But that hasn’t mattered in the least to Mathews, who has always placed a priority on coaching’s intangible rewards.

“I have probably spent 20 to 30,000 hours in coaching, and even at 10 bucks an hour, I could have made a substantial amount of money,” Mathews said. “But all of the positive experiences that I had in coaching, the memories that were made, the traveling, the people who I met, and the kids who I worked with … all of that has been worth every cent of any money that I might have been paid.”

Mathews, 61, who began his youth ice hockey coaching career with the opening of the Galactic Ice facility back in 1999, recently announced that he was bidding farewell to his coaching days in order to spend more time with his family. That family includes his wife, Lois, their son Derek — who played hockey for and coached with his father — their daughter-in-law, Kailee, and their grandson Maddux.

Derek Mathews and Jamesy Rossi — two former Altoona Area High School hockey standouts with whom Tom Mathews has coached for the past eight seasons — have also decided to wrap up their coaching careers in order to prioritize their families.

Courtesy photo From 2021, coach Tom Mathews talks to one of his players, Chase Link, during an ice hockey game.

“There is a lot of extensive travel involved, and Derek, James and I all agreed that we were missing out on (family) stuff back home when we were traveling so much,” Tom Mathews said. “So it became a mutual decision for us as a group. It was just that we all decided to need more time with our families.”

Tom Mathews — who also served as a youth baseball coach in the Altoona area for many years– was coaching youth roller hockey at the former Sir Skate building in 1999, when former Galactic Ice manager Ken Koronowski contacted him about serving as a coach with the Altoona Trackers youth travel hockey team.

“There were like 20 of us who had a meeting with Ken in his kitchen, and he told us that they were going to build a local hockey rink, and that we would be coaching the Trackers’ team of 10-year-old players,” said Tom Mathews, who has been employed as a chief developmental engineer at the Lee Industries plant in Philipsburg for the past 38 years. “That’s how I got started in coaching ice hockey.”

Tom Mathews — who gave much thanks to his wife for her selfless support that enabled him to pursue his ice hockey coaching passion for the last quarter-century — went on from coaching the young Trackers players to coaching the Mid-State Mustangs, who qualified for two national tournaments during his coaching days.

Tom Mathews was an assistant coach on the first Mustangs national tournament-qualifying team, under the direction of head coach Dave Weaver, that placed in the top eight among 16 teams in the ages 18U national tournament at Rochester, N.Y in 2010.

Derek Mathews was a player on that team, and Derek later became the head coach, with his father as one of his assistant coaches, in the Mustangs’ second national tournament appearance, in 2024 in Buffalo, N.Y. That Mustangs’ age 14U team finished third in the country in that event.

“He taught me the game as I was growing up, so coaching with him later on in my life was kind of a full-circle situation,” Derek Mathews said of the personal and athletic bond between himself and his father. “Everything that I learned about hockey I learned through my father and the other coaches that I had played for, and coaching with him later allowed me to execute the principals that my father taught, and to give back the way that he had given to me all those years.”

Tom Mathews — who coached the Altoona Area Junior High School hockey program for several years with Derek, and who also served as an assistant varsity hockey coach at Altoona High School under long-time Mountain Lions’ head coach Don Burgmeier — tried to instill in the young players under his charge the importance of cultivating a sense of gratitude, particularly toward their parents.

“If you talk to any of the kids who I’ve ever coached, they will probably always say that I kind of cross-referenced hockey with life,” Tom Mathews said. “I always tried to emphasize to them how lucky they were to be playing organized hockey at a place like Galactic Ice, and I tried to emphasize to them how much that their parents had been willing to sacrifice in order for them to play.

“I always told them that they were the luckiest kids on Earth, because when I was a kid growing up, we played hockey on the local ponds with figure skates,” Tom Mathews said. “Whereas today, the parents of these kids are investing thousands and thousands of dollars in order to enable them to play hockey.”

Rossi was a player on the 2010 national team and a coach on the 2024 national squad who said that Tom Mathews’ presence on the bench exceeded solely hockey coaching contributions.

“Tom’s greatest impact goes far beyond hockey,” Rossi said. “His ability to impact his players’ lives can not be explained. I know that I wouldn’t be the person I am today (without Tom’s influence), and hundreds of other players in the community have been similarly positively impacted.”

While the memories that Tom Mathews savors from his hockey coaching career with his son Derek, as well as with Rossi and another former Altoona High School player, J.R. Gearhart — who has also been a member of the Mustangs coaching staff — are priceless, Tom Mathews said that his body may have been trying to tell him in a none too subtle manner recently that hanging up his coach’s whistle would be in his best interests.

“I have had one of my hips replaced, and the other has been bothering me for a while,” Tom Mathews said. “I realized that I needed to slow down and enjoy some other things.”

His absence will leave a void, but Tom Mathews has indeed left his mark.

“He has been on the hockey coaching bench for over 1,000 games at various levels, and he’s had a positive impact on the countless kids who he has coached during that time,” Derek Mathews said. “First and foremost, he has always tried to teach life lessons above hockey lessons.”