Penn State men’s hockey is set to host Michigan State in the first-ever Beaver Stadium hockey game on Saturday, January 31, the team announced Friday.
The game between the Nittany Lions and the Spartans is not the first time Penn State has played outdoors, but it will be the first time on home soil and in Beaver Stadium.
The ability to host a game inside a 106 thousand seat venue comes after Beaver Stadium’s $750 million renovation began last winter. One of the main goals of the project was to ensure the winterization of the stadium, to allow Penn State to host events like the NHL’s Winter Classic in below-freezing temperatures.
“If the NHL called me today, I’d be like, yep, let’s go. I think number one, it would be very cool. I think it’d be great for the NHL, I think it’d be great for Happy Valley, and for our fans. I think there’s ways to figure out how our teams could play out there, our hockey culture is really strong,” Pat Kraft, Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics, told StateCollege.com in 2023 about hosting the Winter Classic. “But from a Penn State perspective, we’re all in. We’re still trying to get our arms around what all that entails, right? You’ve got to have all the amenities to do that, and winterization will help, but yeah, we’d be very excited to do that with the NHL.”
With Michigan State coming to Hockey Valley, it’s the perfect time to test the outdoor hockey capabilities of Beaver Stadium, as the Nittany Lions-Spartans series is one of the most anticipated matchups of the college hockey season.
This summer, both sides fought for two of the top OHL prospects in the country in Gavin McKenna and Porter Malone. With the Spartans taking Malone and Penn State grabbing the world’s top prospect in the 2026 NHL Draft, in McKenna, tensions are sure to be high between the teams.
The first time Penn State played in an outside venue was in 2012 at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies. The Nittany Lions were still playing in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) in 2012, the nation’s leading club hockey association.
Most recently, though, the blue and white faced off against Notre Dame at Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs, as part of “The Frozen Confines” Big Ten outdoor series. Despite a back-and-forth game, with Penn State taking the lead 3-2 in the third period, the Nittany Lions ended up falling in the eighth round of a shootout.
Collin is a third-year majoring in digital/print journalism. He lives in Basking Ridge, New Jersey and enjoys taylor ham egg and cheese. As a New York Giants and Chelsea FC fan you can normally find him yelling at his TV screen on the weekends. Please follow him on X(formally Twitter) @wardcollinz for Penn State football stuff. To reach him email him at [email protected].