I've been writing here from time to time since the Frozen Four came to Philly back in April, and with the new season ready to officially commence this coming weekend, I realized I hadn't formally presented my credentials.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, but I graduated from Boston College in May of 2000 -- as our own Julie Robenhymer was finishing up her freshman year at UMass-Amherst -- and those four years on the Heights were as intensive a course in college hockey as I'll ever experience as a fan and nascent broadcaster, culminating in covering the second-ever "Frozen Four."
Spending the bulk of my adult life back in Philly, following Division I hockey hasn't been easy so going on the road year after year to take it in has been a wonderful necessity. I eventually stopped living in Boston, but it never left me.
I'm the kind of person that has Flyers-Hurricanes and Avalanche-Ducks games to cover at work on a Friday or Saturday night, but will flip incessantly to NBCSN or raid the satellite dish to watch NESN's presentation of the Hockey East playoffs.
I've been writing in various online media outlets for the past eight years, and it's inevitable that the longer I go in the business and the older I get, the less I remember from this morning and the more I recall and in greater detail at least a decade ago.
So, I hope you'll indulge me while I tack on remembrances of a young idiot behind a microphone during my senior year from time to time along with engaging weekly content that tries to pass along historical information and hit on key themes that arise during the current college hockey season.
On with the show.
PENN STATE TRYING TO GROW, REMAIN COOL UNDER PRESSURE IN SECOND BIG TEN SEASON
Play that game 100 times, maybe Penn State wins one more time than it actually did.
Heading into a single-elimination Big Ten playoff contest at Xcel Energy Center back on March 20, the Nittany Lions, ranked sixth out of six teams, were a 7-25-2 squad carrying a 3-16-1 conference record against third-seeded Michigan.
It figured to be a runaway success for the Wolverines, 10-time national champions who were on the cusp of an NCAA tournament berth as long as they made a strong showing in St. Paul. Forget about the fact that the Lions stopped the Maize and Blue for two of their three conference victories in the regular season, their opponents were slogging through a second season in Division I hockey.
But PSU played nothing short of a program-defining game and pulled off the biggest upset in recent memory. Matt Skoff stopped 52-of-54 shots and freshman forward Zach Saar beat Zach Nagelvoort at the 12:47 mark of double overtime to give the nascent program a 2-1 victory and a berth in the semifinals.
The fallout was steep for Michigan. As the 16th out of 16 teams in USCHO’s Pairwise Rankings, it fell completely out of the national picture and failed to snag a postseason berth thanks to that premature exit. For Penn State, a mixture of ecstasy for knocking off a long-time rival and some burning questions from the outside on how it could have played so badly for a whole season and then turn on the jets when nobody was looking.
Expectations are naturally raised for this season, as they usually are for major Division I universities with strong athletic pedigrees, though they should not quite be within in the order and magnitude predicted by Chris Peters, in his hyperbolic commentary on USCHO from last October:
"Penn State, having taken the leap into Division I, is now college hockey’s guinea pig. They have an unbelievable leg up with the monetary commitment from Terry Pegula, which not every school would be able to enjoy. It’s a program that seems destined for success. How quickly the Nittany Lions can achieve that success may be a motivating factor for other schools to take a look at forming a college hockey program.
"It’s not what Penn State does this season that will matter to college ADs, but what it does next year and the year after. The Nittany Lions are the new shiny thing on campus right now. If they struggle in the standings, will the stands remain full? Will they keep getting games on national TV? Will their fans travel well? Will they win? These are the questions that are going to be of importance to big-program athletic directors going forward."
That kind of albatross is beneficial for the national press to hang on the man in charge. You can surmise that Guy Gadowsky will be more pleased if the game-to-game effort over the coming regular-season slate is more consistent than last year, and if this year’s team posts a couple more wins -- and some additional signature victories at that -- through the end of the schedule rather than winning at the kind of pace which will stir the likes of Arizona State to consider bumping up its club team to varsity status.
State College is Gadowsky’s third stop on his collegiate coaching tour, but he’s likely to never have experienced the kind of scrutiny that a school which toils almost exclusively under a million-candlepower glare can draw.
The 47-year-old native of Edmonton was a forward for four years with Colorado College from 1983-87, and began his time behind the bench with the Fresno Falcons of the late, unlamented Western Professional Hockey League following retirement nine years later.
