Army to March In Friday (Updated)

Kenny Brooks and Army's Thane Heller will once again cross sticks on Friday

After a wild eight days, we're right back where we started from: Army will open the varsity rink at Pegula Ice Arena against the Nittany Lion men on Friday in spite of the ongoing federal government shutdown.

College Hockey News, citing two sources, reported on Tuesday that the stuck-in-limbo game had finally received the green light from West Point. Army followed up CHN's initial report on Wednesday with official confirmation.

This mess of what, fortunately, appears to be a non-story first entered the spotlight a week ago when, citing a Department of Defense directive resulting from the shutdown that began October 1st, the Naval Academy announced the cancellation of sporting events.

From there, chaos followed. Army immediately wiped out a couple of soccer contests, then seemed to reverse course last Thursday by announcing that athletic contests would go on as planned. One day later, College Hockey News' Mike McMahon reported that the declaration of victory was premature, as clearance was only given for games last week, with anything after that receiving review later. Penn State, McMahon later reported, began working on Plan B opponents in case Army couldn't show, with Canisius considered a prime target due to the program's shared connection with Terry Pegula.

Regardless, all's well that ends well, as they say, and this one looks to be on its way.

Next weekend, Penn State is scheduled to travel to Colorado Springs, CO to take on the Air Force Academy. Those games continue to be on the schedule, although whether they'll remain there is still a bit murky. There was a bit of good news on that front as well on Wednesday, as the Falcons confirmed that they will travel to Alaska to participate in a tournament this weekend, thanks to Alaska-Anchorage helping with travel costs.

PSU Seeking Fill-In For PIA Opener (Updated)

With the continued government shutdown leaving it unclear whether Army will be able to travel to Penn State on Friday to play in the first NCAA game at Pegula Ice Arena, College Hockey News' Mike McMahon is reporting that the PSU brass is sick of sitting and waiting (1, 2).

Yeeeeeah...probably a good idea at this point. The major sticking point, however, is that every Atlantic Hockey team has filled its NCAA-allowed maximum of 34 games this season. That leaves two fronts for attack:

1. Reschedule one of PSU's already-booked AHA games so as not to require another slot. Beyond Army, the Nittany Lions have home contests with Sacred Heart and RIT on tap for this year. Sacred Heart, however, is already set to play at UMass Lowell on Friday. RIT is available on Friday, but has home games on Thursday (Colgate) and Saturday (Michigan). Theoretically, if Penn State were willing to play the game on Sunday, the Pioneers would become available, as they're at home in Fairfield, CT against RPI on Saturday. One of those teams would have to play a rather painful three-game weekend, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility.
2. Pay some other team to drop one of their non-conference games to open up a scheduling slot for the opener. PSU hockey insider Mark Horgas claims that Connecticut, which swept the Nittany Lions last year in Storrs, CT, is a likely play in this category due to "key contacts" in the Huskies athletic department and UConn's present movement to grow their program. Connecticut doesn't open up until the 18th, and has road games with Minnesota State (October 18th and 19th), Boston University (November 17th) and Providence (February 11th) that could be likely candidates for "adjustment." It should be noted, of course, that UConn is just one of many options - AIC (last year's opening opponent), Canisius (Terry Pegula's other pet team), Holy Cross and Niagara are also available on Friday.

As always, stay tuned. Hopefully that's a light at the end of the tunnel we're seeing - either way, this news certainly beats monitoring Congress and Department of Defense bureaucrats.

UPDATE 10/8 7:45 A.M.: According to Buffalo Business First, Canisius has lined up as a possible replacement, thanks largely to their shared ties with Terry Pegula. Pegula, of course, is financing the presently under-construction HARBORcenter ice rink project in Buffalo, and the Golden Griffins will relocate there upon its completion next year.

“There has been some preliminary discussions,” confirmed Jason Venisky, Canisius associate director of athletics communications. “We will have to make a final decision by Wednesday.”

One interesting aspect to the story is that Canisius has applied to the NCAA for a special waiver that would allow them to add a game to their schedule without dropping one - a move that would put them over the NCAA game limit of 34. Could the NCAA wind up doing Penn State a bit of a favor to help the school pull off its varsity ice arena opener? That in and of itself would be quite a story.

The Golden Griffins, who went 19-19-5 a year ago and qualified for the 2013 NCAA Tournament by winning the Atlantic Hockey tournament title, are available on Friday but have to head back to the Buffalo area on Saturday for a game at Niagara.

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:

---

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.

Government Shutdown to Jeopardize PSU Games?

Will Pegula Ice Arena look like this at 8:00 p.m. on October 11th?

Federal government shutdowns, such as the one initiated today due to political haggling over the funding and implementation of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, are sort of a funny thing in that nobody really thinks it has an impact on their lives until it does. After all, "essential services," like the prisons, postal service and armed forces remain unaffected.

Then there are sports. On Tuesday, the Naval Academy posted this brief release to their website:

As a result of the government shutdown, the Department of Defense has suspended all intercollegiate athletic competitions at the Service Academies.

The Naval Academy will cancel contests as appropriate and notification on Saturday's football game against Air Force will be made public prior to 12 noon on Thursday.

Tonight's soccer game against Howard has been cancelled. It is not known at this time if the game will be made up or not.

As of this post, similar releases have not been posted to Army's and Air Force's websites. Those two, of course, are the opponents for the first three games of the men's hockey season, with the Black Knights coming to Pegula Ice Arena on October 11th - just ten days from now - and PSU traveling out to Colorado Springs, CO for a two-game series with the Falcons on the following weekend.

The Daily Collegian's Darian Somers jumped on his horse and immediately confirmed that, according to Penn State, "everything is status quo." Should the shutdown continue, and given the timing of the decision on the Navy-Air Force football game, I imagine "status quo" will remain the case for another week or so before a call needs to be made.

For reference, the last federal government shutdown, spanning 1995 and 1996, lasted 21 days. A repeat of that would probably kill the hockey games, although the good news is that a majority of shutdowns throughout history have lasted less than one week.

UPDATE 10/1, 2:35 P.M.: The Air Force Academy has released a statement containing possible good news for the Nittany Lions' series on October 18th and 19th:

At this time, travel for all intercollegiate athletics is cancelled - this includes the Air Force-Navy game on Saturday, 5 Oct.

The Air Force Academy Falcons will attempt to play all home intercollegiate athletic contests but those may be cancelled, as well. Academy officials are working with Mountain West Conference officials, those teams the Falcons were scheduled to play and officials at The Department of the Air Force to make up as many games as possible.

UPDATE 10/2, 1:45 A.M.: As things stand right now...

• Army has begun cancelling sporting events "in accordance with a directive from the Department of Defense," including a men's soccer game on Tuesday and a women's soccer game on Wednesday, with the statement that "any other changes to the Army Athletics schedule will be announced as they become available."
• Because people really like sports, they have begun brainstorming ways to fund service academy sporting contests without government money. Some combination of conference fees, ticket revenue and TV money could be used to save the Air Force-Navy football game on Saturday, and should that go off, it could provide a model for playing other games while the government remains closed.

