For those who know Ray - it’s no surprise that he decided to get into coaching immediately following his five-year playing career in the NCAA. Ever since high school, Christy knew that he would want to stay involved in the game even after his playing days were over.

“I was planning on coaching basically from high school on, just having such a love and passion for not only the game but also with helping and influencing others in a positive way,” Christy told APX reporter Sydney Wolf about why he chose to make the jump into coaching.

The St. Paul native has had plenty of experience already with helping athletes of all ages considering that he has been a part of the APX family for over 10 years and has been an instructor with the program since around the time he graduated high school back in 2018. He has helped out many APX athletes from basically every age group, doing everything from helping run skates to being involved in off-ice training too.

“He has the ability to do both on and off ice (training) which is important - but his quest and search for knowledge of the game has never stopped, which is obviously showing up in the direction that he wants to be going, which is coaching,” said APX General Manager Erik Rasmussen about Christy. “He always had a very good work ethic and hockey IQ … Ray was very successful because of the way that he prepared to play the game.” 

Ray grew up in St. Paul, competing for the St. Paul Capitals youth association, and later joined St. Thomas Academy where he played high school hockey alongside his younger brother, Rob. The Cadets were a talented squad during Ray’s time there, with the team coached by the Vannelli brothers (Greg and Tom), and they made it to the Class AA state tournament for three of his four years of high school.

Freshman year of high school was a bit of a combination of both varsity and JV for Christy before becoming a full-time varsity member as a sophomore. Throughout his years at St. Thomas Academy he wound up scoring 121 points for the Cadets through just 84 contests.

Even though STA made it to state three times in those four years (in ‘15, ‘17 and ‘18) and won the Class AA consolation bracket each of those three times, Christy says that one of his favorite memories of his time there was winning the section title his senior year. There’s a photo of both Rob and Ray at center ice together that was an extra special moment for the Christy family and was an experience that they’ll never forget.

In high school, both Ray and brother Rob also committed to play Division I hockey at Colorado College together.

“I found a great connection with their assistant coach Leon Hayward. They were a school that had a new building planned and I was able to commit with my younger brother which was pretty special,” Ray said about why he chose to commit to the Tigers. “Chase’s dad (Chase Foley - Ray’s friend and teammate from St. Thomas Academy) Sean Foley was an alum of the school, it was someone that me and my brother and Chase all looked up too and wanted advice from throughout the years so it just felt like it was the perfect match for where I was in life and how I wanted to map out my college experience.” 

Even though his younger brother wound wind up playing college hockey at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, it was a special time to have both Ray and Rob committed to the same program alongside their friend Chase as well. Eventually, the friend group would have to split up though as Ray and Chase graduated from high school in 2018 and had to enter the ranks of junior hockey before heading out to Colorado Springs.

Ray decided to play junior hockey up in Alberta for the Brooks Bandits of the AJHL. The coaching staff at Colorado College originally connected Christy with Bandits coach Ryan Papaioannou and after hearing how Brooks would be hosting the national championship for Canadian Jr. A hockey that year, it seemed like it would be an landing spot. That proved to be a wise decision, as Brooks went on to win the AJHL that season and the Jr. A Championship. Christy was second on the entire roster in overall scoring with 71 points racked up through 52 games played.

That was a pretty darn good outcome for a guy from St. Paul who didn’t really know any of his teammates prior to the start of the season up in Canada. Rooming with the captain of the team in Nathan Plessis helped ease him into the swing of junior hockey though for sure.

After one season in Brooks, Christy made the move to the USHL. He suited up for the Sioux City Musketeers in 2019-20 and netted 21 points in 36 games. Obviously, the two teams and leagues were quite a bit different, but the 5-foot-10 forward from Minnesota still found a way to find success out on the ice.

“It was a big adjustment in terms of the depth of the league, but skill-wise I felt like I was prepared to have success,” he said about making the move from Brooks, Alberta, to Sioux City, Iowa. “We struggled a little bit as a team in Sioux City, which was one of the biggest differences compared to my time in Brooks, but overall I loved my time in Sioux City and I thought the coaches there and everyone there really helped my development.”

Christy then ran out of junior hockey eligibility after that season and he joined the Colorado College program, linking up with longtime friend Chase Foley once again who had spent the past two years in the USHL - one season in Central Illinois and one in Sioux Falls. It wasn’t a typical freshmen season for the two skaters though as that fall was during the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic. We’re talking quarantines, added rules and restrictions, masking, regular testing, etc. It wasn’t easy for anyone making the jump up into college hockey since everything was so different, especially considering that the first chunk of the season was played in a ‘pod’ in the NCHC, but at least the conference was still able to play games.

