There is a lot of buzz in Hockey Valley surrounding Penn State men’s ice hockey and the commitment this week of Gavin McKenna. To put it in perspective for non-hockey people, this would be like signing Kobe Bryant or LeBron James out of high school. True hockey people see talents in McKenna that are well beyond normal.
His commitment to Penn State occurred live on ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” a first for a college hockey recruit. It set Penn State as a preseason favorite to win the national title. All lofty stuff, setting a new goal, a new summit to reach on the horizon of Hockey Valley.
More on that later…
Nothing worthwhile is ever achieved easily and that has certainly been the case for Penn State men’s ice hockey since the program became a varsity Division I program just over a decade ago. Guy Gadowksy was hired by Tim Curley to set the course.
From day one, Guy spoke about the traditions and standards of academic and athletic excellence that made Penn State unique in so many ways, Success with Honor. His idea was to build a program that embraced those standards and, win or lose, would inspire pride in Penn Staters everywhere.
More importantly it would produce men who left Penn State as better people than when they arrived at Penn State.
Fast forward to October 2024…
Penn State has made the NCAA tournament, has won the Big Ten and was an overtime goal away from the Frozen Four two years ago. The 2019-20 team may have broken that barrier had COVID-19 not cancelled the postseason.
The 2024-25 season started slowly, and as December turned to January the team was off to a bad start in the Big Ten. But a funny thing happened on the way to a lost season.
The culture of the program took over. Players genuinely cared about one another. That came through in the way they competed. The integrity of the program, one easily seen by three straight PERFECT NCAA Academic Progress Ratings, became the foundation for success.
Men who commit to doing things by taking the high road, rarely cave in the face of adversity. The wins started one after another. Multiple wins over the No. 1 team in the country, and multiple wins over the No. 2 team in the country.
An epic overtime goal sent them to the Frozen Four. Things were very good in Happy Valley. But no one outside the program could see what might come next.
In late March I did an interview with Russ Cohen who covers the NHL on NHL Radio as well as writes about sports in general. He interviewed me about my book “Blitzed—The All-Out Pressure of College Football’s New Era.” We talked a little bit about hockey.
About two weeks later Russ was doing some NHL Draft coverage and for the first time was hearing Penn State coming out of the mouths of a lot of elite hockey prospects. There was a buzz about Penn State. He asked me why that might be.
My response to him was simple: “Penn State is a program that coaches the detailed habits and fundamentals on the ice and in life that will make players successful professionals. It should come as no surprise anymore that everyone at Penn State is committed to excellence at the highest level. That is the Penn State way and recruits everywhere can see it.”
In the world of NIL when everything seems so chaotic, the smart people are looking for something real. Whether it was Jackson Smith (the 14th pick in this year’s NHL Draft) or Gavin McKenna or a guy like Charlie Cerrato last year (a second-round draft pick this year) or so many other key guys, they can sense something different, something better in Hockey Valley.
That is a testament to people in the program from the head coach to everyone involved.
And now that they’ve put together a tremendous roster the journey begins.
In this age, the key for any coach is this: Anyone can assemble a great roster, but can you forge them into a truly exceptional team?
The excitement is justified. The expectations are fun for the fans.
For the coaches and players, the journey will be fun. It will be difficult; there will be hard work and tough days. It will require focus and unwavering commitment to one another.
The coach I worked for used to warn his team about reading their own press clippings. “Publicity and praise are like poison. It will only hurt you if you swallow it.”
The spotlight on this team will be intense. There is no doubt about that. And the threats to a team’s culture can be real when a program reaches a certain level.
But given what we know about this program, its coaching success against top teams and about its leadership, we as fans can have the faith that the journey toward a new summit in Hockey Valley can be one for the ages.
