I made my first trip to Happy Valley today to have a chat with newly appointed head coach of the Penn State hockey program, Guy Gadowsky. You'll see the interview in an episode of the College Hockey Spotlight later this fall but here are some fun tidbits I learned during my time at State College.
- Gadowsky will coach the team in it's final season as a club program before making the jump to D-I in 2012-13. He's hoping to start some good training habits and win more than a few hockey games along the way.
- He's already started recruiting with some of those players starting at Penn State this fall and playing for the club team.
- While it's great to find talented players, Gadowsky is looking for character guys who can lay a solid foundation of work ethic, team play and leadership.
- In their first season as a D-I program, which will be as an independent, they will go on an essential barn storming tour of Pennsylvania playing many of their home games at neutral sites throughout the state to help spread the word and gain excitement for the program.
- They are tentatively scheduled to play Wisconsin on the road that first year, but so far that is the only Big Ten school on the list.
- They plan to host a combination of Sabres development camps, training camps and pre-season games once the new building is complete.
Here are some pics from my trip that I posted on twitter.
Also, some developments in the Super League Saga:
- BC and BU were invited to join, but declined and are sticking with Hockey East.
- It appears Northern Michigan and Alaska will leave the CCHA and join the remaining members of the WCHA.
- It also appears Western Michigan and Notre Dame are somehow a package deal or at least they're trying to be since they are so close to each other and would make for convenient travel. We'll see how that works out, but while Notre Dame is taking their time weighing options between Hockey East and the Super League, Western is being aggressive about finding a new, competitive conference to join.
- It would be interesting to see if Lake State, Ferris State, Bowling Green recruit Alabama-Huntsville and some of the AHA schools like Mercyhurst, Robert Morris, and RIT to keep their conference alive. Just a thought!
Tomorrow, I'll be chatting with a few of the guys at Michigan….
Julie
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