JJ Wiebusch’s goal Friday night summed up all of the insanity that has been Penn State men’s hockey’s 2025.
It was an overtime winner. An overtime winner that completed a hat trick. An overtime winner on a between-the-legs shot that completed a hat trick. An overtime winner on a between-the-legs shot that completed a hat trick to give Penn State a prime position for a chance at a sweep against Michigan inside Yost Ice Arena. An overtime winner on a between-the-legs shot that completed a hat trick to give Penn State a prime position for a chance at a sweep against Michigan inside Yost Ice Arena which also helped the Nittany Lions’ best player, Aiden Fink, break the school’s single season point record.
It was more absurdity to an absurdly impressive stretch run that has propelled Penn State men’s hockey from the PairWise basement to a virtual lock into the NCAA Tournament with a series sweep against Michigan completed a night later.
But maybe in the midst of that absurdity, this was the plan all along. Maybe Penn State should have been here.
Back at Pegula Ice Arena on Saturday – the very building that offered that certain type of hope – Penn State’s women’s hockey program lifted its third straight conference championship tournament trophy and with it an automatic bid back to the NCAA Tournament thanks to a 4-1 victory against Mercyhurst.
It felt like this weekend for Penn State’s hockey programs was predestined – that those moments were supposed to happen.
Right now, they are happening.
Penn State hockey’s first golden era is dawning. This first weekend of March proved it – and the rest of the month may cement it.
This was the type of weekend Penn Staters passionate about the Icers only dreamt about and damn near prayed for all those years ago at Greenberg Ice Pavilion.
The Icers were incredible in their own right. Much like you can set your watch to Penn State wrestling winning a national championship of late, you could do that back underneath the yellow lights of Greenberg with the Icers and ACHA championships.
But even back then, there was this hopefulness that the Icers would take that next step or, more specifically, Penn State would take the next step and have NCAA Division I varsity hockey. It was cool to have one of the nation’s best club teams but what would be even cooler would be to have one of the nation’s best NCAA hockey programs.
Then Terry Pegula wrote a check, making it a true reality.
But for the first few years of Penn State’s hockey’s new palace, there was novelty to everything related to it that, in a lot of ways, was more about the building than what happened on this ice.
It took a few tries but when Penn State’s men’s program finally won its first Big Ten Tournament in 2017, it felt like a crack in that novelty foundation, revealing and pushing the promise of what could be. Penn State could and would have hockey program that can compete nationally, that can make the NCAA Tournament, that can win.
But much like everything else, COVID derailed a lot of that progress for the men as its 2019-2020 roster, arguably the best it has assembled, couldn’t compete in the canceled NCAA Tournament.
On the women’s side, the program got off to a rough, marred start under Josh Brandwene that caused it to sputter and sputter until Jeff Kampersal was hired to take off. But under Kampersal’s guidance, it grew and grew at a faster pace than what was happening on the men’s side for a multitude of reasons.
It wasn’t until four years ago that it felt like there was a “there” there with the Penn State women’s program. It was Kampersal’s leadership that changed all of that.
In a lot of aspects, Penn State’s women’s program shed the novelty moniker quicker than the men’s. It’s now become the team to beat in the AHA – sorta formerly CHA – and while it is not the powerhouse-packed conference that many longstanding programs are in out west, Penn State has taken its crown now three years running.
Still, the men’s program drew bigger crowds and more attention. It took a step forward again two seasons ago by willing its way within one goal of a Frozen Four berth.
Yet that novelty remained.
During Penn State’s meandering 2023-24 season, it still set attendance records at Pegula Ice Arena. It was a serious program that in a lot of ways – aside from die-hard fans and those keen on keeping up with college hockey – was still missing the seriousness from Penn State writ large.
Those with a close eye once again watched anxiously as Penn State struggled in December 2024, fearing that this could be the last season of men’s hockey under Guy Gadowsky.
But the calendar flipped – and so have the expectations.
In January, Penn State lost one game outright, climbing up the Big Ten standings. It didn’t stop in February either – featuring three consecutive series sweeps and taking three of four against top 5 ranked teams, Michigan State and Minnesota.
Penn State’s impressive run has clicked from January through February and carried over into March, setting up the biggest weekend for the program.
Penn State, squarely a bubble team, likely needed at least one but more than likely two wins to be safe against Michigan at Yost.
It got both against the Wolverines with a frantic Friday completed by Wiesbusch’s overtime stunner and a dominant, trademark Gadowsky-gritty effort on Saturday. With the run and with the sweep, the program seemingly sent a message to not be taken lightly by both friend and foe.
All of this is happening because Penn State is attracting its best players for both programs with the very promise that Pegula Ice Arena offered.
Fink has been the star player that the program has needed to propel it over that edge. The Nashville Predators draft pick and sophomore set all kinds of records for Penn State this season, including topping Alex Limoges’ 50-point mark with an assist on the Wiebusch winner.
Meanwhile on the women’s team, junior Tessa Janecke has quietly become the school’s best hockey player – men’s teams included – as her 52 points this year have pushed Penn State back into the NCAA Tournament again. Janecke has once again been named to the U.S. women’s national team at the highest level after where and whenever Penn State’s NCAA Tournament run ends.
Both Fink and Janecke’s seasons have put them in contention for not just conference but national accolades. Janecke has already taken home AHA player of the year and is in the top 10 for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, while some consider Fink to be the odds-on favorite for the Hobey Baker.
But aside from those players’ growth and success, both Kampersal and Gadowsky have assembled cores that are making what’s happening 2025 so impressive.
Names like Charlie Cerrato, Reese Laubach, Katelyn Roberts and Katie DeSa have taken both programs to moments like the one we saw this weekend.
Hockey remains – with cliche-able dependency – the ultimate team sport but that’s what’s so exciting about the future of this program. Penn State doesn’t just have the player it needs to go to the next level, it has the players. Both Fink and Janecke will be back next year but so will much of the supporting cast around them. Plus, particularly on the men’s side, Gadowsky’s incoming recruiting class will set expectations even higher.
It’s also why this weekend felt so important and so momentous. It’s all working in a way we’ve never seen before.
Penn State fans are now seeing the proof that hockey at Penn State isn’t just a “cool” thing to have but rather something that can push the athletic department’s historic winning into a new chapter. It’s shown that it’s a program – with some consistency – at a high level.
As, over the last few weeks, Penn State’s basketball programs sunk into quiet meaninglessness the way – more often than not of late – as they usually do, Penn State’s hockey teams were rising.
Penn State doesn’t have to be a basketball school and Penn State doesn’t have to be a hockey school. That’s not what this fight is about. After all, Penn State is – for the most part – a football school already anyway. But when football season ends, it’s hard not to yearn for a sport that matters with broad appeal.
Wrestling has scratched that itch for some, but not in a way that appeals as broadly as hockey does – or as broadly as people thought back inside Greenberg hockey could.
Right now, Penn State’s hockey programs are standing at the doorstep of a massive opportunity – but a much different opportunity than the one back in 2013.
The door for championships, the door for the possible, is wide open even while this has all felt somewhat impossible.
Crossing the threshold offers a new opportunity that the first golden era of Penn State hockey is beginning.
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