Three Stars: June 3-9

3. Forty Players Invited to 2013 USA Hockey National Junior Evaluation Camp
(usahockey.com)

The buildup to the selection of Team USA for the 2014 World Junior Championships is officially underway, as USA Hockey has picked 40 skaters for its August evaluation camp. From there, roughly 25 will be invited to training camp in December, with a few more being trimmed ahead of the event, which begins December 26, 2013 in Malmo, Sweden. Not surprisingly, given the talent flowing through the program and that Don Lucia will be the head coach of the team, five Minnesota Golden Gophers (Brady Skjei, Mike Brodzinski, Tommy Vannelli, Hudson Fasching and Taylor Cammarata) received invites.

When I see Brodzinski's name, I automatically think of Eamon McAdam, so what of the goalies? Well, they're still TBD. A bunch of them - McAdam included - are in Ann Arbor, MI right now (Sunday through Tuesday, to be precise) battling for invites to the evaluation camp. Those making the cut will be announced at the conclusion of the mini-camp.

2. Penn State's hockey team builds toward inaugural Big Ten season
(PennLive)

Often, I'm condescending towards stories built for a general audience. Not this one. Guy Gadowsky video, Pegula Ice Arena photo gallery, exploration of an underutilized angle with strength coach Robert McLean extensively quoted. Outstanding work, Mr. Leone. I'll even give bonus points for not automatically jumping on Tommy Olczyk for the player quotes. Read and enjoy, we're almost there.

1. Idea of hockey game at Beaver Stadium being considered?
(WJAC)

The big story this week, of course, was WJAC's confirmation that Penn State officials have discussed Beaver Stadium hockey. I've hesitated to talk about it because...

1. This is news? How is anyone actually surprised? Penn State would almost have to be trying for it not to have come up on some level by this point.
2. I'm roughly 98 percent sure that discussion of Beaver Stadium hockey had already been publicly confirmed. At the very least, athletic department employees Gadowsky and Bill O'Brien openly talked about it at the 2012 Coaches Caravan, and I believe that I've heard the hypothetical Joe Battista laid out for WJAC before, either on or off the record.
3. "Considered" is quite a few steps from "it's done."

But I suppose it's time to get this out of the way. To begin sorting through it, here's what Battista said.

"What will probably happen eventually is that we'll play Penn State-Notre Dame, Penn State-Boston College, Penn State-Michigan, and then we'll also have Flyers-Penguins, Penguins-Sabres, Sabres-Flyers."

"Probably," "eventually," several possibilities for games being thrown around... yeah, sounds imminent.

The idea of the NHL's Winter Classic stacked on top of major college games is not unprecedented - the now-annual Frozen Fenway college event got its start in the aftermath of the Boston Bruins' 2010 Winter Classic victory over the Flyers, and numerous lower-profile college games (Penn State-Neumann on January 4, 2012, to name one) have also piggybacked on the NHL-installed ice. Now that the pros have decided to play something like 30 outdoor games per year, that would seem to open even more possibilities.

The WJAC report was complemented by the official men's hockey Twitter dipping its toe into the water and unintentionally showing that the idea may be a bit undercooked. In response to the question "What do you think of an outdoor game at Beaver Stadium?" it got...

Ouch. Maybe we should park this one until people are excited enough about Nittany Lions hockey to think of it ahead of the NHL when the Nittany Lions' Twitter asks a hockey question. Or until PSU gets a mention in more than three of the roughly six zillion news articles and blog posts on the topic this past week (seriously, even Black Shoe Diaries is fixated on the Pens-Flyers side to the story while the Penn State blog ignores the idea of a Penn State team's potential involvement). The downside to having a huge stadium is that a crowd of 80,000 is a success for most places but a failure for University Park. We're going to need a massive amount of excitement for the college game too, and right now, nobody seems to care about Penn State playing outside.

And maybe it's a pipe dream, but as a matter of principle, I'd love for the Nittany Lions to not have to be an undercard to an NHL game. Big Ten rivals Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin have all managed to hold highly-successful outdoor hockey games in their school football stadia without swimming in someone's wake, and my hope is that PSU is able to do the same. In fact, my preference is that the PSU and NHL games take place in different seasons (yeah, good luck with that one, I know).

Enterprising journalists have confirmed that yes, people have talked about Beaver Stadium hockey, at least the NHL version of it, both in the eastern...

The Flyers have had preliminary discussions about playing a regular-season game at Penn State's Beaver Stadium against their archrivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, club president Peter Luukko confirmed Wednesday.

"We have spoken to the Pens and the league about expressing our combined interest," Luukko said. "Not sure if next year is a possibility. Penn State is very interested."

...and western...

"It would be great for Pennsylvania hockey," Penguins CEO David Morehouse said Friday.

The talks have been between Morehouse and Flyers president Peter Luukko, who confirmed them to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Luukko told the Inquirer that Penn State is "very interested" in being the site of such a game.

...halves of the commonwealth, and that PSU has been involved with those discussions on some level. Cool. Now don't blow it by letting the Sabres break up a potentially epic installment of the NHL's best rivalry (Terry Pegula, contrary to popular belief, bought an arena and some scholarships, not our souls) or by letting Luukko somehow cram his kid's team (Vermont) down our throats one more time on the NCAA side of things.

I'm hardly an outdoor game hater, and have made my position clear on one of the other occasions this came up. I just think we need to pump the brakes a bit. Everything is still very obviously in the earliest of stages, and the soonest this will realistically happen is 2014-2015. Beyond the things mentioned at that link, you're crazy if you think PSU will sacrifice an inaugural-season Pegula Ice Arena game, especially with no marginal benefit to doing outdoor hockey this year versus next year. Even a date 18 months from now assumes a positive resolution of things like the idea of 100,000 people parked in an icy mud pit (grass parking areas mixed with wintry precipitation) and the timing of Beaver Stadium's winterization.

We'll give Dan Vecellio and BSD the last word.

Battista told me that no formal talks with any teams had taken place from Penn State's end and that no commitments to any groups (teams, owners, etc.) had been made. The school was still in the exploratory phase and still researching whether a game at the stadium is even feasible considering parking and "winterizing" the stadium like they do every year as had been reported before. So, don't put too much stock into these stories just yet.

Yeah, that.

Best of the Rest

Kate Christoffersen before (left) and after (right) running a marathon

Lake Placid Marathon & Half Marathon
(coolrunning.com)

Kate Christoffersen, the Lady Icers original who played her senior year as an NCAA Nittany Lion in 2012-2013, ran a marathon on Sunday. Hey, if you have what it takes inside to come back from a career-ending concussion, why not?