He landed at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks of the late, lamented CCHA in 1999, and turned the Nanooks -- nothing more than a six-win afterthought in the conference that boasted Michigan, Michigan State, Northern Michigan and Ferris State as the cream of the crop -- into a program which flexed its elbows alongside the aforementioned schools three years later as a 22-win season unfolded.
Gadowsky's next challenge was heading to the East Coast to take hold of the moribund Ivy and ECAC laughingstock Princeton in 2004, who had won a total of eight games the previous two seasons combined. After going 8-20-3 in his first year attending to matters of the Orange and Black, the Tigers claimed 10 and 15 victories before cresting with campaigns of 21 (2007-08) and 22 (2008-09) victories each.
The downside to that success came over the next two years, as Princeton settled for 12 and 17 wins, respectively, before Gadowsky departed to take the challenge in building a program in Happy Valley. After he produced a 13-14-0 record two years ago against a mixed-bag of competition, a tougher D-I schedule against some heady traditional powers virtually ensured a lesser result last year.
However, the schedule-makers have been kind to the Blue and White for their third season in D-I and second in the Big 10.
Six of their first eight games, starting with two against new Hockey East entrant UConn, will be contested at Pegula Ice Arena. The other two are back in the 49th state, against UAF and the University of Alaska. They're not scheduled to take on a conference opponent on the road until back-to-back nights at Yost Ice Arena against Michigan on November 21-22. There’s also nine straight tilts which take place in "friendly confines:" a six-game homestand as the Spring semester begins (Jan. 9-24), then a brief trip to Philadelphia for the third annual College Hockey Faceoff with Vermont on January 31, and two more in Centre County against Wisconsin the second weekend in February.
“(I’m) extremely optimistic. As I said before, it's an incredible honor to play in this league, and I spoke about the venues and the atmosphere. And I think Penn State, what we have in terms of our venue and our atmosphere, deserves to be right up there in the Big Ten,… Gadowsky offered following a season-ending -2-1 loss to Wisconsin one night after the shocker over Michigan. “It's very motivating. I think it attracts great student-athletes. I do think we've come a long, long way. ‘Skoffer’ mentioned the difference between our first Big Ten game and the one that we just played. There's a huge difference. There's just a difference in confidence and in our experience. And I feel like we're just a much, much different hockey team.…
To that end, Gadowsky has made a shift in nominal team leadership, as outlined by Mary Clarke from Victory Bell Rings, who attended the men’s program’s media day last week:
"Penn State changed captains from two-year senior captain Tommy Olczyk to fellow senior defenseman Patrick Koudys. The move wasn’t surprising, given Koudys’ contributions to the team on and off the ice and Gadowsky’s high praise of him, but it left a lot of people wondering what happened with Olczyk. ‘Tommy’s still a great leader on this team,’ Gadowsky said. ‘You don’t have to wear a letter to be a great leader.’ Now with the team in a period of (stability), Gadowsky said the players and coaches made the unanimous decision to give Koudys the 'C' due to the growth of the program."
Skoff, now a junior, has gotten Gadowsky’s nod as the No. 1 guy right from the drop. The 23-year-old had been in a season-long battle last year with P.J. Musico and Eamon McAdam for the starting job, and appeared to have a lock on it after his stellar playoff starts. Skoff spent time in the off-season training with the San Jose Sharks at their development camp, while five other teammates also took a turn with NHL-level eyes peering at their progress including Koudys who is a Washington Capitals draft pick (fifth round, 2011).
Another storyline, this one of a more humanistic bent, centers around David Glen. Glen, a forward, assistant captain and native of the Edmonton area, surrendered a portion of his season in order to undergo a bone-marrow harvesting procedure. The marrow ended up helping an unknown middle-aged female and Glen’s sacrifice drew attention and praise throughout the hockey world last January. He’s back, and healthy, and needs to improve upon his three goals in 32 games if the Nits are to make any headway.
Since Minnesota, the national runner-up and preseason top-ranked school, is considered the only lock to make things difficult in the Big Ten, Gadowsky may be under increased pressure to pull a little bit more of the future back into the present. As the steady hand picked to guide the club through a transition period, he is likely not the man who will lead Penn State into any long-standing glory.
But, given Gadowsky's history, patience and confidence are the only true sentiments that should be shared by observers at the moment.