After it was first announced in June 2023 that Tennessee State would field an NCAA Division I men’s hockey team for the upcoming 2025-26 season, it appears that will not happen.

According to a report in the Tennessean, “uncertainty about a home ice location or practice facilities, a lack of fundraising, and unrest about the school’s financial situation are all contributing factors for the delay of the program.”

Tennessee State would have been the first-ever hockey team at an historically black, public university. It now appears that 2026-27 will be the earliest the Tigers will take the ice.

A source with knowledge of the situation, who wished to remain anonymous because the news has not been made official, told the paper that Tennessee State’s hockey team had not met its fundraising goals for 2025-26.

Duanté Abercrombie was named the Tigers’ inaugural coach in April 2024.

Penn State (22-14-4) reached the Frozen Four for the first time last season after defeating Connecticut 3-2 in overtime to win its regional final. It lost 3-1 to Boston University in the national semifinals.

The program moved to the NCAA Division I level for the 2012-13 season and has made a rapid ascent.

“I think it’s just a lot of work from a lot of people in the hockey program and the athletic department and the community, the alumni,” Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky said. “So many people that have been doing a lot of work for the program since its inception. I guess it’s just the law of the farm that you keep doing the job, and eventually you get rewarded for it.”

McKenna said another of the aspects that swayed him was the facilities for the players, which are housed at Pegula Ice Arena. The building is named for Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula.

“It’s all hockey all the time,” Gadowsky said. “This building is for them. … I’ve never seen a better hockey weight room, and it’s literally, it’s 10 feet across the hall from our locker room. They thought of making sure that we have great nutrition right in the locker room area, everything from the underwater treadmill and athletic training facilities right in the locker room. Everything is extremely convenient for the hockey players and that’s something that was important to Mr. Pegula.

“The atmosphere right from Day 1 was incredible, and as we’ve improved, they’ve improved. This is the most fun place to watch a hockey game, that’s for sure.”

McKenna will have help this season. Defenseman Jackson Smith, selected by the Columbus Blue Jackets with the No. 14 pick of the 2025 NHL Draft, will join McKenna as a freshman. The 18-year-old was 10th among WHL defensemen last season with 54 points (11 goals, 43 assists) in 68 games with Tri-City.

Among the returning players from last season will be the team’s top two scorers, forwards Aiden Fink and Charlie Cerrato.

Fink, a Nashville Predators prospect, was fourth among NCAA players with 53 points (23 goals, 30 assists) in 40 games. Cerrato, who had 42 points (15 goals, 27 assists) in 38 games, was chosen by the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round (No. 49) of the 2025 NHL Draft. He’s the second-ever Penn State player to be chosen in the NHL draft, and first since Denis Smirnov by the Colorado Avalanche in the sixth round (No. 156) of the 2017 NHL Draft.

In addition, Gadowsky was a finalist for the Spencer Penrose Award as NCAA Division I coach of the year.

“The main goal is obviously to win a championship,” McKenna said. “I think you kind of saw what Penn State did this year, making it to the Frozen Four. They’ve come a long ways, and I think next year when I go there, obviously that’s the goal, to win a championship with them.”

Other players selected in the 2025 draft committed to play NCAA hockey this season include forward Cole Reschny (No. 18, Calgary Flames), who is leaving Victoria of the WHL for the University of North Dakota; and forward Malcolm Spence (No. 43, New York Rangers), who is going to the University of Michigan from Erie of the Ontario Hockey League.

Defenseman Keaton Verhoeff, another top prospect for the 2026 draft, will attend North Dakota after playing the past two seasons with Victoria.

NHL.com senior draft writer Mike G. Morreale contributed to this report

This past season, Michigan State hockey had the top player in all of college hockey, Isaac Howard, who won the Hobey Baker award for what many thought would be one last ride. After a trade on Wednesday between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Edmonton Oilers, Howard will be leaving East Lansing after all.

Sarah Dunkel-Jackson and her husband, Jim, started a baseball league in Michigan for kids with unique medical and learning needs five years ago. 

Intertwined with her work as a researcher and professor at Michigan State University, Dunkel-Jackson conducted a formal program evaluation of the league, which involved talking with players, parents and coaches about how it could be improved.