She actually did quite well too. From start line to finish line, she only required 3:48:02, or 3:48:20 when measuring from the starting gun (the latter is the actual time used to rank the runners, which seems silly in this day and age). That was good for 85th place of the 327 runners overall, or sixth among females between 20 and 29 years old.

Save the Date: Summer Social
(psuboston.org)

If you're in Boston on June 29th and want to hang out with Battista and/or hear him speak (he's quite good at both of those things, trust me), here's your chance. Advance tickets are $40 for members of the Greater Boston Chapter of the alumni association, $45 for non-members, and $50 at the door.

Big Ten continues to expand its horizons and Purdue needs to catch up
(The Exponent)

Sometimes I forget that Purdue is in the Big Ten. Way to matter at things that aren't engineering, Purdue. Anyway, they're still broke and not adding sports like hockey or lacrosse, if you needed that.

Sidney Crosby’s sister carving her own hockey path in goal
(The Globe and Mail)

The headline says it all... Sidney Crosby's sister Taylor is a pretty well-regarded goalie, one good enough to get invites to Hockey Canada U18 camps. She's entering her senior year at Shattuck-St. Mary's, where she posted a 2.04 goals against average and a 0.924 save percentage last season.

Hey Taylor, if you're looking at colleges, I can name one fairly close to your brother's team... geez, wouldn't that be something?

Admit it: for a split second, you thought about Laura Bowman doing the Happy Gilmore swing

2013 State Golf Tournament Qualifiers
(mshsl.org)

Laura Bowman is a Minnesota Ms. Hockey semifinalist by winter and a Minnesota state golf tournament qualifier by spring. She's okay at sports.

The Minnetonka High School senior emerged as one of five individual qualifiers from Section 6AAA and will compete for the AAA (the largest division) state title on Tuesday and Wednesday at Bunker Hills Golf Club in Coon Rapids, MN. For the "small world" file: on day one, she'll be playing with Lakeville North's Brianna Vetter, the younger sister of 2014 commit Christi Vetter.

Amy Petersen, Bowman's long-time linemate and a fellow incoming PSU freshman, also doesn't suck at golf, as she finished 29th at last year's state tournament.

Koelmel Named President of HARBORcenter
(Tumblr)

After Pegula's Buffalo hotel/restaurant/ice rink project hyped a "major announcement" that many (guilty) assumed was the long-awaited "Canisius will play its home games here" unveiling, they instead introduced John Koelmel as the facility's president. Koelmel is a former CEO of First Niagara Financial Group, the entity which happens to have its name on the arena in which Pegula's Buffalo Sabres play. Moving on...

Rocha Named Academic All-America
(goarmysports.com)

Cheyne Rocha, a senior defenseman at Army last season, was one of just two men's hockey players nationally to be named first-team Academic All-America. As mentioned here numerous times before, he is also the son of former Icers assistant coach Larry Rocha and Penn State lacrosse legend Candace Finn Rocha. They did an okay job raising him.

Rocha, who commissioned as a second lieutenant two weeks ago and posted a 4.20 grade-point average, is the first Army hockey player to earn the national academic honor as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America. He registered the highest grade point average of the 15 first-team choices.

Rocha, who won the Senior CLASS Award for ice hockey, was a Rhodes Scholar finalist and is a three-time Atlantic hockey Association Academic All-Star. The 2013-14 team has not yet been announced.

A native of Rye, N.H., Rocha missed just two games this season when he interviewed for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. In addition to play as a defenseman, he was instrumental in starting the House of Blues, an awareness campaign for prostate cancer. He is also active with the Special Olympics and Neighborhood Knights, a group of hockey players who perform community service in and around West Point.

An engineering management major, Rocha will enter the Engineers branch of the U.S. Army and begin his service in Fort Carson, Colo.

Alaska-Anchorage down to finalists for second time in coaching search
(Western College Hockey Blog)

Sure enough, despite the ouster of athletic director Steve Cobb, Alaska-Anchorage's gongshow of a head coaching search is marching forward. Even more surprisingly, they found five people who want easily the worst job in Division I right now.

@hockeyjcu
(Twitter)

John Carroll, a university in suburban Cleveland for those who don't know, has won the bid to host the ACHA Men's Division 1 National Championships in 2015. It will be the fifth time that the tournament has been held in the state of Ohio since 2003, and the fourth go for the Buckeye State in a nine-year stretch back to 2007.

This coming season's D1 tournament will be in Newark, DE, while D2 is in Marlborough, MA. The D2 men will head to Salt Lake City in 2015, and the D1 and D2 women join the D1 men at UDelly in 2014.

The Blue Streaks previously hosted D1's best in 2009, a tournament which saw the Icers bounced in the semifinals by Illinois (the Illini went on to lose the championship game to Lindenwood) but not before PSU earned nationals bragging rights over Ohio for all eternity. That year's tournament was probably best remembered, however, for the Zamboni exhaust incident that forced the evacuation of the rink, sent 100 people to the hospital (as a precaution, nobody to the best of my knowledge was seriously affected) and forced a couple games to be suspended and completed the next day, including one involving Penn State Berks. Hopefully they got that checked out at some point in the last few years.

Three Stars: April 8-14

3. @MarkHorgas
(Twitter)

Given Joe Battista's well-known affinity for Notre Dame, a PSU-ND series seemed inevitable once the Nittany Lions' NCAA program was going full blast. And sure enough...

Pegula Arena will have marquee teams visiting besides B1G Teams. Notre Dame is negotiating now w/ #PennStateMHKY for a multiyear series.

2. Surround Yourself with People Who Make You Better!
(statecollege.com)

Battista devoted his weekly column to singing the praises of new babysitter for incompetent Board of Trustees hand puppet Dave Joyner Athletic Department Special Assistant for Operations Morris Kurtz. Kurtz, a former Icers head coach with two degrees from Penn State, recently completed 27 years as the athletic director at St. Cloud State (a period that included a Division I hockey elevation and the construction of an arena) and should be a fantastic addition to PSU's leadership.

1. USA 1980 Olympic hockey captain shares story, talks about opportunity
(The Daily Collegian)

Miracle on Ice captain Mike Eruzione visited Penn State last Wednesday to speak at Eisenhower Auditorium, tour Pegula Ice Arena (leaving behind an autograph, as seen above) and pose for photo ops with the Nittany Lion men and women. During Eruzione's talk, one exchange between the former Boston University star and a PSU undergrad quickly gained legend status on Twitter and elsewhere:

In a crowd filled with United States flags and jerseys, Tyler Feldman stood up to ask Mike Eruzione the famous questions from the 2004 movie, "Miracle."

"Who do you play for?" Feldman (freshman-business administration and broadcast journalism) said.

"Tonight, I play for Penn State," Mike Eruzione, Captain of the 1980 Olympic hockey team, said.

Well played, sir.

