Hockey Valley Part 2

As many of you may have seen, last weekend our very own hockey team beat Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and WON THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP!

Sorry Wisconsin

A few weeks ago we had a post chronicling the history of the hockey program, and I think it's worth mentioning that this team is making history as well.

First, a little bit of info on the sport itself: a regulation hockey game consists of three 20 minute periods with a 15 minute intermission between each period. During in-season play, if both teams are tied at the end of the match, you add another 20 minute period of sudden death overtime. If nobody scores during that time frame, it goes into best out of 5 penalty shootouts. However, the B1G tournament is not in-season play, it is, well, tournament style play, which means you do not go into penalty shootouts, you have overtime after overtime after overtime until either somebody scores or the players keel over from exhaustion.

Now, on Friday, after a pretty physical game which they won against Michigan, the hockey team was slated to play Minnesota. At the end of regulation, the score was 3-3 so we went into overtime, and then AGAIN the score was still tied so the boys got to go into DOUBLE overtime.

Erik Autio scored the winning goal with about 6 and half minutes left in double overtime, getting the team the W and solidifying their place in history. After playing almost 5 periods of hockey that night, coming to a total of nearly 94 minutes, this game is THE longest game in conference history. AND THEN THEY DID IT ALL AGAIN THE NEXT DAY!

That's right, on Saturday the team played Wisconsin with regulation ending in a 1-1 tie. The game went in to double overtime once again, and once again we came out on top thanks to a goal from Liam Folkes. This game did not break the record set the night before, but by the end of the match, our boys had played nearly 13 periods of hockey, or the equivalent of 4 and 1/3 regulation games, in the span of 3 days. That's grit.

This team is also one of the last teams to play in the historic Joe Louis Arena, which was built in the 1970's and is set to be demolished and replaced this April.

It seemed like it was built before air conditioning was invented

 The point of this post is this: Do you like sports? Do you like Penn State? Do you like watching grown men slam each other in walls? Do you like supporting a winning team? Do you like seeing history being made while you're alive?

If you answered yes to even one of these questions, find your way to Pegula next year and watch our hockey team! Even if you think you don't like watching hockey, just sit in the Roar Zone for even 20 minutes and I'm telling you, your mind will be changed.

All in all, Penn State Hockey is not something to be missing out on, especially not with this exciting of a team. I'd give Hockey Valley, even on the road, 10 pucks flung into the crowd out of 10.

Oh, and did I mention the team made ice angels with the Lion? Because that happened too:

First Photo Courtesy of the Penn State Men's Hockey Snapchat (pennstatemhky)