Three Stars: April 30-May 6

3. Black Hawks rout Stars, take 2-1 series lead
(wcfcourier.com)

Penticton Vees 2 - Humboldt Broncos 3
(hockeycanada.ca)

For the sake of staying in touch with the two men's recruits still playing, here's a quick status check:

2013 G Eamon McAdam hasn't played for the Waterloo Black Hawks during their USHL playoff run (he's the no. 2 goalie behind Stephon Williams), but the team is one win away from meeting the Green Bay Gamblers in the Clark Cup finals. Game four of their best-of-five Western Conference final series with Lincoln is Monday night.

Meanwhile, 2012 F Curtis Loik and his Penticton Vees have found themselves in early trouble at the 2012 Royal Bank Cup. The Vees opened with a 2-1 loss to the Soo Thunderbirds on Saturday (Loik had a charging penalty in the game), then fell in overtime to the Humboldt Broncos Sunday night. At 0-2 so far, Penticton will need to win their last two round robin games (Tuesday against the Woodstock Slammers and Wednesday against the Portage Terriers) to make the tournament's semifinals and with a decent seed.

2. April was Nice Trip Down Memory Lane
(statecollege.com)

Joe Battista's column wasn't primarily about hockey, but he's always a nice read regardless. Here's one of the hockey parts, just to keep on topic.

April came to a close with the annual American Hockey Coaches Convention and Big Ten Hockey meetings in Naples, Fla. It was the 25th time I have attended the meetings and this one was even more special with our entry into the NCAA beginning next year for our teams.

One of our best players to ever wear a Penn State jersey, Alon Eizenman, was inducted into the ACHA Hall of Fame on Saturday morning. As he gave his outstanding speech about his career and education at Penn State, tears rolled down my cheeks. He was one of many amazing young men I had the privilege to coach at PSU, and his heartfelt words meant the world to me and my wife.

1. With Hard Work, Comes Reward
(penguins.nhl.com)

About a month ago, I gave a Darby Kern interview on the very same Pittsburgh Youth Hockey Network first star honors, and said "if only they'd decide to hit Jill Holdcroft next week." Well, it took a couple weeks longer than I had hoped but here it is. Only problem: a picture of any value for replacing her brutal headshot was not included.

So...Steph Walkom next?

Best of the Rest



Penn State Ice Rink: Preparation For NCAA Hockey 
(YouTube)

For whatever reason, the Greenberg Ice Pavilion was front and center this week. Some guy named Christopher Gammon produced this video, which gets Bill Downey and rink manager Chris Whittemore on camera to essentially say "we're not going to spend much money prepping the rink for NCAA hockey, because there's no point to doing so when we're moving in a year." So why the video? <shrug>

Melting the Ice: Unlocking the Potential of The Greenberg Ice Pavilion
(tumblr.com)

Here's an in-depth look (with quotes!) at the three predominant options for Greenberg: a) demolish it, b) gut it and turn the place into a high-performance training facility and c) take out the ice and put in some sport court. This might just be the sentimental sap in me speaking, but c please.

Storm draft day an unforgettable event
(Kearney Hub)

A first-person account from the Tri-City Storm's war room during their drafting of a 2014 defense commit at the USHL Futures Draft last Tuesday.

The most nerve-wracking moment was when the team drafting ahead of them was making its pick, because they Storm knew who they were going to take. When it became clear the Storm had the player they wanted — Kevin Kerr from Team Comcast U16 — in the first round, there were high fives, cheers and relief.

The ECHL's Johnstown Chiefs (now known as the Greenville Road Warriors) were the last primary tenant of the Cambria County War Memorial, as PSU's director of hockey operations can attest.

City gets preview of new hockey team
(Johnstown Tribune-Democrat)

If you haven't heard yet, Johnstown, PA will be the home of a sparkly-new (well, relocated) franchise in the Tier II Junior A NAHL next season. Very cool. Hopefully someday soon, the legendary barn graced by Reg Dunlop and Ned Braden will be home to a future Penn Stater.

