Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1534903
M A Y 2 0 2 5 4 3 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M E D I T O R I A L MATT HERB MATT.HERB@ON3.COM I t was nearly two decades ago that the vision for a varsity ice hockey revival at Penn State began coming into focus. Nittany Lion Club executive director Joe Battista was having dinner with Terry Pegula in late 2006. Pegula was a 1973 PSU graduate and a petroleum engineer who had founded a prosperous natural gas drilling company. He was also a big hockey fan, and he couldn't help but wonder why the sport was conspicu- ously absent from Penn State's lineup of varsity teams. Battista, who had previously enjoyed great success as coach of the Penn State Icers club team, told Pegula over dinner that the funding simply didn't exist to build a Division I-caliber facility and es- tablish a program. "Money doesn't fall out of the sky from Harrisburg for schools like Penn State to do projects like this," he ex- plained. By 2010, however, the funding did ex- ist … just not where Battista had been looking. It hadn't fallen out of the sky; it had sprouted up from the ground. When Pegula sold his drilling company to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion, his alma ma- ter was one of the big beneficiaries. Pe- gula and his wife, Kim, gave $88 million to PSU to establish men's and women's varsity hockey programs and build what would become Pegula Ice Arena. The Pegulas' gift, the largest private donation in school history, was an- nounced on Sept. 17, 2010, in a ballroom at the Nittany Lion Inn. In front of a packed crowd of Penn State dignitaries, supporters and media, then-athletics di- rector Tim Curley said, "This is a banner day in the history of our great university, our athletic program, college hockey and our great community." Penn State would be starting from scratch. It hadn't fielded a varsity ice hockey team since the 1940s, when there was no indoor ice facility on campus and all but one of its 37 games were played on the road. But hopes were high that the Pegulas' investment, coupled with the strong grassroots support for hockey in a state with two NHL teams, would eventually produce the kind of programs that could compete at the sport's highest level. It's now been 15 years, and eventually has arrived. Combining homegrown Pennsylvania talent with players from the bountiful recruiting hotbeds of Canada, Europe and the Upper Midwest, the men's team reached the Frozen Four this spring, de- feating two higher-seeded opponents, Maine and Connecticut, to earn a place on collegiate hockey's biggest stage. It was the first Frozen Four appearance for the program, and although it ended in a 3-1 semifinal loss to Boston University, it's not hard to imagine the Lions return- ing someday — maybe someday soon. While it lost star goalie Arsenii Sergeev to the Calgary Flames shortly after the sea- son ended, next year's team will boast a pair of 2025 Hobey Baker Award finalists in rising junior forward Aiden Fink and junior defenseman Mac Gadowsky, the latter having recently transferred from Army to PSU, where he will play for his father, head coach Guy Gadowsky. Meanwhile, the women's program has been steadily rising since the arrival of coach Jeff Kampersal in 2017. As it did with Gadowsky when it launched the men's team, Penn State lured Kampersal from Princeton. He inherited a program that had struggled under the previous coaching regime, but the Lions grew more competitive over the next few years. The past three seasons, the Penn State women have taken it to another level. The Lions have made the NCAA Tourna- ment each of those years, and this past season was the winningest in school his- tory, with PSU compiling a 31-6-1 record on its way to claiming regular-season and tournament titles in the Atlantic Hockey America conference. On April 20, Penn State's program got another shot in the arm when one of its players — rising senior forward Tessa Janecke — played a starring role on an in- ternational stage. With just under three minutes remaining in overtime, Janecke scored the decisive goal in the United States' 4-3 victory over defending cham- pion Canada in the gold medal game of the International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championships. It was Janecke's third goal of the tournament, and her performance was entirely in keeping with what her team- mates and coaches at Penn State had come to expect. "She is dedicated to being the best," Kampersal said. "No one I've been around has worked harder at her craft than Tessa. I'm happy that all her winter morning hours have paid off in another championship moment." Given the way its programs are trend- ing, there could be more championship moments ahead for both the PSU men and women. The Pegulas' massive in- vestment has been paying some hand- some dividends lately. ■ Rising Penn State senior Tessa Janecke scored in over- time to lift Team USA past Canada, 4-3, in the gold medal game of the IIHF Women's World Championships. PHOTO BY TYLER MANTZ/PENN STATE ATHLETICS A Far-Sighted Investment Pays Off For Penn State VARSITY VIEWS