Breakout Past: 1988 Camp Brochure

Since it's camp season, why not?

There's actually a deeper meaning here, though. As many of you know, Penn State hockey camps served as Terry Pegula's introduction to the Icers program. Here's a quote from Joe Battista when asked how he met Pegula.

His son Michael came down from Olean, N.Y., to Penn State hockey camps in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when he was 9-12 years old.

Michael Pegula is now 33 years old. In 1988 then, he was - you guessed it - nine. So really, you're looking at a small, yet huge, piece of how we got to where we are today.

Images courtesy of Derek Meluzio (as usual, click to enlarge). Be sure to check out Derek's fantastic Stack the Pads blog over at PennLive, now featuring Penn State content!

Cause For Concern?

Since Penn State's elevation to NCAA Division I hockey, there have been numerous reasons to be excited. The shiny, new arena sought by the school for about 100 years - call the Ice Pavilion a temporary fix in that regard, as even it was scaled back from original DI-ready plans - is slowly emerging from a dirt pit on University Drive. The two coaching staffs have begun building programs worthy of that arena. Penn State hockey now gets semi-regular shoutouts on NHL telecasts and free publicity in news articles almost any time Terry Pegula is mentioned in his capacity as owner of the Buffalo Sabres. Other than a handful of people bitter about conference realignment and such things (mostly North Dakota fans), the response from the hockey community has been overwhelmingly positive.

I'm a little concerned, though. And not about any of that.

Men's hockey ticket packages for 2012-2013 went on sale last Tuesday morning. Shortly after, presumably, the initial burst, the team tweeted that fewer than 200 packages remained. By Monday morning, nearly a week later, the number was down to fewer than 70.

It should be pointed out that we're talking about the Greenberg Ice Pavilion, which has a listed capacity of 1,350. Take out full season ticket renewals, take out student seats (which will probably number about 300), take out whatever tickets will be set aside for single game sales and it's fair to wonder just how many seats were reserved for the not-yet-sold-out packages in the first place.

But regardless of that, we do know this: roughly 130 packages in six days during the first week they were available. Where's the interest?

There are a couple of reasonable objections to my query:

1. The packages are less than flexible. They're essentially groups of five games chosen for balance, but with no commonality like "all Fridays" to them.
2. The home schedule is...not that good.

Just to address those:

1. One of the packages includes the October 12th game against American International, the first game in PSU's NCAA history. The other two include games against Air Force, an NCAA Tournament team last season. All three include two games against NCAA Division I teams.
2. The packages cost $55, including a processing charge. That's not a horrible deal, even if only considering that price as being for the two DI games. If you can't or don't want to attend one of the games, it's not like you're getting hosed.
3. This is PSU's first NCAA season. We've waited forever for this moment in time. It's history in the making. Suck it up.

Even if a buyer doesn't want to go to any of the games, they're getting priority on tickets at Pegula Ice Arena in 2013-2014. That alone is probably worth $55, considering the $100 minimum donation to the Nittany Lion Club required for football ticket privileges.

Yep, it's worth repeating: there's a 6,000-seat arena that needs filling after the coming season. And right now, it doesn't seem as if the interest is there to move a very limited number of places in line for that venue in short order. That's concerning.

If the ticket issue was isolated, I probably don't write this post. But...

In my observation and to this point, there has been minimal engagement among Penn Staters outside of the already-defined hockey circles. Fight On State, the only one of the major-network PSU sites with a dedicated hockey message board, has seen a total of 19 posts since the Icers' loss to Oakland at the ACHA tournament. Sure, it's the offseason I guess, but consider all that has gone on since then:

• The entire NCAA hockey tournament. Granted, there was not direct PSU involvement, but that's something that draws the attention of dedicated college hockey fans regardless of team affiliation.
• The commitments of forwards Alec Marsh and Chase Berger for 2015.
• The announcement of 11 Icers who will play on the coming season's NCAA team.
• The signing and subsequent (official) announcement of two incoming players, one of whom is an NHL draft pick (!) transferring from Minnesota.
• The announcement of the sites and dates for the first four Big Ten tournaments.
• The Pegula Ice Arena groundbreaking ceremony and the continued progress of the construction.
• The reveal of next year's schedule.
• The Penn State Coaches Caravan, which produced a glut of media coverage - including the idea of an outdoor game at Beaver Stadium - and included both Guy Gadowsky and Josh Brandwene.

