Service Academy Games Still In Limbo (Updated)

UPDATE 10/4 5:50 P.M.: Mike McMahon of College Hockey News is reporting that Army has, in fact, not been cleared to play at Penn State next Friday. That's obviously quite a turn from yesterday, when Army officially declared that the game was on. As it turned out, the clearance given from the Department of Defense was for games this weekend only, with games further down the road receiving review next week.

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette's Joe Paisley, there's bad news on the Air Force front as well.

The Air Force Academy football team will play against Navy in Annapolis, Md., Saturday, but unless the federal government shutdown situation changes, all other sporting events, both home and away, including Monday’s home exhibition hockey game, are postponed until further notice, the academy announced at about noon MT [Friday].

We'll keep monitoring the story, obviously. Unfortunately, that's about all we can do.

Here's the original post, which is obviously pretty much moot now:

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Our 48-hour (potential) nightmare is over.

Army's athletic department has announced that, thanks to a decision from the Department of Defense, upcoming sporting events involving the U.S. Military Academy's teams will go on as scheduled - including the Black Knights' October 11th trip to Penn State to initiate Pegula Ice Arena's varsity rink.

Based on a decision by the Department of Defense, Army’s football team will play at Boston College Saturday afternoon. Army will face the Eagles at 1:05 p.m. at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Mass., as scheduled.

In addition, all previous contests not cancelled will compete as scheduled.

Any changes to the schedule will be posted to www.goARMYsports.com and via Twitter @ArmyAthletics.

Concerns about the viability of the Nittany Lions' men's opener arose on Tuesday when, citing the federal government shutdown that began that day, the U.S. Naval Academy announced that the Department of Defense had directed the cancellation of all service academy contests. Army later followed the apparent order by postponing a pair of soccer matches on Tuesday and Wednesday night.

PSU plays its second and third games of 2013-2014 at Air Force on October 18th and 19th meaning that, had the cancellation come to pass, the team potentially would not have played until October 25th against RIT at Pegula Ice Arena. It's important to note that no announcement has been made by the Air Force Academy which, according to College Hockey News, has an athletic department largely made up of presently-furloughed military personnel, while Army uses civilians in many of those same roles. For the time being, those two games should still be considered in limbo.

Regardless, the biggest of the developing headaches, the threatened postponement of the highly-anticipated men's home opener, now appears to be a footnote to history.