Arizona State and Penn State hockey couldn’t be any more different.
The Sun Devils play in a desert oasis and can walk to the rink in shorts and flip flops year-round. The Nittany Lions play in a more traditional hockey market where it’s below freezing in the winter months.
Where they find common ground, though, is their backstory.
It was 15 years ago when both were club teams, trying to find their way into the NCAA. Fast forward to now, both are top-15 teams in the nation and are coming off head-turning seasons.
Friday night marks the start of the NCAA hockey season, and it’s only fitting that No. 5 Penn State heads to Mullett Arena to face No. 14 Arizona State.
One team made a deep playoff run into the NCAA Frozen Four and now has the consensus first overall pick in next year’s draft. The other shined in their first year in a conference, placing second in the ultra-competitive National Collegiate Hockey Conference and making it to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff when they were picked to finish eighth in the conference before the season.
Both have transformed their programs over the last 15 years, but Penn State had a head start.
The Nittany Lions hockey history dates back to 1909, when they first played intercollegiate games until the University’s Athletic Association rejected an official bid to sponsor ice hockey as an official varsity sport in early 1910.
Hockey didn’t return to Penn State until 1938 when members of the Sigma Phi fraternity formed an independent hockey team and played in exhibition games. The following year, the Nittany Lions joined the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate League and played as a varsity team until 1947.
Due to limited facilities, the University’s Athletic Association dropped hockey again in 1947, and it wouldn’t return until 1971, when hockey was brought back as a club sport.
As a club team for 41 years, Penn State saw its fair share of success, winning seven American Collegiate Hockey Association Championships. Of those seven national titles, five of them came within a six year period from 1998 to 2003.
After a century of history, the Nittany Lions finally broke through. Terrance and Kim Pegula donated $88 million to fund construction of a brand new arena and to establish Penn State hockey as a Division I NCAA program. The Pegulas donated another $14 million in 2012.
Ahead of Penn State’s final season as a club team, the university announced the hiring of Guy Gadowsky as the team’s newest head coach. Fourteen years later, Gadowsky remains the bench boss of the Nittany Lions and has built one of the top programs in the NCAA.
Gadowsky had just led Princeton to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments before taking the job, but the opportunity to coach a school as prolific as Penn State and knowing they would go into the Big Ten Conference was a chance Gadowsky wasn’t going to pass up.
“To be a part of the first Big Ten hockey league, that was very intriguing,” Gadowsky said. “But number one, it’s Penn State. They just absolutely love their sports teams to bits. The support they give student athletes is unbelievable.”
Penn State played its first season as a Division I program without a conference in 2012-2013. The very next year, it began play in the Big Ten Conference.
The early days of Division 1 hockey were filled with doubters for the Nittany Lions.
“I remember it was printed that we would not win a league game for three years,” Gadowsky said.
Well, Gadowsky’s group proved the doubters wrong in a way. In its first year in the Big Ten, Penn State held a 3-16-1 record in conference play. It wasn’t pretty, but it exceeded their win projections.
The next season though, was a turning point.
The Nittany Lions saw a 10-win improvement to their overall record, going 18-15-4 overall and 10-9-1 in Big Ten play. That year ended up being a launching point for the future of Penn State.
In their 13 seasons as a Division one program, the Nittany Lions have made four NCAA Tournament appearances in 2017, 2018, 2023 and 2025, including a deep run to the NCAA Frozen Four this past season.
“It’s a fun ride,” Gadowsky said. “It evolves in a lot of ways. It evolves with your student section. It evolves with how you’re supported as a team. It evolves with everything from how the community feels about it, how the community embraces hockey from not only a Division I level, but from grassroots level and youth hockey.
“It’s really been fun to watch. In the end, I think Terry (Pegula) got everything that he thought he would.”
Penn State has also been able to produce NHL talent as a Division I program.
Right winger Casey Bailey became the first Penn State alum to make his NHL debut when he laced up the skates with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2015. Bailey played in 13 NHL games and is currently playing Europe in the win2day ICE Hockey League.
Left winger Brett Murray debuted with the Buffalo Sabres in 2021 and has since bounced back and forth between the NHL and AHL. The 2016 fourth-round pick has a pair of goals in 26 NHL games.