Those are major, discussion-generating topics. The subject matter is there, but the fans are not.

A Fight On State issue, you say? Okay, let's slide over to Lions 247, the major site that (by far) offers the most hockey coverage, thanks to the work of Andrew Dzurita. That site doesn't separate boards by sport, so it's fair to assume that a hockey discussion thread draws the eyeballs of those there to discuss football. When the news of Penn State's participation in the Pittsburgh College Hockey Invitational broke, Dzurita started a thread. It drew three responses from two individuals. Meanwhile, a thread on Euro 2012 was up to 97 as of late Monday night (not a criticism of the event, I'm a fan, but it has nothing to do with Penn State, and there are better places than a PSU message board to discuss it).

Taking things offline, it doesn't seem as if the NCAA program resulted in a spike of interest in the Icers. While the Ice Pavilion saw some large and raucous crowds this past season, it wasn't anything above and beyond what existed prior to Pegula's donation. It certainly wasn't an impossible ticket, despite the coziness of PSU's home facility.

I'll also admit to being a little disappointed with the attendance at the outdoor game with NCAA Division III Neumann at Citizens Bank Park. With what was a de facto limitless supply of tickets in the largest city in Pennsylvania - and over winter break, with PSU's large Philadelphia-based student contingent at home - a unique event and with unprecedented media coverage for a Penn State hockey game, an estimated 3,000 Penn Staters hardly seems like the overwhelming success portrayed by school officials. It was a number nearly matched by NU, which has roughly 10,000 total living alumni. Philadelphia and adjacent counties (Delaware, Chester, Montgomery and Bucks) alone have about 81,000 PSU alumni, according to the alumni association, and again, students at home.

There's an argument to be made that people will show up once the NCAA teams officially get rolling. That's fair, I suppose. Maybe expecting overflow crowds for the same old, same old at Greenberg is unreasonable on my part. But guess what? It's here. On the men's side, the roster is set. The schedule is known. There's a PSU page on USCHO. Penn State is an NCAA program now, in every sense of the word. And before we know it, there will be an NCAA-sized arena to fill, and there will need to be a large number of attendees who didn't go to Icers games needed to do so. Right now, it doesn't seem like they're beating down the door.

My sense as someone fairly well engaged in the Penn State community is that there are a ton of people out there who are sincerely happy that NCAA hockey is finally coming to PSU and that a nice arena is being built to host it. Certainly no sane Penn Stater doesn't approve. At the aforementioned Coaches Caravan, I observed people approach Gadowsky with sticks and pucks for autographs meaning, of course, that they planned to talk to him, they didn't simply read his name tag and grab a free autograph card. There is, generally, interest out there. There are not, however, a lot of people who are plugged in on anything beyond the most superficial of levels. At the Coaches Caravan, I also observed several people accidentally pick up hockey ticket interest slips, then toss them back when realizing they weren't entry forms for the autographed Bill O'Brien football. In aggregate, the sense one gets is along the lines of "Hockey? Awesome. Love the sport. Glad to have it. It's about time...oh, tickets? No thanks. Where do you sign up for the football?"

It's not uncommon to see comments from mainstream PSU asking basic questions like "When does the Big Ten start?" and "When does the arena open?" If they're not minimally informed or even interested enough to look it up on their own at this crucial formative stage, will they be there later? Suffice it to say that a lot of those "average" Penn Staters, the ones who live for football Saturdays but follow other sports much more casually, if at all, are going to be needed to fill the Pegula Ice Arena. The challenge for the foreseeable future will be to engage those people, to convert them to those willing to fill out both the hockey ticket and autographed football slips.

This picture of Value City Arena wasn't labeled, but I assume there's a hockey game happening below.

Penn State is, without a doubt, a fantastic sports school. Then again, so is Ohio State, which averaged 3,799 fans in 15 games at its home Value City Arena last season despite climbing as high as second in the polls after a 14-4-1 start (Michigan State, the second lowest of the Big Ten programs, averaged 5,364). Oh yeah, and the Buckeyes are based in a metropolitan area of 1.8 million people where the university is the primary sporting entity in town (sorry I'm not, Blue Jackets). Sure, people travel from all over for Penn State football, but the isolation of the campus has proven detrimental to sports with more than seven home games per season over the years (men's basketball drew 6,937 in 2011-2012, on the heels of an NCAA tournament bid).