Hakstol Makes Coaching Staff Change
(College Hockey News)

Tumult at North Dakota. I don't hate it.

Atlantic Hockey Announces Eight New PSU Games

Air Force junior goaltender Jason Torf stopped 32 of 34 shots against eventual national champion Boston College in the NCAA tournament last season. He'll visit the Ice Pavilion on November 9th and 10th.

The Atlantic Hockey Association has posted its 2012-2013 composite schedule. Penn State, while not a member of the conference, could almost qualify as an honorary one by virtue of appearing 11 times.

Three of the games, the series on October 12th and 13th with AIC that will serve as PSU's first home Division I games and the October 20th tilt as RIT's homecoming opponent, were already known. Here are the other eight:

October 26 at Army, 7:05 p.m.
October 27 at Sacred Heart, 7:05 p.m.
November 9 vs. Air Force
November 10 vs. Air Force
December 7 at Holy Cross, 7:05 p.m.
December 8 at Holy Cross, 7:05 p.m.
January 4 at Connecticut, 7:05 p.m.
January 5 at Connecticut, 7:05 p.m.

The complete collection of known games for next season can be found here.

Without a doubt, the jewel of those games is the home series with Air Force. The defending AHA regular season and conference champs were 21-11-7 in 2011-2012 and have represented the league in the NCAA tournament for five of the last six seasons, including last year when Frank Serratore's crew lost 2-0 to eventual national champion Boston College in the NCAA Northeast Regional. The Falcons join Frozen Four team Union and Michigan State as 2012 NCAA Tournament teams on the Nittany Lions' (still feels weird typing that) schedule, and for what it's worth, sources have indicated that Air Force will be the premier opponent visiting the Ice Pavilion. Holy Cross is the only other new opponent with a winning record last season. The Crusaders were 20-15-4 overall, finishing 3rd in AHA.

The original Nittany Lions varsity program played at Army on December 26, 1944, losing 18-3. Additionally, the Icers do have a little bit of history with several current Atlantic Hockey teams. During the formative years of the Robert Morris program when RMU was a member of College Hockey America, PSU beat the Colonials 3-2 in October, 2005 before losing 6-0 the following season. Current AHA teams Mercyhurst and Canisius were frequent Icer opponents in the 1980s and 1990s when the pair of now-DI programs were members of Division II.

As much fun as speculation on the Lions' first DI schedule has been, it's likely that we're close to the end, at least in terms of discovering DI opponents. Joe Battista has indicated that PSU will play 20-22 DI schools in this inaugural NCAA season, and this latest news brings us up to 19 such games. Furthermore Atlantic Hockey, the only (for now) mid-major conference in DI, represents the likely source for a large percentage of games. Roughly half (22 of 45) of the schools in the other DI conferences have formally announced their schedules. From here on out, most new opponents are likely to be a smattering of ACHA Division 1 (Ohio will visit the Ice Pavilion, while Arizona State and Oklahoma have been subjects of speculation) and NCAA Division III teams, as well as confirmation of the four games with the U.S. National Team Development Program.

With that in mind, there's a lot to like about the schedule. Air Force, along with Michigan State, Union, RIT and Wisconsin represent a nice collection of "reach" games (with the added bonus of getting the Falcons at home), while the lower division games will ensure that PSU doesn't go 5-28-1, setting a negative tone for the NCAA era. In between lies a stout collection of lower-tier AHA programs that will also help provide Guy Gadowsky and his staff with a barometer of where the program stands entering the Big Ten in year two.

Commit Cycle: May 1 (Men)

With only two committed players still playing, this is very likely to be the season finale of Commit Cycle. It's been a blast following all of the future Nittany Lions (both men and woment), and we'll bring it back in the fall when the 2012-2013 season begins. Here's the rundown of how 2011-2012 ended for everyone not included in the post.

