needed to collect and assess information in a way that is thoughtful and respectful of Mayich, his family, his teammates and the school’s privacy obligations.
For now, the unresolved question is not whether the collapse happened — it did — but how a morning team workout, under staff supervision and within existing guidelines, ended with a player still hospitalized weeks later. That answer now sits with the review, and with a family waiting for one more step forward from a field in Tempe that has already given them the worst kind of silence.