Given the immense popularity of wrestling and women's volleyball at PSU - not the case everywhere, obviously - the resurgent women's basketball program and the potentially resurgent men's basketball program, how much time, money and interest will be left for hockey - particularly those 5,000 non-student seats (I'm not all that worried about the student section attendance, they'll show up) at the PIA, suite sales, advertising, et cetera?

Unfortunately, and despite the early indications that led to this post, that question will have to remain unanswered for now. But it is time to ask it.

Three Stars: June 11-17

3. Black Hawks accept invite to Junior World Cup
(wcfcourier.com)

2013 G Eamon McAdam's team will represent the U.S. in the second-ever Junior World Cup August 18-26 in Omsk, Russia. The tournament, won by Krasnaya Armiya of Moscow last year, features teams from ten countries split into two groups, with the top two following an intra-group round robin advancing to the semifinals. Canada, incidentally, will be represented at the World Cup by the OHL's Sudbury Wolves. Unfortunately, they're not in Waterloo's pool, meaning that somewhere, USHL commissioner Skip Prince is considering human sacrifice to get both teams to the semifinals.

On a more serious note, it should be a nice opportunity to get an early look at McAdam (who is the most experienced returning goalie for the Black Hawks) against top-shelf competition.

2. Pine Creek grad assumes big leadership role at Penn State
(Paisley Hockey)

Women's captain Taylor Gross gets some nice run from veteran college hockey scribe Joe Paisley. And she sounds ready to run show on the CHA.

“Even if I was not captain, I would still need to be a leader because of my Division I experience on a team with a lot of freshmen,” [Gross] said. “But, I think we will surprise some people. We will be better than most people will expect.”

1. The Jersey Thread
(Pride of Pegula)

If you think about it, the revealing of Penn State's NCAA jerseys is really the only big thing left unannounced to this point, so why not hit the boards and engage in some pointless and ultimately futile (but fun) speculation about it?

The picture leading this post is the official TYT endorsement for the jersey design. For the home and away, I kept the lettering and numbering basic (because we are Penn State) and the striping single to mirror PSU's iconic football helmets, which hockey borrows as well. I didn't include the chipmunk anywhere, because I concluded that "PENN STATE" lettering has been more significant as an element of historic PSU hockey jerseys and adding a chipmunk would clutter things. That said, I would be open to using it as a shoulder patch or even in place of the front numbers, similar to the current jerseys. Or, you could even remove the last names and place a small chipmunk in that space, which would be pretty solid. Anyway the alternates, of course, are a nod to the jerseys of the first varsity team in 1940-1941:

Special thanks to PoP proprietor Aaron Griffin, who really deserves credit for the idea on the alternates, by the way.

If you want a better look, click here (after allowing me to remind you that I'm some random guy in Ohio with zero influence on the jersey design process). If you think you can do better, well that's what the thread is for.

Best of the Rest

Pegula Ice Arena Construction Photo Gallery
(statecollege.com)

Friend of TYT Ben Jones took some time off from covering the Jerry Sandusky trial to snap some PIA site pictures. He stole my thunder on that a little, but I'm not at all mad - I avoid Sandusky coverage as much as I possibly can (unfortunately - in this case - staying on top of PSU hockey news means I have to keep up with "general" PSU news outlets, so...), I can only imagine what it's like, for someone who cares at all about Penn State, to have to take a front-row seat to it as a job requirement. Taking a break to give some time to a positive story, yeah, I get that.

Anyway, they're from last Wednesday. And looking quite good.

Lions, and Dutchmen, and Bears! Oh my!
(Stack the Pads)

Be on the lookout for some great PSU coverage from StP, with special attention given to the goaltenders. I think it's axiomatic in the hockey world that non-goalies don't truly get goalies, so I'm looking forward to the insight.

Coaching veteran Guy Gadowsky to speak at Hockey Coaches Conference‏
(The Coaches Site)

I mentioned this in a Three Stars a couple weeks ago, but since the hosts actually sent me the press release, I'll give them one more go. I have no idea how they even know of TYT, but I'm honored to be considered that legitimate. Here's the canned quote on Gadowsky:

"Guy Gadowsky is one of the top amateur coaches in North America. He built both the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Princeton University Mens’ programs into National contenders; however, it’s his track record of developing his players on the ice and in the classroom which sets him apart." said Aaron Wilbur, managing director of the Coaches Site. "His contributions to grass roots hockey are immeasurable and we are excited to have him represent the NCAA and Penn State University."