• 2013 D Thomas Welsh. His top-seeded Salisbury Prep was stunned in the Stuart/Corkery Tournament (the New England prep championship) semifinals by Lawrence Academy.
• 2012 D Luke Juha. Juha played on the gold medal winning Team Canada West at the World Junior A Challenge. His Vernon Vipers, though, were 30-27-3 and missed the BCHL playoffs for the first time since 2000-2001, thanks in part to Juha's absence for most of the season due to injury.
• 2014 D Bo Pellah. The youthful Langley Rivermen also missed the BCHL playoffs at 19-35-6, although Pellah led the team's blueliners in scoring.
• 2014 D Kevin Kerr. Team Comcast missed the AYHL playoffs and then lost out to the North Jersey Avalanche for the Atlantic District bid to USA Hockey nationals on March 17th and 18th. Meanwhile Kerr's prep team, Holy Ghost, lost to La Salle College High School for the Flyers Cup title on March 14th.
• 2013 D David Thompson. Thompson's Chilliwack Chiefs put forward a valiant effort in the first round of the BCHL playoffs against the juggernaut-ish Penticton Vees, but ultimately fell in six games.
• 2012 F David Glen. The Spruce Grove Saints were 18 seconds from winning Game Seven of the North Division finals and advancing to the Enerflex Cup finals for the AJHL championship. Two goals by the Fort McMurray Oil Barons, the latter coming 7:06 into overtime, ended the Saints' dream of a third straight league title. Still, after a 46-6-8 regular season, that's hardly a valid source of shame.
• 2012 F Jonathan Milley. Behind a finally-healthy Milley, the Pembroke Lumber Kings shook off an up and down 32-24-6 regular season to advance to the CCHL semifinals where they gave top-seeded Nepean all they could handle before falling in seven games. Milley's playoff stats: seven goals and 10 assists in 12 games.
• 2012 D Connor Varley and 2013 F Zach Saar. The Des Moines Buccaneers slumped badly down the stretch (including losses in their last 14 games) and missed the USHL playoffs after finishing 20-33-7. Varley proved one of the steadiest defensemen on the team, although Saar's scoring hit the skids following a mid-season trade from Chicago with just six goals in 32 games as a Buccaneer.
• 2012 D Joseph Lordo. The captain of the Sioux Falls Stampede was one of the few bright spots for the USHL's worst team this season. His 21 points led the team's blueliners and were fifth overall on the offensively-challenged outfit while he also added his trademark physical element on the back end.
• 2012 D Mark Yanis. Yanis mirrors Lordo in being a physical defenseman on a team that struggled this year. His Muskegon Lumberjacks fell to the USHL's Eastern Conference cellar at 17-35-8, just one point better than the Stampede.
• 2012 F Kenny Brooks. The versatile Brooks, who has been moved to defense in each of the last two seasons due to injuries, finished second on the Tri-City Storm in scoring with 42 points. The Storm made the USHL playoffs with a 26-33-1 record but were swept by Waterloo in a best-of-three first round.
• 2012 F Max Gardiner. The Minnesota transfer spent his sit-out year with the USHL's Dubuque Fighting Saints, which finished 36-20-4 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs before being dispatched by Indiana. Gardiner had a productive playoff run with four points in five games after 26 in 50 regular season games.
• 2012 F Casey Bailey. Bailey was one of the USHL's most prolific goal scorers in 2011-2012, lighting the lamp 27 times, good for 10th in the circuit. His Omaha Lancers were one point shy of the Western Conference regular season title and earned a first-round playoff bye, but lost a four-game second-round series to Waterloo.
• 2012 G Matt Skoff and 2013 F David Goodwin. The pair of Sioux City Musketeers were two of the USHL's better players, despite the Muskies' 29-30-1 record and first-round playoff exit. Skoff, named the team's MVP, had six shutouts (second in the league), a .912 save percentage and a 2.72 goals-against average (both sixth in the league). Goodwin ended with 49 points, including 39 in 47 games following an early-season trade from Green Bay.
• 2012 F Reed Linaker. Linaker began the season with the St. Albert Steel, his fourth season with the AJHL club, and scored 20 points in 21 games. He was then traded from the league-worst Steel to the contending Brooks Bandits in December, but injured his knee in his first game with Brooks. He returned for the Enerflex Cup finals, as the Bandits won the AJHL title, and also played in the Doyle Cup series with the BCHL champion Penticton Vees, won by the Vees in five games.