Christy played four seasons with the Tigers, amassing 14 points through just over 100 games played. He wore an ‘A’ for the team as a senior and was awarded with the ‘Scott Winkler award’ which is ‘given to the player that earned the respect of his teammates by showing humility, optimism and support through his love and appreciation for the game as well as his teammates’ - according to the Colorado College hockey page on X.

One of his favorite memories of his time in Colorado Springs was sweeping No. 2-seeded Western Michigan in 2023 as the No. 7 seed on the road in the NCHC playoffs first-round best-of-three series. After a 3-1 win on Night 1, Game 2 of the series was decided in overtime, with the game-winner being scored by fellow Minnesotan Matthew Gleason. This was a special victory since it propelled the Tigers to its first-ever trip to the Xcel Energy Center for the NCHC’s Frozen Faceoff event in St. Paul, which was a bit of a homecoming for Christy and his other Minnesotan teammates.

After eventually earning his Bachelor’s degree from the Colorado College, Christy still had one more season of college hockey eligibility, thanks to the extra year granted by the NCAA to those who competed in 2020-21 due to the shortened pandemic season. Colorado College doesn’t have any graduate programs except for in education, so pretty much every senior on the Tigers squad was looking to enter the transfer portal to find a team where they could earn a graduate degree or certificate someplace else. Both Christy and Foley entered the portal and both wound up choosing the same path forward - the University of St. Thomas.

Leon Hayward, who coached Christy his freshman season at CC, had been brought on to the Tommies coaching staff in 2021-22, so there was already a familiar connection there.

“It was going to be a great opportunity not only for us (Ray and Chase both) but also to help a program like St. Thomas that is on the rise and has a lot of excitement around it - It was pretty special to be able to come home and help a program on the rise,” he said about why he chose to transfer to a Division I newcomer in St. Thomas. Obviously it would be very nice to play extremely close to home, to already have a good connection with members of the coaching staff and to be able to do it all with your friend who is in the same situation, but the opportunity to help out a young program as fifth-year athletes who can help lead some of the other skaters seemed like something that they couldn’t pass up.

After competing in his final year of college hockey eligibility with the Tommies in 2025-26, Christy is now pursuing his dream of coaching full-time as he has been brought on as the Director of Hockey Operations for the men’s Division I program.

“For me here at St. Thomas, being able to experience different roles last season (in 2024-25) really sparked my interest of the community and the staff and how everyone plays a huge impact on where this program has come so far and kind of the direction moving forward,” he said. “The direction of where the program is headed really appealed to me and kind of matched up with how I want to get myself into the game in terms of the professional side.”

Director of Hockey Operations is a position that does many different tasks each and every day. It’s a little bit of everything, in a way.

“I wear a lot of different hats in terms of my responsibilities, whether that’s going through budgets, planning road trips, planning itineraries, communicating with staff on different player needs - whether that’s skill instruction, team instruction, different systems we go over - and then obviously making sure video is all put together for different presentations whether that’s postgame or pregame - so there’s a lot,” he said about what some of his daily tasks are. “To kind of simplify it, it’s making sure the coaching staff and the players are the most prepared to go out and just making their jobs easier.”

It’s a great time to join the team at St. Thomas as well considering that the school is still in its first few years of being a fully Division I program, the hockey team is starting to bring in more and more wins and high-level recruits each year, and the university is opening its brand-new facility in the Lee and Penny Anderson Arena in just a few weeks.

“Obviously, we’ve come a long way and we have a lot of excitement with us but it’s also important to recognize the gratitude that we’re only here through a lot of donors, a lot of players, a lot of coaches who have sacrificed a lot of time and energy and generosity,” said Christy. “It’s for sure an exciting time, I think our players and staff recognize that, but it’s also time to start winning games consistently.” 

The Tommies finished 19-14-5 overall in last year, which was good for third place in the CCHA, and the squad will look to top that here in 2025-26.

Although Christy is now full-time at St. Thomas, APX staff and players still get to see him around the rink at St. Thomas Ice Arena quite a bit. The Tommies start their season very soon, with a nonconference game against St. Cloud State on October 4 at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St. Cloud, followed by a series against the University of North Dakota on October 10 (in Grand Forks at Ralph Engelstad Arena) and on October 12 (at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul). The team will have its first home games at the Lee and Penny Anderson Arena on October 24 and 25 in a pair of games against Providence prior to the start of conference play the week after.