They often say in life, you have to recognize an opportunity when it becomes apparent and do everything to seize it to find ultimate success.
Penn State saw that with the ruling by the NCAA that allowed immediate eligibility for Canadian Hockey League (CHL) players, coupled with scholarship increases to 26 players, along with the ability to provide NIL opportunities, it saw an opportunity to make hockey another cornerstone program.
When Whitehorse, Yukon (Canada) native Gavin McKenna was open to the idea of playing in the United States and leaving the CHL, Penn State was ready to roll the red carpet out for the prodigy.
Penn State was already stacked with defensemen Jackson Smith, who was a five-star prospect and was selected 14th overall by the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets, and Mac Gadowsky, who was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award last season. Add in goaltender Kevin Reidler and forwards Shea Van Olm, who led all WHL skaters with 49 goals last season, along with Calgary Flames prospect Luke Misa, coupled with the returns of forwards Aiden Fink, who was also a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, Charlie Cerrato, Matt DiMarsico, and JJ Wiebusch the chances of Penn State returning to the Frozen Four were excellent.
When you add in the hockey prodigy that is McKenna, things now have a chance to be historic.
Photo by Penn State Athletics
Typically, hockey prodigies reserved their talents up in the CHL in one of the three leagues: Ontario, Quebec, or Western, then went to the NHL because the NCAA there were no good avenues and its just how it was.
When megadonor Terry Pegula gifted Penn State nearly $102 million to jumpstart the ice hockey programs, it wasn’t meant for the programs to languish in mediocrity. The gifts took the programs from club level groups all the way to being able to compete amongst the nation’s best programs.
I don’t know how much influence Pegula had with the deal to lure McKenna from the Western Hockey League’s Medicine Hat, but the opportunity to bring the odds on favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft is enticing, and something Pegula would want to be part of for his alma mater that he has given so much to.
When you think of the greatest players in NCAA history, you think of right off the bat Maine’s Jim Montgomery and Paul Kariya, Cornell netminder Ken Dryden, UMass defenseman Cale Makar, The Fusco Brothers from Harvard (Mark and Scott), or even Minnesota’s Neal Broten.
Even with what each of those players accomplished, McKenna, Van Olm, and Smith have ample opportunity to set the bar higher.
That is what the opportunity is in collegiate hockey with NIL and immediate eligibility, it is more lucrative opportunities for the best in hockey to play in the United States.
The fact Penn State was able to poach so much high end WHL talent shows the direction it is going, but here in lies the opportunity to become the ultimate hockey superpower, where one typically doesn’t exist.
In ice hockey, supremacy shifts from Denver, or one of the many Michigan, Minnesota, or Boston/Massachusetts schools, Penn State has the opportunity to be the ultimate hockey location.
Gavin McKenna in 2024 By Kaiser matias – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155382093
Winning a national championship and in style will only make Penn State much more aggressive for the high end talent. McKenna’s ceiling by many is Connor Bedard, John Tavares, or even Sidney Crosby. If McKenna delivers on that potential, that is the main attraction for all other hockey prodigies.
In style, when you consider that the 1969-70 Cornell team is the only NCAA hockey team to go undefeated and 1992-93 Maine that went 42-1-2 fueled by Kariya and Montgomery is the top of the mountain for Penn State to achieve. The talent is there to do it in a dominant style that it is a legacy team for head coach Guy Gadowsky. The amount of talent he was able to secure puts him in an opportunity to have teams in the same vein as “Badger” Bob Johnson, Murray Armstrong, Red Berenson, or Jerry York.
The key is, where the pressure is, this team will only be together once. This isn’t a team that the “band will get back together,” the NHL will be calling for all this high end talent in the 2026 NHL Draft.
Unlike football where there is a margin of error to breakthrough for them, hockey has stacked the deck so much, error is not an option. The opportunity is here for Penn State Men’s Hockey to achieve ultimate rink supremacy, not just for now but also for subsequent seasons. Penn State has the opportunity to perfect the “one and done” model for its program, something John Calipari did for a bit at Kentucky with Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
Fans will understand if football fails, James Franklin’s inability to win a big game is well documented, but the gap Penn State football has with its peers is not as wide as Penn State’s men’s hockey. You could even argue, hockey is only rivaled by wrestling by the talent disparity between them and the rest of the field. When you have such an advantage the pressure is great no matter how much football dominates the landscape.