“Overwhelmingly it was positive, but the thing to improve baseball was to add more sports,” Dunkel-Jackson said. “I was reviewing it with my son, and he said, ‘Mom, can we do hockey?’

“And I said, ‘You know what? Let’s do it.’”

That’s how the Hockey Challenge Camp was born. The camp is open to younger kids all the way up through young adults, some who’ve played hockey before on organized teams and others who are new to playing the sport. The camp takes players of all abilities and ages.

Dunkel-Jackson recently won the Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award for her work founding the camp. The annual award is given to someone who has positively affected their community, culture or society all through the sport of hockey. 

The nomination itself excited Dunkel-Jackson because it gave her a chance to highlight the importance of accessible sports and a community coming together to run a program like Hockey Challenge Camp.

“It doesn’t have to be this scary, really difficult thing to do,” Dunkel-Jackson said. “You just get some really good community members together and some good organizations who share those values and who can run a program like this.”

She was also excited about the award because of the “incredible story” of O’Ree. Dunkel-Jackson recalled reading the chapter about him in Wayne Gretzky’s book, “99: Stories of the Game.”

“That was really cool to see that, somebody who’s already overcome barriers to accessing sports like hockey,” Dunkel-Jackson said. “Just to be said in the same sentence as him was kind of, ‘Wow,’ humbling and a big honor.”

Sports have always been a big part of Dunkel-Jackson’s life. She grew up right outside East Lansing, Michigan, and loved watching her little brother play hockey. However, she didn’t play because there weren’t girls teams when she was a kid. 

Dunkel-Jackson ran track, played basketball, won a softball state championship her senior year of high school and played lacrosse in college.

After grad school, she and her husband moved to Ontario and worked with kids with disabilities. They later moved back to Michigan and Dunkel-Jackson got her job at MSU. She’s part of the Research in Autism and Developmental Disabilities Lab and the Department of Human Development and Family Studies.

As coaches for softball and baseball in the community program, the couple saw kids who’d stop coming to practices because they weren’t quite at the skill level. That sparked the need to start the Baseball Challenge League, finding a way to make the sport work for kids no matter their ability level.

“Being part of a team is something all kids should get a chance to do,” she said. “When we saw that not a lot of kids had the opportunity to participate in a sport because they just weren’t being able to adapt to their needs, I just wanted to do something about that. Every kid should have a chance to play.”

Dunkel-Jackson is also the guardian for her older cousin, Stephanie, who’s participated in the Special Olympics, plays a variety of sports and is a bocce ball state champion.

This year’s Hockey Challenge Camp will be held mornings in the first week of August. Every participant gets one or two hockey buddies who play hockey on house or travel teams. Buddies help campers learn to skate and spend time on the ice together.

The camp includes various on-ice and off-ice sessions. The first is for the hockey buddies as an orientation to educate them about questions such as: What is a disability? What are invisible and visible disabilities? How can they help campers and meet them with their specific needs? They also teach them a Stay, Play, Talk strategy where hockey buddies stay with their buddy, play hockey with their buddy and talk to their buddy in the best way that works for them.

They end camp with a morning scrimmage and a pizza party before a night game at Munn Ice Arena on Michigan State’s campus the following day.

In its third year in 2025, the camp has grown from 12 players and about 20 buddies the first year to more than 90 people registered for this year’s camp.

“It’s grown a ton,” Dunkel-Jackson said. “Half of them are buddies this year, but we have a bunch of new players. We’re really excited to adapt to their needs.”

Funding from winning the Willie O’Ree Award went towards purchasing new sleds and equipment for the camp.

It brings Dunkel-Jackson a lot of joy to see the campers happy playing hockey.

“They just love to play hockey,” she said. “And that’s what it’s about. It’s just kids playing hockey, that’s all.

“Because no, not everybody’s going to be a (Tier I) hockey player… but everybody can love participating in a sport in some way. Just finding opportunities for them and seeing that they’re having a blast and hanging out with their friend, I just love that. I’m glad we get the opportunity to do that.”

Dunkel-Jackson appreciated the chance to share the story of the Hockey Challenge Camp, with the hope the other communities will see it and say: “‘Yeah, we can do something like that.’ That’s just what I hope,” she said.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

Michigan State forward Isaac Howard will start his pro hockey career rather than return to the Spartans.