Matthew Kopperud will go down as one of the early stars of the Arizona State Sun Devils hockey program.
Kopperud scored goals in bunches across his four seasons in Tempe. He finished second all-time with 64 goals at ASU and likely would’ve tied or eclipsed Johnny Walker’s record of 70 goals were it not for an injury shortened junior campaign.
The Denver native is also tied for second all-time in points with Brinson Pasichnuk at 107.
Matthew Kopperud was named ASU’s team MVP for the 2023-2024 season.
The Sun Devils wore their Vegas Gold jerseys for the first time in the 2022 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame game against North Dakota in Las Vegas. While they were dubbed Vegas gold, the “gold” is actually meant to be copper since Arizona is known as The Copper State. The fabric really stands out in person and these jerseys are absolutely gorgeous up close.
These jerseys were also worn in four more games in 2022-2023 for a total of five games that season.
Arizona State wore it’s Vegas Gold jerseys again in 2023-2024 for five games, four of which were regular season games. The fifth game was an exhibition against the Arizona Wildcats club hockey team.
Kopperud wore this jersey in three of the five games in 2022-2023, scoring 1 goal and 2 assists. He also wore it in all five games of the set in 2023-2024, scoring 4 goals and 4 assists. Subtracting the exhibition game, he wore it in four games and scored 3 goals and 2 assists.
Matthew Kopperud’s Vegas Gold jersey has light wear with a few faint stick marks and three repairs on the right sleeve.
These repairs led to a couple of photomatches, including one above where my youngest son has just fist bumped Kopperud as he comes out to be recognized as one of the stars of the game.