Forward Brandon Biro became the third Nittany Lion to make it to the NHL in 2022 also with the Sabres. Biro has six NHL games to his name and is currently playing in Russia in the KHL.
The luxurious facility, traditional hockey market and over a decade of success make Penn State a desired destination for recruits. And this offseason proved it.
On this year’s roster, Penn State has the crown jewel of NHL prospects.
Left winger Gavin McKenna sent shockwaves throughout the hockey world in July when he announced his commitment to Penn State on SportsCenter. At just 17, McKenna is already tabbed to be a generational player and is the runaway favorite to be the first overall selection in the 2026 NHL Draft. In his last season in the Western Hockey League, McKenna scored a jaw-dropping 41 goals and 129 points in only 56 games.
Also on this year’s squad is 2025 14th overall pick Jackson Smith. The incoming freshman was selected by the Columbus Blue Jackets after putting up 54 points in 68 games as a defenseman in the WHL.
With the high profile recruits to pair with a trip to the NCAA Frozen Four, it’s not hard to understand why they enter the 2025-2026 season ranked fifth in the nation.
“I have a very soft spot for all the players that said, ‘Hey, we want to build something,’” Gadowsky said. “They’ve done it all, and they’ve made this happen.
“All that work along the way is just leading, and leading, and leading, and because we’ve kept our culture, kept our stripes, true to what Penn State University is all about, I think we’ll just keep going.”
Arizona State had much humbler beginnings.
Club hockey began being played in 1979 as a Division 2 level team in the ACHA. Over the years, ASU developed Division 1 and Division 3 ACHA teams.
In 2008, the club team brought Greg Powers on board as an assistant coach. Powers graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 1999 and was a three-time ACHA Division 1 All-American goaltender with ASU.
Just two years later, he was named the head coach. With Powers at the helm, he led the Sun Devils to five-straight ACHA National Tournaments, including the ACHA D1 National Championship in 2014.
Later that year, Arizona State made the announcement that they were adding men’s hockey as a Division I sport thanks to a combined $32 million donation from various donors. The Sun Devils played their first season as an NCAA sanctioned team in 2016-2017 as an independent team, which would be the case for the next eight years.
Given Powers’ dedication to the program, it was a no-brainer to name him as the head coach of the Division I team. A position that he hasn’t let go of since.
The college hockey world doubted Penn State in their early days, but the college hockey world disrespected Arizona State. Former Sun Devils forward Anthony Croston told ESPN in 2019 that opponents and even referees talked to them as if they were irrelevant.
Part of it is because Tempe doesn’t scream “hockey,” to the average fan. Another part is because the arena they were playing in wasn’t suitable for Division I hockey.
Oceanside Ice Arena was where the Sun Devils called home ever since they became a club team in 1979. The arena was old and had a laundry list of issues.
It would create a fog on the ice at times, there were holes in the ice that Powers had to put tires over so nobody could trip and there were rats running throughout the facility, among other issues.
When recruits came to Tempe to visit the campus, Powers tried his best to not show the players Oceanside Ice Arena.
“The guys that came to help us build this, took bullet after bullet and they still have the shrapnel to show for it,” Powers said. “It’s important to me that we don’t forget those founding fathers and everything that they did to help get us to where we are today.”
Despite the roadblocks, Arizona State kept marching on.
And in 2019, the Sun Devils did something that hadn’t been done since 1992. They became the first independent team to make the NCAA Tournament in 27 years by going 21-13-1.
Quinnipiac ended Arizona State’s run in the first game of the tournament, but it was a monumental moment for the program. It put the Sun Devils on the map, and gave recruits a reason to flock to the desert.
Another marquee event that helped turn Arizona State into a destination for hockey was the opening of Mullett Arena in 2022. The new arena cost over $135 million to build, but the impact on recruiting, fan experience and player development is priceless.
Freshman forward Jack Beck is a prime example.
Beck is one of the few newest additions to college hockey after the NCAA recently allowed players with prior professional experience in junior or minor leagues to join the NCAA. The 22-year-old played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League as well as the last season split between the AHL and ECHL.
