Lawyer requests criminal investigation in ASU hockey player’s collapse

TEMPE, AZ (AZFamily) — The lawyer for the family of an Arizona State hockey player critically injured during a team workout is asking Maricopa County’s top prosecutor to open a criminal investigation, alleging staff ignored the school’s heat-safety policies.

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Robert Carey, the lawyer representing the Mayich family, sent the letter to Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell on Wednesday.

Matthew Mayich, 21, was hospitalized and unresponsive after collapsing during a sanctioned, outdoor team workout just before 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 20.

Carey says heat stroke was the reason for Mayich’s collapse and that he suffered a “catastrophic brain injury.” Mayich remains hospitalized and is unlikely to recover fully, according to the family’s lawyer.

Carey requested that Mitchell’s office secure evidence for its own investigation, such as:

• Consultant request form
• Workout plan
• Videos and photographs from the field
• Players’ and staff text messages and social media messages before and after the incident
• Environmental or athletic-training logs on the date of the incident
• Athletic trainer’s treatment notes
• Dispatch records

University’s report findings

Earlier this week, ASU released a report detailing what led to his collapse at a team activity. The workout was the first day of a scheduled three-day team-building event for ASU hockey players to start the new season, according to the report.

ASU says the workout included calisthenics, bodyweight exercises like pushups and planks, and running. It took place at Sun Angel Stadium, where outdoor temperatures ranged from 86ºF to 89ºF, and relative humidity was 51% to 46%.

Near the end of the workout, the players were given another water break and told to complete a wind-down exercise. The report says Mayich was in one of the last groups to complete this exercise.

While he was running, the report says Mayich appeared to struggle and then quickly fell to the ground. He tried to get back up but again fell to his knees. ASU says other players and a trainer used ice towels and water to cool him down, but his condition worsened. That’s when staff called 911.

Family’s lawyer disputes ASU’s findings

Carey claims that the event was not led by a vetted university coach or strength staff, but rather an outside instructor with a military background. He says players went through a “military-style regimen,” including repeated sprints, planks, push-ups and bear crawls, and had to shout instructions or counts back at the instructor.

Players who reportedly miscounted, failed to repeat an instruction or fell behind their group were forced to do more sprints or exercises.

“It was a decision to run a punishing outdoor session in Arizona’s August heat (and humidity—it had rained the day before) by people who were bound by the University’s own heat policy, and who then skipped every safeguard that policy required,” Carey said in a portion of the letter.

Carey claims players were only given one water break during an hour-and-a-half-long period, and Mayich did not get any.

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The lawyer says Mayich collapsed on the turf field, which runs hotter than other surfaces. Mayich was sat and held upright in the sun as he was being treated with ice towels. He was then moved to the shade and sprayed with hose water from an outdoor spigot for roughly a minute.

However, Carey says this did not align with the university’s heat policy of having a cold tub half-filled with water and three-to-four coolers of ice ready if in need of “immediate cold water immersion.”

“The report does not mention a tub, a core temperature, or contact with the team physician, all required by the University’s own procedures as well as consensus safety standards,” Carey writes.

ASU’s policy also called for frequent rest periods with breaks in the shade, for an ill athlete to be placed out of direct sunlight and for a team physician to be contacted once heat illness is suspected, Carey notes.

The lawyer disputed findings that the session was cut short at 45 minutes, stating that interviewed players said they were on the field from 7 a.m. until Mayich collapsed between 8:20 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.

“The session was not cut short. The forty-five-minute account is a fabrication, contradicted by the University’s own timeline and by objective data, and it comes from the two people whose conduct is most directly at issue,” Carey says.

The lawyer said players described the session as a “punishment,” with groups made to repeat sprints, and no one on the coaching or medical staff stopped it.

ASU police are investigating the circumstances of the workout. They will then submit their report to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review.

Carey requested that the university transfer the investigation from ASU PD to an outside law enforcement agency, but reportedly did not receive an answer.

“There needs to be some kind of heat acclimation period. My understanding is that a lot of schools here locally follow that,” Shane Anderson with Mach1 Sports Performance in Phoenix. He helps train high school, college and pro-athletes. “Somebody needs to be out there whether it’s an athletic trainer or a coach or somebody for quality control, to be looking we reached our time, we can continue to work out but we should go inside,” he explained.

Mayich, a 2023 NHL draft pick for the St. Louis Blues, had recently transferred to ASU from Ontario, Canada.

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