STATE COLLEGE — Despite recent road bumps, Penn State club roller hockey competed in the National Collegiate Roller Hockey Association (NCRHA) from Friday, April 2, to Sunday, April 6.
A couple of years ago, Penn State decided to extend its gym area in the Intramural Building, putting gym equipment on the roller hockey rink. With nowhere to practice, the Club Roller hockey team was forced to find other options.
Now, the team practices twice a week either at a local YMCA, an outdoor rink or an indoor facility, not a rink, at C3 Sports. Due to a lack of funding, the team has to pay for these off-campus practice facilities out of its own pockets.
Also, a recent adjustment the team has had to make is the loss of a formal coach. In 2024, Penn State relied solely on team captains and the executive board to run the team. Something that was weird for the team at first.
“It’s kind of that awkward position where you’re trying to tell people what to do, but you also know that they’re older, or could have been playing hockey longer than you and it just gets a little bit funky,” club vice president and team captain Roman Rennebeck said.
Regardless, the Nittany Lions pushed through the adversity and made it to Nationals all the way in Fort Myers, Florida. Twenty-three other teams also made the trip, including Vermont, the University of Massachusetts and Purdue.
Due to funding, the team chose to take the over 18-hour drive down to the tournament. To make the ride easier, Penn State chose to switch everyone’s car every couple of hours, a testament to how close the team was.
“We tried to switch it up a bit and kinda do musical cars,” club president Jonathan Lust said. “We would drive three, four hours and then in small cars and then switch every rest stop, so you aren’t talking to the same person for 18 hours.”
Once in Fort Myers, the team had plenty of time to explore the area outside of hockey, something that wasn’t the case in 2023 when the Nationals were in Maine. The Nittany Lions spent time at the beach, playing mini golf and enjoyed the great food scene.
Penn State wasn’t there to mess around, though, and it performed well during the games. How the tournament was set up, the first three games were pool play games, with the top teams moving on to the knockout stage.
In the first game, the Nittany Lions took down Cal Poly in an 8-5 thriller, followed by a one-goal loss to Florida. Now, one and one in pool play, Penn State needed a win in the final game to clinch the knockout stage. With everything on the line, the team’s motivation was the epitome of club sports and more mini golf.
“We knew going into that game, no matter whether it was an overtime or shootout or regulation, we had to win that game to move on,” Rennebeck said. “The team’s motivation was that night we wanted to go play mini golf.”
The little links turned out to be the perfect inspiration as the Nittany Lions took down Chattanooga 3-2 in an overtime thriller.
After all the games wrapped up that day, the seeding was announced and Penn State was set to take on Oswego, the team that beat them in the conference finals less than a month earlier. This time, the Nittany Lions were more prepared and took home an 8-0 win when it mattered most.
“It was a really good feeling for us,” Rennebeck said. “It was kind of like payback on a team that we’ve played all season long and when it mattered most, we did the job and put it away.”
“We understood that the motto was it’s a zero-zero game. I don’t care if this game ends up at 30 nothing,” Lust added. “It was kind of that, no mercy, remember what they did to us a month ago.”
Unfortunately, the highs could not continue, and Penn State fell in the next game, the quarterfinals, to Florida Gulf Coast. The team battled but could not find the offense to surmount the Eagles.
With a fantastic season over, Lust and Rennebeck hope they have left Club Roller Hockey in a good place for next year’s leaders.
