The hockey world is in mourning. Ken Dryden, the legendary Montreal Canadiens, Team Canada and Cornell University goalie, passed away Saturday at 78. He was a gentleman and a scholar, and a credit to our game.
Every Penn State hockey player and fan since 1971 should be mourning his passing as well.
Who was Ken Dryden?
- An NCAA Champion and First Team All-Tournament Goalie at Cornell (1967)
- A six-time Stanley Cup Champion (in only eight NHL Seasons) and NHL Hall of Fame goalie
- Team Canada goalie in the 1972 Super Series vs. the Soviet Union
- Color commentator for hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics including Team USA’s “Miracle on Ice” win over the Soviet Union
- Award winning author of “The Game,” “Home Game,” “The Series” and “Scotty”
- A successful lawyer and member of the Parliament of Canada
- President of the Toronto Maple Leafs
He was a true student-athlete who took off a whole NHL season to complete his law degree. The early ‘70s was a time of significant growth in hockey, and many people (including me) were falling in love with the game.
What does Ken have to do with Penn State ice hockey?
Without Ken Dryden there may not have been a second coming of varsity hockey at Penn State (hockey was varsity from 1939-1947). Dryden’s chance meeting, during a snowstorm in Ithaca, New York with Cornell chemistry graduate student Larry Hendry, would forever shape the future of Penn State hockey. Professor Hendry would land at PSU and help resurrect hockey in 1971, becoming its first coach in 25 years.
In fact, the first club hockey program in 1971-72 featured a silhouette of Ken Dryden because of his influence on Dr. Hendry. Without Ken, no Larry and possibly no PSU hockey. No Larry and I would never have played or coached at Penn State. Then Pegula Ice Arena, Big Ten hockey and the recent announcement of a game between projected preseason No. 1 Penn State and No. 2 Michigan State playing an outdoor game in Beaver Stadium on Jan. 31, 2026, may also have never happened.
I asked Coach Hendry to share his memory of that fortuitous experience with “Ken.” Here’s what he shared:
My dad, who was one of the fastest speed skaters in the world (he won the Silver Skates in Madison Square Garden) regularly took my brother and I to a frozen pond in Central Park. While dad was studying on the banks of the pond, we learned how to skate. We got hooked on skating and watching hockey and we started following the New York Rangers.
While I was attending Cornell in 1966, as a graduate student in chemistry, there was a snowstorm that produced almost 3 feet of snow. Driving was treacherous and slow as I was trying to see out the foggy front window. I see this thing in the middle of the road; it looked like a bear! Suddenly I realized it was a student, so I put on the brakes, and this guy comes running up and bangs on the side door.
“Can you give me a ride to campus?” he said. “Yeah, sure,” I replied. But I wasn’t sure he would fit, because he was huge! He wore this big fur coat, and his arm was filled with books. We were cramped in there together, breathing hard and causing more fog on the windshield. I was constantly wiping it off as we drove 5 mph to campus.
Well, this guy, Ken, starts talking, and he was just loquacious beyond belief. He said, “Hey, I’m a hockey player.” I said, “Oh, yeah?” He said, “Do you skate? Can you play hockey?” And I said, “Well, yes and no. I’ve never played hockey before, but it seems like an interesting sport.” He said, “Well, it’s the greatest sport on earth!”
Ken, a Toronto native, was a goalie on the Cornell team, and he talked about his family, his brother who was a goalie too, and that he loved Cornell. His first time starting was going to be that weekend and Ken said, “You gotta come!” I said, “Well, I’m not sure my wife is that interested in hockey, but maybe.” Ten minutes later, we get to school, and I drop him off at his classroom. He thanked me, and said, “I hope to see you on Saturday!”
That was the beginning of my real foray into ice hockey. At home I said to my wife, Wendy, a schoolteacher, “I picked up this big guy who looked like a bear,” and he said, “You gotta get to a hockey game.” Wendy looked at me and said, “Well, why not? We both have student sports passes.” So, we decided we’d go.
