Welcome to Hockey Valley!:
Posted on 10/12/2013 6:59:13 AM PDT by FlJoePa
UNIVERSITY PARK — The new building was beautiful, loud and packed to the rafters.
And nearly all of those fans left with smiles on their faces.
Aside from a few too many penalties, it was hard to ask for anything more of the Penn State ice hockey team in their new home, erupting for three third-period goals to put away Army 4-1 Friday night in the first game in Pegula Ice Arena.
“When there’s a packed barn like that, and those fans are yelling,” said defenseman Nate Jensen, who scored the first goal in the new rink, “you get jitters, you get nervous for those kind of games and it was fun.”
With 6,370 fans filling every corner of the brand new $90 million ice palace, the building was electrified long before the opening faceoff, with a huge roar when the team skated onto the ice for the first time.
Following team captains Tommy Olczyk of Penn State and Brian Schultz taking a ceremonial drop of the puck from Terry Pegula, whose donation made the moment possible, the energy in the arena grew even more. There also was a big roar of applause for Pegula when he was introduced.
Curtis Loik, David Goodwin and Eric Scheid netted the other goals for the Nittany Lions, Mac Lalor found the net for the Cadets and goalie Matthew Skoff made 25 saves to lock up the win.
After the final horn, players stood around center circle, tapped their sticks on the ice, waved them in the air, skated over to the student section to salute them, then linked arm-in-arm and sang along with the Blue Band to the Alma Mater.
“It’s cool to be a part of Penn State,” Skoff said. “It was good to have that special moment with the fans that hopefully are going to be there for the rest of the season for us. It was something special between us and the fans.”
Then, as the team left the ice, Jonathan Milley greeted each of his teammates with a high-five.
“I’m pretty bummed it’s out of the way,” Goodwin said. “I wish we could do it again.”
“I think it’s going to be this crazy throughout the whole year,” Jensen said. “When we score a goal it gets loud in there. I might black out every time I score.”
It took only 3 minutes and 2 seconds to get that first goal, raising the decibel level in the arena even more — if that was even possible.
Jensen took the puck from Holstrom at the point, took a stride toward the goal and fired it through a maze of players.
“Taylor passed it out to me and Max (Gardiner) was in front — he’s a big body,” Jensen said. “He pretty much just screened the goalie and I shot upper left. I kind of blacked out after. I didn’t know who scored. Taylor went down and did some (celebrating) on the ground so I was like, ‘Did he get the goal?’ It was just a good team effort. It’s an honor to get it.”
The goal came in front of that student section, which was harassing Cadets goalie Rob Tadazak all night – just like the place was designed.
“We don’t get that kind of student section at West Point,” Tadazak said. “It’s nice to have people screaming. It’s all fun and games. I was going to shake their hands after the game. It keeps it interesting.”
“The star of the show tonight was definitely the student section,” coach Guy Gadowsky said. “The atmosphere was tremendous. Walking out on the bench was a pretty phenomenal feeling.”
For Army, which had to deal with being in limbo with the shutdown of the U.S. government and questions of whether they were allowed to hold athletic events, it also was a thrill for the team to be a part of Penn State’s historic moment.
“It didn’t affect us in a negative way,” Army coach Brian Riley said. “I think all of our guys would tell you that they loved it. The fans were great, the student section – fantastic. This was what college hockey should be about.”
Being a part of the Nittany Lions’ history wasn’t affecting the Cadets as much as just being able to open the season.
“It was more like first-game-of-the-year jitters,” Tadazak said. “It’s kind of like Christmas morning to hockey players. I think we were more anxious to get going.”
Following the first goal, the Nittany Lions turned into their own worst enemy, picking up 11 penalties totaling 33 minutes, including a pair of 5-on-3 opportunities for Army. The Cadets, however, could only convert on one of those chances when the game was all but decided.
Gadowsky blamed associate athletic director Joe Battista, with home the coach had a conversation a few hours before the game.
“The last thing he said to me as I walked out of his office was, ‘We just can’t take a lot of penalties because the guys are so jacked up,’” Gadowsky said. “That’s I think what happened. Some of that is poor technique too. We’ve had a week of practice.”
It didn’t hurt too much.
While killing one of Army’s many power plays, David Goodwin poked the puck away out of the zone, and the puck bounced off a linesman back to Goodwin, who sent the puck across to Loik to start a 2-on-1 break. Loik kept the puck the rest of the way, ripping a wrist shot low past Tadazak’s glove side just inside the post.
Goodwin then tore down the ice on a 3-on-none break, with Dylan Richard and Zach Saar, and beat Tadazak on a low wrist shot to essentially wrap up the win. Saar was given the assist.