As always, for updated season stats of all recruits, visit the M Current Commitments page.

Curtis Loik

Forward
Penticton Vees (BCHL)
6'1", 205 pounds
North Vancouver, BC
Class of 2012
DOB 4/23/1993


Date  Opponent                Score  G   A Pts PIM
--------------------------------------------------------------
4/20  at Brooks               W 7-2  0   1   1   0 [box score]
4/21  at Brooks               W 1-0  0   0   0   2 [box score]
4/24  vs. Brooks              L 3-4  1   0   1   0 [box score]
4/25  vs. Brooks              W 6-1  0   0   0   0 [box score]
4/27  vs. Brooks              W 6-2  0   0   0   0 [box score]

As you should know by now, the Vees took the final Doyle Cup series ever and the Pacific championship from Linaker's Brooks Bandits in five games... Penticton will now head to Humboldt, Saskatchewan for the Royal Bank Cup (Canada's junior A national championship) beginning on Saturday... other teams in Humboldt include the host Broncos (SJHL and Anavet Cup champions), the Portage Terriers (MJHL champions), the Soo Thunderbirds (NOJHL and Dudley Hewitt Cup champions) and the Woodstock Slammers (MHL and Fred Page Cup champions)... the Vees open with the Thunderbirds Saturday, and play each other team in a round robin to determine seeding for the semifinals (May 12th), which is followed by the championship game on May 13th.

Related stories:
Schedule/Results/Rosters - 2012 RBC Cup (Hockey Canada)

Eamon McAdam

Goaltender
Waterloo Black Hawks (USHL)
6'2", 180 pounds
Perkasie, PA
Class of 2013
DOB 9/24/1994


Date  Opponent               Score SA GA  Sv% GAA
--------------------------------------------------------------
4/17  vs. Tri-City           W 3-2 --  -  --- ---  [box score]
4/20  at Omaha               L 2-4 --  -  --- ---  [box score]
4/21  at Omaha               W 4-2 --  -  --- ---  [box score]
4/27  vs. Omaha              W 4-2 --  -  --- ---  [box score]
4/28  vs. Omaha              W 5-1 --  -  --- ---  [box score]

McAdam, the only PSU-committed USHLer left in the Clark Cup playoffs, watched from the bench as starting goalie Stephon Williams helped the Black Hawks eliminate two other PSU commits (Brooks with Tri-City, Bailey with Omaha) to advance to the Western Conference finals... that series, against the Lincoln Stars, begins Wednesday night... Green Bay and Indiana will battle for the other spot in the Clark Cup finals in the Eastern Conference half of the bracket.

Storm Select Kerr Seventh in USHL Futures Draft

Team Comcast defenseman Kevin Kerr, a 2014 Penn State commit, was the seventh overall selection by the Tri-City Storm in the USHL Futures Draft Tuesday evening. The Futures Draft involves assigning the USHL rights of the top 1996 birth year players. Most won't play in the USHL in 2012-2013 but instead will be on a team's affiliate list with the idea of giving continued development time at a lower level.

“We feel Kerr is a perfect fit for us,” said Storm GM/Head Coach Josh Hauge. “We like our D to get up in the play and be active. He has creativity and defends well.”

He also said that Kerr was the top-rated player on his team's draft board.