@TheoFleury14
(Twitter)

Correction: Tim Curley, Gary Schultz and Graham Spanier allegedly (for the time being, that word still needs to be in there) tried to cover this up to protect there [sic] 51 million dollar a year profitable football program. I've never done 28 tons of blow over a decade and a half, but not surprisingly, it apparently affects your cognitive abilities.

I try to stay out of the whole thing as much as possible unless it touches the hockey program in some way (AD changes, Terry Pegula reaffirming his donation, etc.) and like I just mentioned, I don't envy those who don't have a choice in the matter. But a hockey hall of famer guy who could have been a hockey hall of famer, had he not trashed his career, tweeting about it is noteworthy, I guess.

Ohio State men's hockey schedule coming together for last CCHA season
(examiner.com)

Included for the fact that an Ohio State guy semi-admits to his program's weakness. There's something that doesn't happen very often. Well, it doesn't in football, but maybe it does it hockey. Going to have to play the "I'm still new here" card on that.

The format [for the Pittsburgh College Hockey Invitational] has not been decided but if it’s one where the winners advance to the title game then Robert Morris would likely select OSU for its first game based on Miami’s better record the past few seasons.

It’s unlikely the Buckeyes and Miami would want to face each other in a nonconference game unless some hardware was at stake.

So...RMU wouldn't pick Miami because OSU sucks more. They wouldn't pick PSU - which, it has to be said, sucks more than everyone as a new program until otherwise proven - because OSU would throw a hissyfit about playing Miami in a non-conference game. Hey, here's an idea: pick Miami anyway and give us PSU-OSU, RMU-Miami. Because pairwise credit is fun and everyone gets two games regardless. And because it's the best draw of any of the arrangements. And because RMU plays both PSU and OSU in December.

Wait, that's what the Target Center looks like?

NCHC believes its on target with tournament site
(Omaha World-Herald)

Since the NCHC hitting the Target Center in Minneapolis for their tournament (opposite the Big Ten in St. Paul) is old news now, I searched for, and found, an article with something more interesting than the typical write-up.

"I’m sure the Target Center is willing to go head-to-head with the Big Ten, based on the teams," [Nebraska-Omaha coach Dean] Blais said. "Obviously if Minnesota is playing (in St. Paul), they’ll sell it out. But if fans can’t get tickets to that, or — nothing against Penn State or Michigan or Michigan State or the Big Ten — if those teams are playing, I think they’ll want to see our tournament."

Two can play at that game, Deano. If North Dakota's out of the NCHC tournament, you're left with a choice of: a) two branch campuses, b) two MAC schools (and I love the MAC as a current student at a member school), c) two schools 900+ miles away and d) St. Cloud State in e) a facility that's almost universally seen as second-rate for hockey compared to the Big Ten's Xcel Energy Center. So good luck with that. The Big Ten, without Minnesota, still offers three all-time top ten men's hockey programs and five schools with universal brand recognition. And (including Minnesota again) the main campuses of two NCHC schools, although Nebraska doesn't sponsor hockey yet.

Actually, it is worth pointing out that the Big Ten's entire tournament will be played in St. Paul (or Detroit, in alternating years). In other words, Minnesota will have at least one game at the Xcel Energy Center every single year the tournament is there. North Dakota, on the other hand, will have to get through a best-of-three campus site first round to make it to Minny. They probably will most of the time, but hey, no guarantees when you've recruited the eight best hockey programs in the country into one conference.

Quick break while I finish laughing from typing that last sentence...

ND vote lets school scrap Fighting Sioux nickname
(Yahoo!)

I'm. So. Pumped. And no, it has nothing to do with my opinion of Native American mascots, the NCAA's rule on them or the larger social and political issues involved. I just hate North Dakota, so things that make them sad make me happy, simple as that. All of that said, this is The Story That Will Never Die (TM), so I'm not throwing the party until what's apparently a minority of the state's residents are unsuccessful in their next avenue of appeal, an attempt at a constitutional amendment.