Best of the Rest

The final 2012-2013 NCAA women's team photo, taken at Saturday night's postseason banquet

Women's Hockey Announces Team Awards
(gopsusports.com)

The women's NCAA team held their end-of-the-season banquet Saturday night, and subsequently announced the following team award winners:

Most Valuable Player: Nicole Paniccia
Unsung Heroes: Jenna Welch and Emily Laurenzi
Iron Lion (outstanding weight room performance): Birdie Shaw
Most Improved Player: Stephanie Walkom

Duluth East's Moore the News Tribune's player of the year
(Duluth News Tribune)

Here's a rare pre-commitment recruiting update, concerning Meirs Moore, a former standout defenseman at Minnesota's Duluth East High School who now plays for the USHL's Sioux City Musketeers. Moore's father, Skeeter Moore, played at Minnesota-Duluth from 1983 through 1987, including with a guy named Brett Hull.

The article is behind a pay wall, but here's the juicy part concerning the younger Moore, who was actually born in Sweden while his father was playing there professionally:

Moore hopes to play at the Division I level. He grew up wanting to emulate his dad by playing at UMD. While the Bulldogs showed some interest early on, Moore’s primary Division I suitors now are Alabama-Huntsville, Bemidji State, Penn State and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“I’m not saying that my hope of ever going (to UMD) is over because it’s not … but as the years have gone on, I’ve realized how much more there is out there,” he said.

This HarborCenter rendering is inaccurate, as it includes pedestrians in downtown Buffalo

Sabres Break Ground on HarborCenter
(Tumblr)

Terry Pegula's other ice rink, the HarborCenter complex across the street from the Sabres' home First Niagara Center in Buffalo, officially broke ground on Saturday. HarborCenter, which is scheduled to open in September 2014 and carries a price tag of $172 million, will include two NHL-sized ice sheets, a hotel, a restaurant, retail space and a parking garage. The main rink will seat 1,800 and is expected to host NCAA Division I's Canisius, which presently plays its home games on the campus of DIII Buffalo State.

Pegula: 'We'll move forward and do the right thing'
(Buffalo News)

It wasn't all sunshine and puppies for TPegs last week, as he was grilled about the state of his NHL franchise at the HarborCenter groundbreaking. At his introductory press conference after purchasing the Sabres in February 2011, Pegula made a few rookie mistakes, like promising Stanley Cups (with an 's') and offering an insane-in-hindsight three-year timeline for reaching that pinnacle. Since then, the Sabres haven't looked much different than they did near the end of the stewardship of previous owner Tom Golisano - in other words, they've been a middling team that competes for a lower playoff seed in most years, qualifying roughly half of the time. The unexpected struggle has caused Pegula to back off of most of his initial statements (including the one where he supported long-time head coach Lindy Ruff, who was canned this season).

Pegula noted that it was 39 years for Boston Bruins owner and WNY native Jeremy Jacobs to win a Cup before the Bs did in 2011. Pegula, of course, had made it clear he had a three-year vision when he took over the Sabres in 2011.

"Jerry Jacobs down the road took 39 years to win a Stanley Cup. I don't know how long," Pegula said. "How can you guarantee anybody anything? You do your best every year. When's the last time the New England Patriots won the Stanley Cup? Or the Super Bowl?"

I reminded Pegula the Pats don't regularly miss the playoffs and he said, "Well, hey." Whatever that means.

Ouch. It certainly seems as if the honeymoon - which was unlike anything I've ever witnessed for a team owner - is over, at least as far as the Buffalo News' Mike Harrington is concerned.

Kelly Seward will bring her well-rounded game to campus this fall

Youth hockey: Bowman Cup brings stars back to Buffalo
(Buffalo News)

Speaking of Buffalo's major newspaper, it gave incoming women's defender Kelly Seward a mention for reaching the USA Hockey Girls Tier I 19U quarterfinals with the Buffalo Bisons during the national championship tournament held April 3-7 in San Jose, CA, as well as for her CISAA and NAPHA titles with Nichols School this past season.

Gophers: Sorting the high number of early departures
(Western College Hockey Blog)

Troy Grosenick signs entry-level NHL contract with San Jose Sharks
(unionathletics.com)

Programs that Penn State is playing next year are being gashed with early pro departures (toss in Michigan defenseman Jacob Trouba from last week's Three Stars as well). I don't hate it.

Rocha Named Senior CLASS Winner
(goarmysports.com)

Congratulations to Army senior defenseman Cheyne Rocha, who was voted by fans, coaches and media members as the national winner of the Senior CLASS Award for hockey. What is the Senior CLASS Award?

To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence – classroom, community, character and competition.

An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.

Rocha's parents, in case you forgot at some point since PSU's game at West Point in October, are quite familiar with Penn State. His father, Larry Rocha, was an Icers assistant coach from 1982 through 1985, and his mother is lacrosse legend Candace Finn Rocha, a two-time national player of the year who led the Nittany Lions to a pair of national championships and was elected the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1998.

Potential destinations for NCAA Division I hockey
(The Hockey News)

The latest iteration of the popular "I have nothing better to write about" article calls Nebraska, Southern California, Texas, Rhode Island and Saint Louis likely next outposts for NCAA DI hockey. I'll give that a score of roughly 60 percent: full credit for Nebraska and Rhode Island, half credit for Texas and USC.

Brianne McLaughlin (left) with her 2013 IIHF Women's World Championships gold medal. PensTV host Katie O'Malley (right) is wearing McLaughlin's silver medal from the 2010 Olympic Games.

Team USA Wins World Championship
(usahockey.com)

What better way to close a Three Stars post headlined by Mike Eruzione than with a nod to Team USA winning gold at the IIHF Women's World Championships last week with a 3-2 win over Canada in the final? University of Minnesota junior Amanda Kessel was the hero of the decisive contest in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, as her third-period goal clinched the U.S.' fifth world championship gold medal (and fourth from the last five tournaments, which are held in non-Olympic years). It also capped a pretty ridiculous couple of weeks for Kessel, the sister of Toronto Maple Leaf Phil Kessel, who led the Gophers to the national championship by completing the first perfect season in NCAA women's hockey history on March 24th. The day before Kessel registered four points in a 6-3 win over Boston University in the title game, she won the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the nation's best player.

Basically, if Kessel wanted, she could quit the game right now and be giving speeches about her accomplishments 33 years later.

The CHA was represented on Team USA by goaltender Brianne McLaughlin, who played at Robert Morris from 2006 through 2009 and is the NCAA's all-time saves leader. She's also been an assistant coach with the Colonials for the past two seasons, a period that includes RMU's CHA tournament championship in 2012.

Three Stars: December 3-9

3. Hockey Hero Mike Eruzione to Speak at Penn State
(Onward State)

It's pretty well known by this point, but Eruzione was giving the famous 2010 Penn State arena tour delegation a look at Boston University's facilities when Joe Battista received the text from Terry Pegula confirming that he had made his donation official. Kind of disappointed that Onward State missed on that little tie-in.