“All I remember was Richard yelling at me, ‘Shoot! Shoot! Don’t try to hold up and wait for me,’” Goodwin said. “I was like, ‘All right, I’ll go shoot.’ It went in. Pretty sweet.”
All those penalties finally caught up with the Nittany Lions with 4:21 left, during another 5-on-3 advantage, when Lalor fired a wrist shot wide open from the slot to spoil the shutout.
The team also got a pep talk from Pegula about 90 minutes before the game, and Gadowsky’s hopes of keeping his team calm were dashed.
“The guys were ready to chew nails after he left,” Gadowsky said.
No matter what, the Nittany Lions know it will be a night they will remember a long time.
“The first time when we went out there for warm-ups and we look up, it was just – I forget. I blacked out,” Goodwin said. “It was insane.”
Notes: During the second intermission, professional figure skater Michael Weiss gave a brief exhibition, doing a backflip over his son who was lying on the ice. Weiss is part of Musselman’s Family Skating Tribute Show, along with a number of other former Olympic figure skaters, scheduled for the arena Nov. 3. … Penn State hits the road next weekend for two games at Air Force – those games will definitely happen – beginning Friday. … The team returns to its new home Oct. 25 against RIT. … The three stars of the game were Skoff (1), Goodwin (2) and Holstrom (3). … The team resumed handing out the hardhat award for hard work in wins, and it was given to defenseman Patrick Koudys, who blocked five shots.
Welcome to Hockey Valley!:
Hide the kids.
Actually, kids (top hockey recruits) will be flocking to PSU and B1G schools now.
According to obama, that should be the “Nittaly Lions.”
I’ll bet that makes it tricky for the place kickers.
They should have burned the school to the ground after what they enabled.
Gophers hockey routs Mercyhurst in season opener
The Gophers’ search for an identity started well in Friday night’s season opener. Speed factored into nearly everything they did well in a 6-0 rout of Mercyhurst in the opening round of the Ice Breaker Tournament.
Breakaways continued to develop for the Gophers, and the goals eventually started piling up in front of an announced crowd of 9,196 at Mariucci Arena.
“I think it’s definitely an advantage for us,” said Gophers goaltender Adam Wilcox, who made 25 saves for his fourth shutout. “You can tell we have a lot of speed coming in this year with the freshmen. And [Nate] Condon and all [the returners] are fast.”
The scoring began in what Wilcox calls “Rau’s office” on the power play. Junior co-captain Kyle Rau waited patiently on the glove side of Mercyhurst goalie Jordan Tibbett and tapped in a 2-footer early in the first period.
Rau has a knack from scoring from that area.
He and Sam Warning each finished with three points, a goal and two assists apiece. Mike Reilly collected two points.
Six different players scored goals. Seth Ambroz, Justin Kloos, Reilly and Michael Brodzinkski had the other four.
The most impressive, and what might remain as one of the fanciest goals scored all season, came off the stick of Ambroz. The junior forward’s breakaway shot ricocheted off the post back into his hand. Despite skating past the net, he dropped the puck and backhanded it through his legs, where it found a Mercyhurst defender’s skate and bounced into the net.
Coach Don Lucia and Wilcox joked that it was something only Ambroz could have pulled off. The goal got a lot of laughs in the locker room, Wilcox said.
“Right now we need more juniors to step up. … It was good to see the three juniors score first,” Warning said.
Like many teams will be this year, the Lakers were bigger and older than the Gophers. In an attempt to offset any advantage in those areas, the Gophers were aggressive pushing the puck up ice. The speed-oriented game plan kept Mercyhurst on its heels.
Throughout these transitions, Kloos and Taylor Cammarata, both freshmen, were able to show off their speed. Warning was also quick and impressive on the ice despite sitting out last week’s exhibition for precautionary reasons.
Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin said this game wasn’t as bad as 2003, referring to the last time the two teams met (a 9-2 Gophers victory), but he said this year’s Gophers did not disappoint.
It would have taken a perfect effort on the Lakers’ part to stay in the game, Gotkin said.
The Gophers got into penalty trouble early, but the penalty killing never broke down. Condon was at the center of many of the Gophers’ six successful kills of Lakers’ power plays.
“This team is a little bit deeper [in speed] than last year,” Lucia said. “We got up and down the rink pretty good tonight.
“But at the same time, how is conditioning going to factor in this early in the season? And, on opening night, there is a little extra in Game 1.”
http://www.startribune.com/galleries/227463051.html
Burn down the school for the actions of an ex-employee? If they did that, there wouldn’t be any schools left.