Back at ya, buddy.

NCAA Sends North Dakota State's Championship Banner To Rival UND
(SB Nation Minnesota)

This isn't a hockey story, but it's hilarious. Fun fact: North Dakota State has more hockey national championships than North Dakota. 8-7.

Ice Hockey Will Host Delaware in Outdoor Game
(godutchmen.com)

Lebanon Valley College is taking on the defending ACHA national champs at Hersheypark Stadium on January 22nd, following an AHL outdoor game between Hershey and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on the 20th. If LVC gets their team up to standard, it should be a great event.

PIA Construction: June 15, 2012

Fifth in a series tracking Pegula Ice Arena construction every few weeks (February 7, 2012 / March 27, 2012 / April 10, 2012 / May 20, 2012).

As always, clicking any of these photos brings up a gallery where they appear larger.

I decided to approach this entry the same way I did the last one - by taking a lap around the site starting at the University Drive-Curtin Road intersection and snapping a picture wherever it looked good.

It's kind of nice that there's something visible off of University, now that steel has gone up.

Wait, what's that up ahead? AN OPEN GATE INTO THE SITE?!? I walked in...

Out of nowhere, I was approached by a guy important enough to drive a car around a construction site. The conversation went something like this*:

Him: Where are you going?
Me: Somewhere I can look without being bothered.
Him: How did you get in here?
Me: I'm a ninja spy. I could break into Cheyenne Mountain if I felt like it. I don't feel like it today and instead decided to walk through your open gate.
Him: You're just looking around?
Me: No, I forgot to mention - I'm a ninja spy terrorist. This place will be rubble by the end of next week.

* The conversation went nothing like that. My half was "Out," "Ummm...I walked in the open gate," and "Yeah, I'm just a fan, chillax**."

** I didn't say "chillax."

Actually, I'm remebering the sequence of events wrong. That conversation happened after this:

Here's a view of the ice from the second row in the corner. I climbed up on the steel to take it. Don't tell anybody.

Hey, the community rink is important too...just not yet, I guess.

I tried to approximate the view from the student section with this next one. The steel up so far is on the opposite end (obviously), and turning the corner to the side that will have the penalty boxes.

Since I can't really count on those types of pictures every time, I went back out and got a baseline reading from the concrete bench behind the Shields Building and from near where the main entrance will be.

I have no idea what this is, but it's brickwork just to the right of the main entrance and it looks legit.

Breakout Past: Huntsville Channel Cats

In 2003-2004, and following highly-decorated careers at Penn State, goalie Scott Graham and defenseman Josh Mandel played for the Huntsville Channel Cats of the SEHL. The pair are, of course, Icers legends and also members of the only class in team history to win the Murdoch Cup in every season of their college careers.

The Cats, who played in the Von Braun Center - also the home of upcoming PSU opponent Alabama-Huntsville - enjoyed a hugely successful season with a 43-13-2 regular season record and the President's Cup playoff championship of the four-team circuit. Graham was 10-1-1 with a 2.98 goals against average as the team's primary backup goalie. Mandel played in 37 games, registering a goal and 13 assists.

Unfortunately, the pro careers of the two Penn Staters, the Channel Cats and the SEHL all died following that season amidst the perpetual reshuffling of low-level minor league hockey in the southeast U.S. in those years.

A brief history: the Atlantic Coast Hockey League played only one season, 2002-2003, then split into two competing leagues, the SEHL and WHA2, for 2003-2004. After that season a new league, the SPHL, formed and absorbed teams from the going-defunct SEHL and WHA2. The SPHL, however, accepted a competing bid for the Huntsville market over the Channel Cats, bringing an end to the franchise that had played since 1995 in several different leagues. The SPHL and that competing bid, the Huntsville Havoc, are still around today (an eternity in low minor league hockey terms), so I suppose things worked out for the best.

Anyway, from the Tim Hanselman collection, here are some photos of Graham and Mandel in action for the Channel Cats. Apologies for the quality in some cases. These were internet printouts, mostly stretched beyond their resolution, and jammed into an envelope buried in Selinsgrove, PA for eight years before I got my hands on them and dropped them in a scanner.

First, Graham. Most of these can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Now, Mandel. These are of much lower quality than the Graham pictures and can be enlarged a little, but not nearly as much.