2. California “Gilmour Girls” Bring Unique Background to Nittany Lions
(ComMedia)

Ross Insana comes in hot with a great feature on Caliswag-certified women's freshmen Celine Whitlinger and Micayla Catanzariti. The pair, of course, went to prep school at Gilmour Academy, which is about 15 minutes from my hometown of Solon, OH, so bonus points for that.

1. Pegula Ice Arena Season Ticket Deposits to be Accepted Beginning Friday
(gopsusports.com)

There's a lot of information here to digest, and in a perfect world, I would have tackled this in a separate post when it happened, but since it's not a perfect world....

Penn State began accepting deposits for men's season tickets next year at the Pegula Ice Arena on Friday, so you might want to get on that by calling 1-800-NITTANY or stopping by the Bryce Jordan Center ticket office. The deposit is $25 per seat, and no commitment to a specific type of seat is required yet. The deposit period will run through April, after which those making deposits will be prioritized based on Nittany Lion Club points and status as a current season ticket holder (it's not disclosed how those two things weigh against each other) and given a seat selection time. Beginning next June, those seeking tickets will then begin to grab specific seats, at the following prices (the color coding corresponds to the seating chart above, in case that wasn't completely obvious):

The prices and minimum donation of $50 per seat (for season tickets) are interesting, because:

1. It's not at all out of line with what people pay at major hockey schools.
2. It's still about double what people have been paying, even this year with NCAA hockey.
3. At the cheaper prices, Penn State has successfully filled the 1,300-seat Ice Pavilion, although not necessarily easily - for example, tickets to the first NCAA men's game in PSU history were still available on game day.
4. The building, as most new buildings do, will probably fill itself in the first year, but what happens after that?

I'll save more for a full post I haven't written yet at some undetermined future date, since I'm running long for a Three Stars entry. But I sincerely hope that those in charge, as well as the highly-paid consultants who undoubtedly assisted on this, haven't underestimated the amount of market building that remains to be done.

Oh, and the women? $50 for a season ticket, $5 per game for anywhere in the main seating bowl, which will be general admission. That was easy. I'm actually glad that they'll be charging for women's games starting next year, because it reinforces the idea that it's something of value.

Further information about suites, loges, etc. is available at the link - if you're interested, you're rich enough to dig that up yourself. Or pay someone to do it, your choice. You can pay me, I'd do it for like $10 and a box of Lemonheads.

Best of the Rest

AGU 2012 Beginning: “Chasing Ice” and Climate Change
(Mass Media Musings)

Last week, former Lady Icer Abbey Dufoe attended the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) fall meeting in San Francisco, mingling with the likes of James Cameron and presenting her iBook Controversies in the Hydrosphere. Yeah, no big deal.

While a nasty shoulder injury suffered last season kept her from playing on this year's ACHA team as a senior, it's pretty safe to say she has a bright future in environmental communication and is presently seeking a graduate program that will allow her to continue on that path. I have no problem admitting that she's already environmentally communicated to me - I bought and now use reusable grocery bags after reading her thoughts on the disposable version.

Anyway, make sure you're feeling okay about your life first, then check out Dufoe's blog posts about her experience at the meeting, starting with the link above, and continuing with...

AGU 2012 Day 1: Scientific Literacy, Communication and Climate Change
AGU 2012 Day 2: Presentation Day!
AGU Day 3: Favorite Aspects of the Conference
AGU Day 4: What I Learned
AGU Day 5: Sustainable San Francisco

NCAA Men's Hockey Frozen Four
(Ticketmaster)

The men's Frozen Four is in Pittsburgh this year, and tickets are now on sale. Go forth and make sure Penn State is represented beyond the annual display of every NCAA Division I jersey.

In Rhodes finalist Rocha, Army has ‘amazing young man’
(USCHO)

In case you forgot, Army senior defenseman Cheyne Rocha is the son of Larry Rocha, a former Icers assistant who led the team during its successful 1984 nationals run, and Candace Finn-Rocha, a former PSU lacrosse player and one of the best athletes in school history. A high bar, to be sure, but Cheyne certainly doesn't look like he's about to become the family loser.



#8 Conor Garland first qmjhl goal vs Victoriaville
(YouTube)

Yeah, so Conor Garland scored in his first QMJHL game on Friday after ditching Muskegon and Penn State. He's still an idiot, according to former recruiting classmate A.J. Greer.

Atlantic Hockey Picks Dec. 7-12
(USCHO)

The Nittany Lions (I liked “Icers” better)...

I like the cut of your jib, guy. Let's go Icers.

Preliminary World Juniors Roster Named
(usahockey.com)

Penn State, realistically, is still a couple years away from getting representation in the world's most prestigious junior tournament, but Miami forwards Riley Barber and Sean Kuraly (neither of whom suck) were named to Team USA's preliminary roster last week. Why does that matter? Because the tournament runs December 26th through January 5th, so both would miss the Three Rivers Classic if they pass the final cut.

Union defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who scored the game-winning goal in Penn State's November 25th trip to Schenectady, is also on the preliminary roster.

Big Ten added Rutgers, Maryland in part to ensure Penn State remains in league
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

While it needs to be said that Barry Alvarez has a penchant for talking out of his ass (see Johnson, Mark: Penn State coaching search and), this still has to be considered a solid ego boost for the Penn State community.



PSU Hockey 1972
(YouTube)

Okay, the quality is non-existent, I get that. Still, this video does give at least a sense of what the original Ice Pavilion was like in the earliest days of Icers history.

M: Penn State 5 at Army 0

Box score // GoPSUSports.com recap // GoArmySports.com recap

GoPSUSports.com Guy Gadowsky postgame video

So...any questions?

Actually, I have a couple. They're not quite the same ones I had just one week ago following the disaster at Buffalo State, though. Then, they sounded like "is NCAA Penn State actually going to lose to an ACHA team?" Now, they're more along the lines of "just how good is this team?"

Flattening Army (1-3-1, 1-0-1 Atlantic Hockey) 5-0 at West Point's Tate Rink Friday night in front of 1,537 fans represents an entirely new level for the Nittany Lions (3-2-0, 3-1-0 NCAA DI...and yes, I'm going to keep giving the record that way). That's not meant to disparage the stunning victory over RIT last Saturday, but that result was something that's always on the table when the strength of the two opponents is within a certain margin. This feels different. It wasn't squeaking out an overtime win over one of the worst programs in DI. It wasn't surviving a shot count of nearly 2-1 against to escape with an upset. It was, in fact, a blowout for PSU. Quite an unexpected one, based on what the prognosticators had to say.

There was no video stream available for those of us not able to make the trip, forcing an unhealthy reliance on statistics and brief recaps. But judging from those two things, there's very little not to like.