“We are very excited,” added Hauge about the draft. “It went pretty much how we expected it to for the most part. We actually got guys that we had penciled in for earlier rounds later in the draft. Overall, we got great value for where we selected guys.”

Kerr, a Bensalem, PA native, played for both the Team Comcast 16U and Holy Ghost Prep in 2011-2012. He was also a member of Team USA for January's Youth Olympic Games, registering an assist in six games.

The Storm, which is based in Kearney, NE, is the USHL team of incoming freshman forward Kenny Brooks, whose 15 goals and 27 assists were good for second on the team in scoring. Tri-City went 26-33-1 this season to make the Clark Cup playoffs, but quickly exited in the first round. The team is owned by Brooks' father, Kirk Brooks.

Three Stars: April 23-29

3. ACHA 2012 Academic All-Americans Announced
(achahockey.org)

Sara Chroman, Lydia Scott and Lindsay Reihl represent the Lady Icers among the list of 2011-2012 ACHA Women's D1 Academic All-Americans. UMass, by the way, had none. Not that I'm still bitter or anything. But PSU's better at both hockey and academics.

2.Pegula Ice Arena Becoming a Reality
(gopsusports.com)

I know this is largely just another collection of quotes from the groundbreaking, arranged differently. Still, there's always room on TYT to give a student writer some support (even if Ms. Johnson probably got more pageviews on her own than TYT gets in a month, but whatever).

1. Gadowsky looks back at year one
(Lions 247)

I probably don't give Andrew Dzurita enough love in these posts for the simple reason that I don't want to rip off his pictures and get sued. Luckily, a Q-and-A with Guy Gadowsky means I can just rip off someone else's picture. Anyway, here's some of the juicy stuff:

[On the scholarship breakdown] You can’t go out and spend 18 scholarships in one class, that isn’t taking care of the program. We have to gradually move a long, and until we have four full recruiting classes under our belt we won’t be able to see how things are going. It is certainly a process, and when we get to the Big Ten, they certainly are the best college hockey programs in the nation. They have tons of tradition and success that they can draw from and we are the new guys on the block, so it is going to take a couple of years to see where we stack up – but that is part of the fun of it.

We can only release [next year's schedule] when all of the contracts are back, so right now there isn’t anything we can talk about regarding next year’s schedule, and there isn’t a timetable I can give you on when it will be out.

As a reminder, feel free to check this page out for pieces of the schedule revealed by those with looser lips than Gadowsky.

Best of the Rest

Hilton Commits to UBC
(ajhl.ca)

Remember Jessi Hilton? Sure you do. He committed to PSU last summer, then rapidly decommitted when 12 games played with the WHL's Calgary Hitmen interfered with his NCAA eligibility. Fortunately for him, the CIS doesn't care about his time in major junior, so he'll be headed to the University of British Columbia for the coming season. Nice to see that saga have a happy ending.

Pegulas increase Penn State Hockey commitment to $102 million
(Penn State Live)

Since I openly scratched my head at the cost of the arena jumping from $75 million to $89 million at one point, here's something that breaks it down quite nicely. The Pegulas are now in for $102 million, as we know. $89 million of that will pay for the arena, while $13 million will endow scholarships. Additionally, $3.7 million has come in from other donors, headlined by John and Karen Davis as well as Paul and Nancy Silvis. Administration is seeking another $6.3 million in private gifts. There you go.

Chicago has the sickness.

Four Schools to Play Outdoor Doubleheader in Chicago
(College Hockey News)

While it's still not finalized...

Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Notre Dame and Miami, will play in doubleheader outdoor games next season, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. The games would be played at Soldier Field in Chicago on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013.

To quote Joe Battista, "we want to play in that game."

College Hockey Inc. to Get New Governing Body
(College Hockey News)

The contentious dismissal of Paul Kelly seems to have led to changes in the way CHI is run, although no changes in mission or direction are expected.