Call Me Maybe?

Sources have informed TYT that several players not included on the initial NCAA roster releases for the men's and women's teams have been given "maybe" status, and might be added to the team as the season approaches.

Two of last season's Lady Icers, Cara Mendelson and Katie Murphy, as well as Icer Dom Morrone are definitely on call. Others might be (and probably are) as well, but their identities aren't known.

According to one source, players have been given the NCAA team's workouts and have been training as if they were on the team.

Mendelson and Murphy, both freshmen last season, were vital in helping the Lady Icers capture the ECWHL regular season championship while Morrone, who will be a senior this year, has 100 career points in 93 games - including a goal and an assist over a vital 12 second stretch to help the Icers to their last-ever win in the ACHA quarterfinals against Oklahoma.

The reasons for adding women's players at this stage are obvious. The Daily Collegian's Christine Newby reported in April that...

Penn State’s vice provost for affirmative action, Ken Lehrman, also in charge of Title IX, said the average size of a men’s NCAA Division I roster is 26.

“We are in balance [with Title IX] now,” Lehrman said. “So we reasoned that if we’re going to add 26 more participants on the male [hockey] side, we have to get to approximately 26 [women’s players]. Maybe we can get by with 25 and it wouldn’t throw us out of whack, but something very, very close to that.”

As things stand right now, the men's roster is at 27 and the women's roster is at 25. This would seem to place things in the Title IX danger zone according to Lehrman, as he said "maybe we can get by" with 25 women if the men's roster was at a smaller number than it is. That situation becomes magnified further if the men were to add Morrone or any of the other Icers not originally included (one, forward Josh Daley, has already elected to transfer).

Basically, don't be surprised to see some more roster tweaking ahead of the first DI games for both the men's and women's programs.