Saturday arrives and there’s a long, long line going around the rink. I figured, let’s just go home. But we didn’t. We waited in the line. We got into the rink, and it was packed. We were freezing, so I figured, well, let’s leave. Then the band starts up, and it was just crazy. Everybody starts yelling and screaming and singing. Just then, as the lights came on, the very first player out on the ice was this guy, the goalie. “Wendy, that’s Ken!”
Cornell was a very good team—in large part because of Ken Dryden. By the third period, we’re standing up clapping and singing. We learned some of the songs, and we were just hooked and that feeling has never ended. We called all our friends that were also graduate students and we said, “We just had this great experience at hockey. You gotta join us!” Soon over a hundred of our friends were going. Cornell won the NCAA championship that year. Wendy and I were at the game and Ken was a huge hero. Cornell won the national championship the fourth year I was there too, the only undefeated champion in NCAA history.
Another surprising opportunity came up at Cornell: They needed officials for intramural hockey. Next thing I know I’m doing high school games, and Ithaca College games. I passed the exam for the National Hockey Officials Association and so I became an NCAA college hockey official. All because my dad made us learn to skate and I met the legendary Ken Dryden during a snowstorm.
I graduated from Cornell with my Ph.D. in chemistry and landed a faculty job at Penn State. I knew Penn State because of the football team and knew they had a rink there, so I thought, “Jeez, what an opportunity.” The first day there, I set up my office and I hung up my Gordie Howe poster, as he was my hero. Afterwards, I went to the rink to say hello to the coaches and the rink manager and see if I could get some games as an official.
I meet the rink manager, Earl Boal, a really nice fellow. I said I was there to see the hockey coaches as I was an NCAA referee and was interested in doing some games. He looked at me funny, and said, “You know, you’re in for a surprise.” He walked me into the rink and all I see are these figure skaters. It was literally just a skating rink, with no boards for hockey. Earl said there hadn’t been hockey for 25 years at Penn State. I was crushed. I gave Wendy a call, and said, “We need to go someplace else because I don’t want to be at a school that doesn’t have ice hockey.”
After thinking about it, I made a bold move to go see the Dean of Athletics, Robert Scannell. He was very cordial, and I said, “I’m an instructor of chemistry, so I appreciate you seeing me.” I asked, “Why was there no ice hockey here?” He got very angry and said, “There’s no ice hockey here, there hasn’t been any for 25 years, and there’s never going to be any at Penn State.” He had a degree from Notre Dame and told me that there would never be ice hockey at Notre Dame, and repeated nor would there be at Penn State. I was absolutely shocked.
Down but not out, I met with some student hockey enthusiasts on campus. There was one (freshman Roy Scott) who had put up posters that said, “Why don’t we have ice hockey at Penn State?” I saw them while walking around campus—there were a bunch of them. And evidently, there was a hockey club. When I met with these students, we got all riled up. I beamed, “You know we gotta do something here.”
They said, “Yeah, we’ve been trying for years, and the administration doesn’t want to do anything.” So, they started a petition for ice hockey, and thousands of people signed up! By then, I had talked to a lot of the faculty and some of the other students, and I said, “You know, this is pretty significant.” I determined that there was interest in ice hockey here, and I went back to Dean Scannell. I said, “Look at this petition.” I showed him all the stuff. The dean simply said, “You know, it’s not going to happen. Nobody, and I mean nobody in State College or at Penn State is interested in hockey.” So, I got the door again.
Resolved, I went back in for the fifth time—there were several times in between. I said, “Dean Scannell, we’ve got 3,000 signatures on a petition on campus, but we also have an additional 6,000 from the local Nittany Mall. There are people in State College that want ice hockey.” He looked at me. He said, “Thank you, Larry. That’s very nice to do that. The answer is still no.”
I was upset—to the end of the world. I’m walking down the hall, having tears in my eyes and realizing I’m leaving this school. His secretary came running out of his office down the hall and said, “Dean Scannell would like to see you.” So, I went back in. He said, “Larry, did you say that you would take full responsibility for the entire program?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He sheepishly said, “Ok, I’ll see what I can do.”
A couple of weeks later they started building boards in the rink and we got the team together. Almost 200 people showed up to play Club A, Club B and intramural hockey. And that’s how hockey returned to Penn State.
So now you know the rest of the story. RIP Ken Dryden and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
