2020-21 Penn State Nittany Lions

[ZedLeppelin]

The Penn State women's hockey team added some shine to their 2019-20 national championship win with a 7-0 shutout of the women's U.S. National Team in an exhibition game at Pegula Ice Arena.

Fifth-year senior goalie Jenna Brenneman played the first period and stopped all three shots. Senior goalie Chantal Burke played the second period and stopped the shot she faced. Redshirt junior goalie Cam Leonard played the third period and stopped both shots.

Senior forwards Natalie Heising and Katie Rankin both scored hat tricks for Penn State, and senior goalie Chantal Burke also scored on a crazy clear from behind her net that caught Maddie Rooney off guard at the other end. Four more Penn State goals were called off by the refs, citing the mercy rule.

Head coach Jeff Kampersal said he was pleased with the effort from his team, who were seeing the ice for the first time since March, and had only held two practices, in the parking lot in street shoes, since then. "It was challenging to play this game with Covid masks on, but we kept at it", said Kampersal. Real fans weren't allowed at the game, and were replaced by twelve cardboard cutouts of fans placed randomly throughout the seats. The cutouts were allowed at the post-game "skate with the players", but were not allowed to skate.

[Reddington]

Hilarious!

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Seeing some information that Emma Conner (Edina High School) is now a University of Minnesota commit for 2022. Thought she was committed to Penn State for 2021.

[Cornholio]

I think we will see a lot of churn to the commits with some delaying/PG with the log jam being created now with the extra year given to this year's players. Not sure how the scholarship situation is working out either. Has the NCAA allowed an increase like for fall sports? Even if it is allowed, can schools afford it?

[Reddington]

No Reporting being done at all - maybe a season - maybe not. Are commits signing - maybe maybe not.

Apparently USA hockey can bring players together all across state lines for their camp - I wonder if all those players will have to quarantine for 14 days when they return? I think that pretty much puts an end to any whispers of any Big Ten Hockey until the Spring.

[ZedLeppelin]

Robert Morris has released a 2020-21 schedule on their women's hockey page (https://rmucolonials.com/sports/wome...hedule/2020-21), so there will be a season after all, abbreviated as it is. They are the only CHA team to release a schedule so far. What's interesting about the Robert Morris schedule is that many of their two-game series are split between home and away arenas - one game at home and the second game at the opponent's rink.

Penn State will play them November 20 at Robert Morris, and November 21 at Penn State.

[Lindsay]

That’s awesome Zed! Thank you for sharing. I didn’t see the schedule when I clicked on your link, seemed to go to last year but I hope games are truly happening. Going to check out Mercyhurst’s site now. Glad to see Penn State is getting games, I know Big 10 has a different testing protocol and I was hoping they wouldn’t get excluded. Did you see Lindenwood games by any chance? They are of course a geographical outlier, hope they also get games somehow. I suspect the home and home stuff is to either avoid hotels for safety or cut costs in what has been a financially devastating year for schools.

[ZedLeppelin]

That’s awesome Zed! Thank you for sharing. I didn’t see the schedule when I clicked on your link, seemed to go to last year but I hope games are truly happening. Going to check out Mercyhurst’s site now. Glad to see Penn State is getting games, I know Big 10 has a different testing protocol and I was hoping they wouldn’t get excluded. Did you see Lindenwood games by any chance? They are of course a geographical outlier, hope they also get games somehow. I suspect the home and home stuff is to either avoid hotels for safety or cut costs in what has been a financially devastating year for schools.

Well, now Robert Morris took down their 2020-21 schedule, but yes - Lindenwood was on the schedule, as was everyone else in the CHA. It only went into January, though, so somebody must have jumped the gun in posting it.

[Lindsay]

Fantastic, I figured they just posted it earlier than the league wanted. Happy for the players.

[mar7967]

I assume the CHA schedule format will be very similar to the Men's Atlantic Hockey schedule - on the men's side, they are doing 2 pods (east, west), playing teams in their pod 5 times, with mostly home and home weekends to eliminate hotel stays. Air Force, being outside of either pod, will be playing every team twice, and that is obviously not a home/home series.

As all of the CHA (minus Lindenwood) is close enough to do home and homes, I suspect there will be 4 games each between RIT, Mercyhurst, Robert Morris, Penn State, and Syracuse as home/home series, and then Lindenwood would probably play everyone 4 times (2 home, 2 away)? That would give them 20 conference games...

Update: Looks like RMU's schedule is still available at: https://rmucolonials.com/sports/wome...hedule/2020-21
And it mostly matches my assumption above (except they also aren't home and home with Syracuse), which now that I think about it, it's the typical CHA schedule anyway so nothing too surprising there. The only real difference is the home/home series.

[ZedLeppelin]

I assume the CHA schedule format will be very similar to the Men's Atlantic Hockey schedule - on the men's side, they are doing 2 pods (east, west), playing teams in their pod 5 times, with mostly home and home weekends to eliminate hotel stays. Air Force, being outside of either pod, will be playing every team twice, and that is obviously not a home/home series.

As all of the CHA (minus Lindenwood) is close enough to do home and homes, I suspect there will be 4 games each between RIT, Mercyhurst, Robert Morris, Penn State, and Syracuse as home/home series, and then Lindenwood would probably play everyone 4 times (2 home, 2 away)? That would give them 20 conference games...

Update: Looks like RMU's schedule is still available at: https://rmucolonials.com/sports/wome...hedule/2020-21
And it mostly matches my assumption above (except they also aren't home and home with Syracuse), which now that I think about it, it's the typical CHA schedule anyway so nothing too surprising there. The only real difference is the home/home series.

I'm glad their 2020-21 schedule is back up, but they sure changed things on this version. Now the only two teams they do a home and home split series with are Mercyhurst and RIT - everyone else is at the usual "two at home" or "two away" setup. The first time they posted the schedule they even had Lindenwood (of all teams) as a home and home split series...glad that's off the table! Whatever works, I guess, as long as it gets the season rolling. I love out-of-conference games and wish that could have worked out this season, but playing the other CHA teams is always a slugfest, so woohoo - let's play hockey!

[mar7967]

I'm glad their 2020-21 schedule is back up, but they sure changed things on this version. Now the only two teams they do a home and home split series with are Mercyhurst and RIT - everyone else is at the usual "two at home" or "two away" setup. The first time they posted the schedule they even had Lindenwood (of all teams) as a home and home split series...glad that's off the table! Whatever works, I guess, as long as it gets the season rolling. I love out-of-conference games and wish that could have worked out this season, but playing the other CHA teams is always a slugfest, so woohoo - let's play hockey!

and it has been officially announced. https://rmucolonials.com/news/2020/1...-schedule.aspx

[Rightnut]

RIT cancelled the men's and women's hockey seasons.

[ZedLeppelin]

RIT cancelled the men's and women's hockey seasons.

That's hard to hear, especially with the conference going ahead with the season. I really feel badly for Celeste Brown, who left Penn State to take over the RIT women's program. Here's a link to the announcement cancelling the season:

https://ritathletics.com/news/2020/1...ts-update.aspx

If there's a bright spot for the rest of the CHA, teams will now get a bye week in place of the RIT games, which they weren't getting before in the very condensed schedule.

[D2D]

RIT cancelled the men's and women's hockey seasons.

Might this announcement turn out to be a case of bad timing, having been decided just before the announced introduction of the vaccine?