Penn State Roller Hockey Club relied on ‘brotherhood’ to get to national championships
This past season saw its share of banner moments for members of the Penn State Roller Hockey Club. The Nittany Lions compiled double-digit wins and excelled well enough in the playoffs to land them a coveted spot in Fort Myers, Fla., for the Collegiate Roller Hockey Championships.
Despite the in-rink achievements players experienced, which included reaching the quarterfinal round of the national championship, without as much a thought, players recalled the memories off the rink they collected during the nearly eight months spent together this past season.
“We try to keep as close-knit a group as possible, and I think this year really exemplified that,” said McKeesport native Jonathan Lust, a defenseman and club president. “There weren’t any cliques, there weren’t any issues of only seniors sticking together and freshmen fending for themselves. It was a very congruent group.”
Penn State’s Roller Hockey Club fell to Florida Gulf Coast University, 7-5, last month to cap an 11-win season. The Nittany Lions’ path to the quarterfinal included wins against California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Unlike sports affiliated with Penn State’s athletic department, members of the Nittany Lions’ roller hockey team are solely responsible for scheduling games, booking travel, ordering equipment and a litany of other logistics. Practices during the season begin in August, and the team utilizes the State College YMCA’s outdoor rink — where they’ve practiced since 2021 — to hone their skills between tournaments. During the more unforgiving winter and spring months, the Nittany Lions shelter at C3 Sports’ indoor facility.
The Nittany Lions didn’t host any of their opponents during the season, so three-day road trips starting on Friday were the norm. Those consisted not only of visits to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but also to Long Island and Buffalo.
The team relied on a carpool system established at the start of the season to share traveling duties.
“At the beginning of the year, we’ll see who all has vehicles here at school because freshmen mainly aren’t going to have vehicles, and even some sophomores don’t bring vehicles, so we take a headcount of who all has vehicles and who’s willing to drive,” Lust said. “After that, we’ll compile a list of whoever’s willing to drive, get a list of four or five cars that can take three or four people, and we all travel to the games together.”
Club treasurer and forward Nicholas Skiadas is one semester away from obtaining his master’s degree in accounting, so he’s well-equipped to manage the team’s finances and navigate its budget. Other duties for the Warren, N.J., native included pricing and locating hotels for those road trips, tracking dues and the team’s club sports account. Skiadas said he worked closely with Lust on some of the intricacies of being the treasurer, as Lust held the title as a sophomore.
In addition to the responsibilities that accompany managing and competing in a club sport is the academic component that players navigate. Mindful balancing of their academic and athletic schedules is a skill that older players routinely stress to their younger teammates.
“It’s all time management,” Skiadas said. “It’s something we really stress at the beginning of the year before tryouts start. You just want to be open and honest about the commitment. We have four hours a week for practicing. When we have tournaments, we’re gone basically Friday through Sunday night, three or four times a semester. It’s challenging.
“But I think if you’re able to plan and map out your weeks and your days, and make sure you’re on top of everything — letting your professors know you won’t be there for certain events — it definitely makes it easier.”
The players’ work this past season didn’t go unnoticed. Their families coalesced to help fund the 2,480-mile round-trip trek to the Sunshine State for the national championship tournament to help bear the financial load. Forward Roman Rennebeck — the club vice president — said familial support is a byproduct of the brotherhood shared among players.
“This past year, we went to Long Island for a tournament, and one of the players on our team, their parents actually took in the whole team and put us all under their roof,” said Rennebeck, a Pittsburgh native. “It’s things like that that were so cool. They all bought in and appreciated the brotherhood we had.”
While memories of the in-rink action and experiences of the Nittany Lions will eventually fade with time, the bond forged this past season won’t dissipate as easily. The hours spent together in competition and logged on the road for countless miles birthed what players expect to become a lifelong connection.
“We had freshmen who were best friends with seniors on the team — it was a really big role-model type team,” Lust said. “Everybody looked up to each other and wanted to better everybody else not only on the rink, but in college in general. I think we did a great job of having that togetherness and community.”