The Nittany Lions got contributions from many of the usual sources. P.J. Musico, named the starting goalie by Guy Gadowsky this week after an early-season rotation with Matt Skoff, justified the coach's move with a 34-save shutout, the first in PSU's NCAA history. The line that includes Kenny Brooks and Curtis Loik flanking David Glen was once again outstanding, with Brooks' first collegiate goal opening the game's scoring and Glen capping it in the third period. Big sniper Casey Bailey had a goal and a pair of assists to lead all point producers.

Sophomore goaltender P.J. Musico picked up where he left off last Saturday against RIT - and ended up with the first shutout in Penn State's NCAA history.

One unexpected contribution came from sophomore defenseman Pete Sweetland, who notched a goal and an assist in his first game of the season.

The description of how Penn State's goals developed in the GoPSUSports.com recap is more than adequate, so I'll defer to that here.

---

[At 9:15 of the first period], following a neutral zone transition, Glen found classmate Curtis Loik entering the offensive zone. Loik took the puck wide and passed to Brooks near the slot, where he fired a shot to the right of [Army goalie Rob] Tadazak.

Penn State notched three goals in the second period to take a 4-0 lead. [Jonathan] Milley doubled the Nittany Lion advantage with a power-play marker at 2:36. Bailey passed to Milley in the slot, where the Gatineau, Que., native's first attempt was blocked before he floated the rebound over Tadazak for the goal.

With 7:16 left in the stanza, Sweetland tallied his first goal of the season. The defenseman received a pass from Bailey at the blue line and sent a shot toward the cage that deflected off an Army defenseman and into the back of the net.

Bailey gave Penn State a 4-0 lead just 1:12 later. Junior defenseman Nate Jensen carried the puck down the right-wing boards and sent a backhanded, backdoor pass to Bailey for his third marker of the season.

In the third period, Glen tallied with 15:53 remaining. Sweetland made an outlet pass through the neutral zone to Glen, who carried the puck into the offensive zone before firing a shot low for his third marker of the season.

---

Bailey actually had a chance to add a second goal when he was selected to take a penalty shot with five minutes remaining in the game after Army goalie Ryan Leets (in the game for the pulled Tadazak) threw his stick at the puck. Leets atoned for his mistake by stopping the attempt.

It's always dangerous to start applying the transitive property in sports, but fueled partly by the sort of hubris that follows a big win, let's do it anyway.

On October 13th at the IceBreaker tournament in Kansas City, Army lost to Maine 5-4. Tadazak made 50 saves on 54 shots to keep his team close while the Black Knights made 24 attempts on Maine's goal. The day before, Nebraska-Omaha topped the Knights 5-1 in a nationally-televised game that featured a shot count of 38-18 in favor of the Mavericks.

Maine and UNO were both middle-of-the-pack picks in Hockey East and the WCHA, the two toughest conferences college hockey has to offer (to be fair to the comparison, the Black Bears are off to an atrocious start, as Army is the only team they have beaten so far). Penn State topped the Black Knights 5-0 with a 45-34 shot advantage at West Point.

Of course, much like the win over RIT last weekend washed (most of) the taste of the Buffalo State game away, the gains made Friday night could easily fall by the wayside without a strong effort Saturday night, when the Gadowsky road show makes its way to Milford, CT and a 7:05 p.m. puck drop at Sacred Heart. A win there though, and two more against DIII opposition (Tuesday at Fredonia, next Saturday's rematch with BSC)...well, we'll get there when we get there. But at this moment in time, the Nittany Lions look like an outfit capable of exceeding all reasonable expectations.

Army, Sacred Heart Pose Interesting Challenge

Senior forward Eric Delong and his Sacred Heart teammates will be a test of Penn State's focus.

On the day the season started, I said that I believed that the Nittany Lions would be roughly equal to a middle-of-the-pack Atlantic Hockey team. This just might be the weekend that either confirms that prediction or establishes a new set of expectations.

Admit it: you're not entirely sure what to make of this team, particularly after last weekend, which saw PSU shut out by a Division III team followed by a win over a solid RIT program the next evening in front of 10,556 people partial mostly to the Tigers. I certainly don't know how to assess things just yet, and I'd like to think I follow the team closely enough to make that call if it were possible.

This weekend presents two more AHA opponents on the road, Penn State's fourth and fifth games against the conference: Army at 7:05 p.m. tonight and Sacred Heart at 7:05 p.m. tomorrow night. No video will be available for the two games, although audio streaming will take place through GoPSUSports.com All-Access and live stats will be available for both Friday and Saturday as well.

Neither Army nor Sacred Heart are generally in the top half of the league standings - in fact, they were the bottom two last season - but they're exactly the type of team that a top "conference" side should dispatch, while a middle-of-the-packer might give an inconsistent effort and split.

Army might be the most fascinating opponent on the entire schedule, and not really for any of the reasons I just discussed. Last season, Penn State's slogan was "Honoring the past, celebrating the present, roaring into the future," and no program touches all three of those elements quite as definitively as the Black Knights.

It's well known to most by now that Army opposed Penn State's 1940-1947 varsity program twice, winning 18-3 on February 26, 1944 and 12-3 on February 12, 1947. The Icers also played two games in the series, losing 6-4 on November 21, 1980 (Army records omit this game as an exhibition) and 10-3 on March 6, 1982 in a tournament at Kent State, the only game not played in West Point.

Cheyne Rocha, Army's senior captain, has prominent Penn State connections through his parents.

The present and past tie together rather uniquely in the form of Black Knights captain Cheyne Rocha, a senior defenseman. Rocha's father Larry was an Icers assistant from 1982 through 1985, who notably served as head coach for PSU's 1984 national championship run when Jon Shellington was unable to make the trip to Arizona. Cheyne's mother? Candace Finn Rocha. The then-Candy Finn was one of the best athletes in Penn State history. A four-time All-American in lacrosse, she also helped the Nittany Lions to a pair of national championships (1979, 1980) and was a two-time winner of the Broderick Award as national player of the year (1981, 1982). She was elected to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1998.

The future? Well, in the immediate future, there's tonight's game of course. But less than one year from now, on October 11, 2013, Army will be the opponent when the Pegula Ice Arena opens.

So really, I'm not sure that a single program can claim to be tied so closely to Penn State hockey at so many different stages. Robert Morris has something of an argument thanks to a pair of games with the Icers and a shared stake in the Three Rivers Classic going forward, but they can't go back to the 1940s. Cornell and Colgate played the 1940s team and could appear on future schedules, but both are missing a connection with the Icers. The reverse is true for the handful of current NCAA DI programs who have a history with the Icers but not the 1940s team, most notably Alabama-Huntsville, Canisius and Mercyhurst. The Big Ten opponents will obviously be a crucial part of the future, but none have been a part of the past.