Beck’s brother, Noah, was a defenseman last season with the Sun Devils as a graduate student. From seeing his brother’s experience, Jack was sold when the NCAA ruling went into effect.
“(Noah) raved about it every day,” Jack said. “I had FaceTime with him, and he’d show me the facilities and everything. Just showing me what he was doing every day. It’s world-class. This is an NHL facility. It’s a pretty easy decision. The team is obviously a great team. We just got ranked 14th.”
With brand new facilities and marks in the win column, there was only one more thing Arizona State needed to become a true destination. It needed a conference.
In the summer of 2023, the NCHC announced the addition of Arizona State starting in the 2024-2025 season.
The NCHC owns the nickname of “The SEC of College Hockey” for its dominance over the last decade. Of the last nine national championships, seven of them were won by NCHC teams.
“It makes a huge difference,” Powers said. “Kids want to play for a championship. When you have the staff that we’ve assembled and it’s as good as it gets, (Dana Borges) and (Mike Corbett) and (Alex Hicks) do a great job identifying really elite-level talent, and we’re recruiting at a really high level now.
“If we were not in a league, I don’t know if any of these guys would be here.”
With the Sun Devils’ success last season in their first year in a conference, they’re already seeing a difference in interest from recruits.
“It was pretty easy to have a no-brainer decision to come here,” Jack Beck said. “Who wouldn’t want to play for Arizona State, especially with the year they had last year?”
Over the past decade as a Division I team, Arizona State has produced three NHLers.
Most notably is goaltender Joey Daccord, who has 126 NHL games under his belt and is the current starting goaltender for the Seattle Kraken. Daccord will have his jersey number retired to the rafters in Mullett Arena ahead of Friday night’s season opener against Penn State.
Daccord is a member of the first Division I team that the Sun Devils put together, and he was a key contributor to their NCAA Tournament appearance in 2019.
Fellow original Division I and NCAA Tournament-making teammate, defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk, also got the call to the NHL. Pasichnuk played in four games for the San Jose Sharks in 2021.
Forward Josh Doan, son of Arizona Coyotes legend Shane Doan, made his NHL debut with the Coyotes in 2024 in the very same arena where he played his final season in a Sun Devils uniform. Josh Doan picked up two goals at Mullett Arena that night and has since played 62 games in the NHL.
In 2019, Daccord told Cronkite News, “(ASU) is going to be one of the top destinations in all of college hockey, in a matter of five, 10 years tops. It is going to be a top-10 team every year and pumping out NHL players.”
And his prediction is looking pretty solid, so far.
In this year’s NHL Draft, Arizona State saw two of its own get their names called. Forward Cullen Potter was the final selection in the first round of the draft, going 32nd overall to the Calgary Flames, and forward Ben Kevan was selected 63rd overall in the second round by the New Jersey Devils.
Potter, Kevan and Jack Beck are just a few examples of how Arizona State is building one of the best teams in college hockey. And it’s because of all the work that’s been done over the last 15 years.
“The fact that you could play in such a good league, and you’re playing elite talent, you’re getting better just from that alone, every weekend,” Powers said. “The best players are going to want to come play for you. At least give you a chance to recruit them and have a conversation. That’s all we need. We just need a conversation.
“Now we’re getting those conversations and that interest, and kids to come visit this place that in the past, as an independent, we just never were involved with because we were independent.”
When the puck drops Friday night at Mullett Arena to kick off the 2025-2026 season, it’s not just a heavyweight bout between two top-15 teams.
It will be more than a packed arena, with dozens of media personnel in attendance and an NHL Network broadcast to capture a glimpse of the consensus first-overall pick.
It’s a story of how two club teams with a dream are finally bearing the fruits of their labor after years of trying to establish themselves.
“Coach Powers, along with the athletic department, I think they’ve done a really good job navigating it,” Gadowsky said. “I think they ended up in a tremendous place in the NCHC. Geographically, it makes sense, school-wise, it makes sense, it’s a great conference and I’m really excited to see what they do. They have a beautiful arena. They have done everything right.”
Powers added, “Obviously, what Guy’s done has been incredible and making the Frozen Four last year. They’ve laid the blueprint and the model for programs to follow them, and we certainly are one of them.”
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