Penn State fans are passionate, but hockey’s Roar Zone sets itself apart. ‘These are my people’

Penn State fans typically travel well supporting the Nittany Lions in big games on the road. After the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona and the Orange Bowl in Miami, Allentown — where men’s hockey plays Friday night — is luckily just a couple hours away.

But it wouldn’t have mattered where the first round of the men’s NCAA Hockey Tournament was, the Roar Zone wouldn’t miss it.

“In every close win at Pegula [the Roar Zone] absolutely played a part,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said Monday. “And when we go on the road and the players can hear them and figure out where they’re at, it means so much to our program.”

Senior Austin Craig has been president of the Penn State hockey student section since April 2023. Growing up in Bellefonte, he went to his first game in 2015 when the Nittany Lions played Anchorage and was captivated by the atmosphere.

During home games, Craig primarily hits the drum, with the rest of the Roar Zone’s executive board filling the first two rows. Behind them, hundreds of students move, chant and taunt the opposing team together.

“Hockey is just such an electric sport,” Craig said.

The road to Allentown

On the road, Craig’s car has been one of the several that brought dozens of Roar Zone members to Quinnipiac at the beginning of the season, to Washington, D.C. in December for Penn State’s battle against Army and, most recently, to Ohio State for the second round of the Big Ten Tournament.

Penn State last made the NCAA Tournament in the 2022-23 season, where it lost in overtime to Michigan. Despite starting this season 8-10-1, the Nittany Lions roared in the final weeks of the regular season, going 10-2-3 including two shootout victories. The comeback earned them a spot in this year’s tournament.

“We’re going on a business trip,” Gadowsky said. “It’s a fun business trip and it’s one you should be proud of and I’m just so impressed with the guys.”

Buses are taking students to the PPL Center for Penn State’s matchup against Maine in the first round of the Allentown Regional on Friday night.

And the Roar Zone is planning a White Out.

“I’m really excited for this matchup a lot,” Craig said. “I think Maine is the best No. 1 seed that we could have got paired up against, because they have shown their flaws in recent games.”

Junior Dillan Hirschberg has been a hockey fan since she was 8 years old. Her initial fear of seeing players crash into one another on the ice disappeared during the third period of the first hockey game she attended.

Hirschberg became a die-hard New Jersey Devils fan after that, but when she came to Penn State, it was only natural for her to support the blue and white.

“It was the Roar Zone that got me to stay because it’s just the atmosphere — you don’t get that at NHL games,” Hirschberg said. “There’s a certain aspect of unity with everybody chanting the same thing and you’re all there to do one job and that’s to make the other team’s life a living hell.”

She became secretary this season, but the Roar Zone experience is much deeper than just a student section, Hirschberg and several executive board members said. It’s a family, and hockey is what brings them together.

“I always joke that I watch the Roar Zone more than I watch the game,” sophomore Ryley Carroll, the treasurer of the student section, said. “I care about the team but sometimes just looking back and seeing 1,000 people chanting is just incredible.”

Each hockey season starts with a sign making night where members create the art displayed on the glass. The signs are unique, player specific and a representation of the energy that the Roar Zone is known for. When seniors from the team graduate they get to keep the posters that they’ve played in front of all season.

But one that stands out this season is a massive banner that cloaked the student section before Penn State’s overtime win over Minnesota on Feb. 28. It took the students nearly 30 hours to design and create it.

That wear-white crowd of 6,577 — Pegula’s fifth largest — created an environment that holds a special place in the minds of the Roar Zone executive board.

When former Nittany Lion Liam Souliere took the ice in the Gopher uniform, Blum knew it would be intense.

“When he transferred to Minnesota [for his graduate season] we had this game circled on the calendar because we knew this could get real rowdy, real fast, and that was the loudest warmups I’ve ever heard,” Blum said.

Roar Zone a part of recruiting, wins

The atmosphere of the Roar Zone has become a selling point driving players to Hockey Valley, Gadowsky said.

“I can’t remember a player that didn’t mention playing in front of the Roar Zone when committing to Penn State,” he said. “I think they play a part in every commitment we get.”

But the support from the students doesn’t stop with the men’s team. In the past couple of years, they’ve focused on growing the support for the Penn State women’s team, which has won the AHA conference title for the past three consecutive seasons.

“[In 2019] the Roar Zone was primarily a men’s only student section and didn’t really go to women’s games,” executive officer Mitchell Blum, a senior, said. “There was about five of us and we’d have to go to the fifth row just to do chants that way it would go over the glass.”

Last year the Roar Zone made its first ever road trip for a women’s game to Robert Morris, with 10 people making the journey west. This season they made the trip again, but this time there were 25 members.

While puck-drop times might not always be convenient, with some games being scheduled in the middle of the week or during a time when most students are in class, Craig said that the “hockey sickos” still go to every game no matter what.

“I had just as much fun there as I do at men’s hockey because it’s really close-knit,” Craig said. “We have something here and we could really grow this and I have full confidence that whoever takes over [as president] next year is going to have that same mindset.”

On senior day for men’s hockey the Roar Zone went out onto the ice and got to sing the alma mater with the players. Just like the team, there are members graduating after this season, which made it a moment that Hirschberg won’t forget.

“We were all hugging and everybody was crying,” she said. “That’s my family right there, these are my people.”

Blum is one of five executive board members that watched their final game from the student section in Pegula Ice Arena and he’s one of roughly 250 students getting ready to leave for Allentown.

“When I look back at my time in the Roar Zone, I’ll probably forget a lot of the games and the stupid things we’ve done, but I won’t forget the friends I made,” Blum said. “The wins and losses, they suck in the moment or are great, but friendships are lifelong.”