B1G Hockey should just explode in the coming years. Very much looking forward to PSU being a part of it.
Nice Arena, maybe the tuition can go up to help the students. Nothing more than another money racket that will do nothing to further the education of the students. More sports and more mouth breathers to watch the games.
Now if only Pegula could get his Sabres to win.
The arena was 100% privately funded by an alum (the owner of the Sabres). Nice try though.
Given that the core of the B1G is Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan State, all traditional college hockey powers, they already are.
I know that, why doesn’t the alum dump money into tuition to help the students. It is a sad state of mind to put sports over the education.
PSU Hockey will turn a profit. PSU’s athletic department is completely in the black. Always has been - even while funding 40 sports and paying the ridiculous ncaa fines.
Not sure why you want to dictate what a private citizen does with his money. That seems out of line with this forum, imo.
No, for the actions of the entire administration in enabling what he did, even after he was caught.
Do you know something I don’t know? Who enabled js? In what manner? You read news stories and fairy tales from louis freeh. I read facts.
There is a trial scheduled - supposedly - in 2014 that will hopefully determine guilt or innocence of those you have already ascribed guilt to.
Why would you ascribe guilt to someone who hasn’t been proven of doing anything wrong? Do you know Tim Curley? I do. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s probably never had a parking ticket. He has children. He’s not an enabler. Anyone that says he is (including the PA OAG) is literally/physically out of their minds.
Period.
No it isn’t. After the truth about Paterno and Sandusky came out, they should have demolished the place and poured salt on the ground, a la ancient Carthage.
Shame on them.
For what it’s worth, I tend to agree that the institution, and the current administration, of Penn State should have suffered some serious consequences.
Look at what happened to Enron: no little boys were raped, there was no cover up of same, there were accounting irregularities and maybe even financial fraud ... and the entire Enron organization was disbanded, while its top executives went to jail. What happened at Penn State was far, far worse ... and it appears that substantially all the blame for the cover up has been placed on a dead man, and the organization just keeps on trucking along.
I think that, at least, the football program should have been shut down for a generation over what happened. I think there’s a case, though weaker, that the entire athletics department should have been shut down for a generation. I would not strongly advocate for closing the whole University, but I could see how such a step would be in the interest of justice, and of discouraging future cover ups at other institutions.
The functionally nothing that actually happened is a disgrace to the University, the State of PA, and, to a more dilute extent, the entire USA.
Who didn't?
In what manner?
Sandusky was raping boys on the Penn State campus for 17 years. 17 years. You can't tell me people didn't know about it.
We know that Sandusky was investigated for inappropriate contact with children in 1998. We know that he was told in 2001 to try to keep his child rape off-campus. We know that Paterno, Tim Curley, and some administration members were told what Mike McQueary saw in 2002, although the level of detail is certainly disputed. And yet Sandusky had access to locker rooms and other Penn State facilities until November of 2011.
Every boy Sandusky raped after 1998 was enabled by the Penn State administration because they kept him in a position to recruit, groom, and rape little boys, and an unknown number of other Penn State staff and administration knew about it and did nothing.
You read news stories and fairy tales from louis freeh. I read facts.
Facts? Was Sandusky *not* investigated in 1998? Were Paterno and Curley not informed by McQueary in 2002? Did Sandusky not rape boys in Penn State locker rooms for 15 years? If none of these things actually happened, I will be happy to stand corrected. So did none of them actually happen?
There is a trial scheduled - supposedly - in 2014 that will hopefully determine guilt or innocence of those you have already ascribed guilt to. Why would you ascribe guilt to someone who hasn’t been proven of doing anything wrong? Do you know Tim Curley? I do. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s probably never had a parking ticket. He has children. He’s not an enabler. Anyone that says he is (including the PA OAG) is literally/physically out of their minds.
Although I would note that I am not under the same "presumed innocent" obligations as a court of law, I have not ascribed guilt to anyone on an individual basis. Is it possible that Tim Curley will be exonerated and that he acted reasonably, that he didn't know anything? Sure, I suppose that's possible, though I doubt it. But do I think it's possible that *everyone* at Penn State will be exonerated? No. Regardless of the guilt or innocence of any individual, it seems clear to me that there were many in the administration, all the way to the top, who knew what was happening and allowed, even enabled, it to continue.
As an institution, then, Penn State is guilty of enabling at least 13 years of child rape. The NCAA - or the Big Ten, or a court of law - should have ordered the entire campus burned to the ground and the earth salted as a warning to every other institution of what happens when this kind of vile evil is tolerated and enabled in their midst.
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