Beyond all of that though, the Black Knights have a team that looks to be improved from the one that finished 4-23-7 (3-19-5 Atlantic Hockey) last year, ahead of only Sacred Heart in the league. Already, Army is 1-0-1 in the AHA on the strength of a win-tie series with the Pioneers, good for an early first place position. They were surprisingly competitive in the IceBreaker tournament in Kansas City - despite dropping both games, they played within a goal of national power Maine thanks to a stellar 50-save performance from goalie Rob Tadazak.

Up front, senior Andy Starczewski is the offensive leader with seven points already this season. Sophomore Zak Zaremba will be expected to chip in as well, and freshman Joe Kozlak is off to a quick start in his four-game-old collegiate career. Rocha and John Clark provide senior leadership on defense, while Maurice Alvarez (a former teammate of PSU freshman Jonathan Milley with the CCHL's Pembroke Lumber Kings) is more of an offensive blueliner.

Sacred Heart certainly presents the less exciting of the two opponents, but as mentioned, one that cannot be overlooked if Penn State is to establish the sort of consistency that is the hallmark of good teams. There hasn't been much to boast about with the Pioneers' season so far, with blowout losses at Providence (8-2) and Bentley (7-1) followed by the weekend with Army. That series began with a 5-2 Knights win at West Point powered by a Starczewski hat trick. The teams then moved to Milford, CT and the Milford Ice Pavilion where they literally took turns scoring, the last goal coming from Army's Kozlak with 33 seconds left in regulation of an eventual 4-4 tie.

Senior Eric Delong and sophomores Drew George and Brian Sheehan lead the scoring charge for Sacred Heart - the trio has five of the team's nine goals so far this season after combining for 33 of the Pioneers' 84 in 2011-2012. Another significant player is Kyle Verbeek, the son of my all-time favorite hockey player, Pat Verbeek, who scored 522 NHL goals with the Devils, Whalers, Rangers, Stars and Red Wings. So no, I'm not going to apologize for taking the rare chance to do this:

Goalies Andrew Bodnarchuk and Steven Legatto have split time in net, with neither boasting a goals against average south of five.

Following this weekend, Penn State will return home for a Saturday-only weekend against Buffalo State, that very same DIII team that embarrassed the Lions last weekend to raise the questions introduced at the beginning of this post. While PSU will surely be out to make a point then, the trick, of course, is to not let it affect what happens today and tomorrow.

Army Will Open Pegula Ice Arena

Zak Zaremba, a sophomore forward this season, will likely be part of the Black Knights when they play in the first game at the Pegula Ice Arena.

Army's Black Knights will oppose Penn State in the highly-anticipated Pegula Ice Arena opener on October 11, 2013, according to a Penn State student's senior project (PDF link) based on the venue's construction. The assignment is the work of Shane Marshall, an architectural engineering major specializing in construction management.

The bombshell appears quite innocently on page 24 of the 44-page document where, in Appendix A of the report, a PIA project schedule summary is laid out. Here's a piece of that page:

While the need to include the arena's first hockey game in the schedule is obvious, Marshall spells it out on page four.

The project schedule is ultimately being pushed by the ice arena home opener October 11, 2013. This is the first men’s Division 1 hockey game to be played in this state of the art collegiate facility. The penalty for delay was not disclosed but this is a must hit target date. Therefore, main components for the building are to be erected before August, which would allow for enough time to commission and furnish the building.

In examining Marshall's work, it clearly seems to be a well-researched report that deals in realities, not hypotheticals. His information comes directly from those who designed and are building the arena. From the executive summary:

This report was completed by reviewing construction documents, specifications, estimates, schedules; and was accomplished through discussions with Mortenson, the construction manager, and Crawford, the architect.

The other remaining schedule items are interesting in and of themselves as well. Notably the roof truss erection, scheduled to begin on September 20th, actually began on Thursday, the 27th. The fact that things are a week behind isn't really surprising when considering some of the unexpected issues that have confronted Mortenson.

The excavation for the building proved extremely difficult. Much of the soil was rock which required the use of blasting to remove the earth. This was a long process that was anything but cheap. After this, it was realized the western portion of the building pad was on loose soil. This required micropiles to be drilled throughout the western portion of the building pad; whereas the rest of the building needed minimal micropiles to rest on. This did cause a slight delay on the project but was minimized in part because the building was sequenced counter clockwise starting in the south.

Regardless, three weeks of buffer zone were built into the schedule, meaning that it's unlikely to become an issue down the road. As you can see, the next major construction events will be the topping off in December (which, appropriately, coincides with the end of roof truss erection) and completion of the roofing three weeks after that.

The entire report is interesting reading, and I would encourage at least skimming it. But let's shift back to that first game.

Army might seem an unorthodox opponent to the uninitiated. Why devote such a historic event to an Atlantic Hockey opponent, and not a particularly strong one at that? Why not work something out to allow conference games against Michigan or Ohio State to open the building? Why not a giant of college hockey like Boston College? Why not Notre Dame, a well-known brand name and Joe Battista's second-favorite school? Why Army?

Here's why:

Yep, the 1940-1947 varsity team played Army. Twice, actually. The first meeting, on February 26, 1944, resulted in an 18-3 loss. The brief article above recaps the February 12, 1947 game - the second-to-last ever played by that team (the final opponent was Georgetown which, at present, only has ACHA Division 2 hockey). Army is one of just three active NCAA Division I teams played by PSU's first varsity team, along with Cornell and Colgate.

Unlike the latter two, the Icers also had a history with Army. On March 6, 1982, Army beat PSU 10-3 at the Kent State Invitational Tournament, while November 21, 1980 brought a 6-4 Icers loss at West Point (Army records omit that game as an exhibition).*

* Sorry for overwhelming the varsity history by pointing out that the Icers were somewhat more competitive against Army.

So it's against that historical backdrop, which by then will include this season's game at Tate Rink as well, that the Nittany Lions will battle Army next October. The service academy aspect is a nice touch as well, and should help maintain a positive, respectful atmosphere for the battle between what will be a second-year DI program and a program that's been in DI since there's been a DI. Can't wait.

Three Stars: June 18-24

3. New York Islanders Business Directory
(newyorkislanders.com)

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a press release on this, but...

Matt Bertani, who served as an Icers assistant from 2005-2008, is the new video coach for the New York Islanders. Quite an impressive career track, to say the least. He left PSU to assist with the Islanders' AHL team, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, where he remained until now (surviving a head coaching change in the process, which shows a good deal of organizational faith). He's a dyed-in-the-wool ACHA guy, as he played with Mercyhurst's club team and he also developed some pretty diverse experience as a youth hockey coach prior to coming to PSU.

Actually, it's a meteoric rise and a great comeback story - you may recall that Bertani was nearly killed in a men's league game last year while suffering a broken neck in a collision. Congratulations Matt!

2. Gadowsky adds a pair of forwards
(Lions247)

Meet Alec Marsh and Chase Berger - at the moment, PSU's entire 2015 recruiting class.

1. Jerry Sandusky guilty on 45 of 48 counts
(The Daily Collegian)

I hope that this isn't taken as minimizing the trauma of those who came into physical contact with Jerry Sandusky and who then stood as his accusers, but we were all his victims. The justice system has done what it could with him - he'll likely spend the rest of his life as the worst type of person one can be in prison - and for that I'm glad. I just wish it could give us back what we've lost in transit to this point.

This story will likely fade from the national media's consciousness now, although the appeals, the civil suits, the Freeh report that already smells like a sham designed to pin this all on "football culture" (whatever that means), the hopeful unmasking of all in Penn State administration who kept what I suspect was a "well-known secret" at the highest levels of university governance...all of those things make this an awkward sort of semi-closure. They will keep picking at the scabs and delaying the already imperfect healing process. The good news? We are Penn State. Emphasis on "we," because Penn Staters, collectively, are what makes Penn State great. Keep excelling at whatever it is you do in life. Live the last verse of the alma mater. Do it while wearing a PSU shirt, if possible. Take the hits you'll undoubtedly receive for doing so, but keep moving forward.

We are Penn State, and we will eventually take our university back.

PS. I'm absolutely stunned that more people haven't pointed out that Sandusky is one of the jokers in the unlicensed Penn State Football Heroes playing card decks sold at PSU retail outlets for several years. The actual cards simply have footballs in the top left and bottom right corners, so I took some artistic license there.

Best of the Rest

Pride of Pegula Store
(cafepress.com)

Dooooo itttttttt.... you know you're going to want to white something out at a hockey game at some point. Pictured: my likely first purchase.

Penn State back in play for Army hockey
(recordonline.com)

The October 26th game at Army is one of my favorites this year. The Black Knights are one of just three currently-active Division I programs played by Penn State's original 1940-1947 varsity team, and the only one on this year's schedule (Cornell and Colgate are the others). I'm glad that fact hasn't gotten lost.

Penn State will play on Oct. 26 at Tate Rink, the first visit by the Nittany Lions to West Point since 1947. The school dropped varsity hockey after that season and has competed as a club program in recent years. Penn State will compete as a Division I independent this season and join the new Big Ten conference in 2013-14.

"Recent years?" Makes it sound as if the Icers started up in 2004. Oh well, nobody's perfect.

Penn State, Jerry Sandusky, NCAA Sanctions and the “Death Penalty”
(Victory Bell Rings)

Included because it brings up an interesting idea, forwarded mostly by people who hate Penn State: could the NCAA sanction PSU to the stone age? While anything is possible, I don't believe they will, because the simple fact is that none of what happened affected the on-field product in any way. When the NCAA speaks of "lack of institutional control," it's in the context of breaking NCAA rules, which are in place (generally) to ensure fairness in the realm of athletics (that's what the first "A" is for, after all). I question whether the NCAA has the jurisdiction to punish PSU for this. I also question why this story gets coverage from ESPN, but that's a different rant.

Even if the NCAA wants to bring penalties on Penn State athletics, where do they begin? As I said, this is not a football crime, regardless of how it has been portrayed. If a penalty comes, it has to be big. It has to be everybody from women’s basketball, to wrestling to baseball and fencing. A hockey team that doesn’t yet exist would be penalized. Will the NCAA punish hundreds of athletes because of the wrong-doings of an administration? Has there ever been an NCAA punishment that didn’t involve a single athlete committing a single infraction?

Yeah, basically.

Click to enlarge.

Under Construction for the Pegula Ice Arena!
(I admit)

An updated PIA photo from a likely, yet not, source - a PSU Undergraduate Admissions blog.

Penn State Ice Pavilion Tickets
(StubHub)

Every once in a while, I come across a little reminder of big-time status that blows my mind. This is one of those, even though there aren't any tickets up yet.

Western Pennsylvania nets notable status in hockey world
RMU hockey basks in ’Burgh spotlight
(Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

With the NHL Entry Draft in the Steel City Friday and Saturday, local media did not disappoint with the easily-predicted "yay Pittsburgh hockey!" articles. But hey, good PA hockey is good for Penn State. And Robert Morris. So yay, indeed.

Signs point to Federal league in Williamsport
(Shooting for the Show)

Closer to the other end of the commonwealth, it looks as if Williamsport might be getting a taste of our favorite sport.



Connecticut jumping to Hockey East, to 18 scholarships for 2014-15 season
(USCHO)

The headline more or less says it all. Hockey East finally has their 12th team, and hopefully UConn will prove worthy of it because a successful big school in a big conference is good for college hockey. They're adding the full 18 scholarships (up from zero) and will play home conference games at the XL Center, formerly the Hartford Civic Center, also formerly the home of the Hartford Whalers. So yeah, I'm dropping some Pat Verbeek on you.

And just because I haven't done this in a while, here's how the conferences stack up, beginning in 2014. The only change from 2013 to 2014 will be the Huskies' arrival in Hockey East from Atlantic Hockey.

Big Ten (6): Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin.

NCHC (8): Colorado College, Denver, Miami, Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota, St. Cloud State, Western Michigan.

Hockey East (12): Boston College, Boston University, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Massachusetts-Lowell, Merrimack, New Hampshire, Northeastern, Notre Dame, Providence, Vermont.

ECAC (12): Brown, Clarkson, Colgate, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Quinnipiac, RPI, St. Lawrence, Union, Yale.

WCHA (9): Alaska, Alaska-Anchorage, Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State, Northern Michigan

Atlantic Hockey (11): Air Force, American International, Army, Bentley, Canisius, Holy Cross, Mercyhurst, Niagara, RIT, Robert Morris, Sacred Heart.

Still Screwed, But Hoping the WCHA Has Mercy (1): Alabama-Huntsville.

Don't bother memorizing it, I'm sure it will change before 2014 in some way.

Just Three Proposals for Prime Canalside Site
(Buffalo Rising)

Sounds like TPegs might finally be looking to shut Canisius up. Yeah, I thought their begging for a handout was a little gauche - and before you accuse me of hypocrisy, Pegula actually has a connection to Penn State and initiated the discussion with the school. So there. Anyway...

Sources said the Sabres are proposing a multi-rink facility, with a themed sports bar/restaurant to be developed by Delaware North Cos. for the block. The rinks would be used as a practice facility for the team as well as the home base for some of the area's collegiate hockey teams. It would also host amateur and youth tournaments.

According to Business First, the Sabres/Delaware North project also includes a hotel component, parking for 1,000 cars, and retail along both Main and Perry streets. There would be two rinks, one with spectator seating for a couple of hundred, the other with up to 1,500.

That's actually smaller than the rink of Division III Buffalo State, where the Griffs currently play. Then again, they drew 626 fans per game last year, fourth worst in DI, so I think they'll be okay.

Title IX at 40
(Philadelphia Inquirer)

Finally, happy birthday to Title IX - a landmark not only for female athletes, but for everyone who believes in equality.