With almost 75,000 fans in attendance, Penn State men’s hockey had a lot of celebrating to do after the Beaver Stadium outdoor game.

Despite the overtime loss against now No. 1 Michigan State, the team was grateful for the experience, deeming it something that they will never forget.

“This experience was special, something I’ll remember forever,” Gavin McKenna said after the game. “We were all talking about this game since the start of the year. It was amazing.”

Captain Dane Dowiak gushed about the experience as well.

“That was the coolest environment I will ever play in my life, no matter if I make the NHL or not,” he said. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, ever witnessed, and I just couldn’t be prouder to be a Penn Stater.”

Head coach Guy Gadowsky reflected on the event almost two weeks later with the same emotion he had after the game. He was in awe once he turned around from the bench.

“It was the first time that I happened to turn around. So, in front of me, it was a great visual,” he said. “But behind me, there was, I remember looking, and I honestly, I could not see an open seat, and it was just jammed, and people were having a great time. And it was, it was incredible. I just, I don’t know why it hit me then just how many people just showed up, and the weather was unreal.”

The high was 17 degrees, and the sun was shining for most of the game. When asked how he stayed warm during the game, Gadowsky had a simple answer.

“A close game. I mean, it wasn’t too chilly. I was pretty distracted. It was a good hockey game, so it wasn’t bad at all.”

Coming off of an experience like that would be challenging, but the Nittany Lions had a bye week to prepare for their road trip to Yost Ice Arena. The Wolverines just split their series against the Spartans, so the Nittany Lions had time to adjust from their matchup against Michigan State and pivot to Michigan.

Gadowsky knew his team needed the bye week.

“Yeah, really good for two reasons. One good, one bad. One is that it was just an amazing, amazing Saturday. 75,000 people coming out. The support was tremendous. And there’s a lot of emotion to that. So to reset from that, I think it was fine,” he said. “And also, unfortunately, we did sustain another injury, Alex Servagno, who had surgery this morning. So, yeah, we have bumps and bruises that we’re healing as well. So, probably a well-timed break.”

Reese Laubach agreed with his coach in regard to the bye-week being beneficial to the team.

“It was such a high going into that [Beaver Stadium] game, so much build-up for it that took a little bit to come down from,” he said. “We had that bye week, we were able to get back to practice and get back to being focused on our goal, which is still keep winning games and then make a run near the end.”

With emotions running high after the Beaver Stadium game, and playing in Yost on the horizon, it was important for the team to get back into a routine.

“We had a couple days off, spread throughout the week last week. But, you know, it’s a time to work on stuff, improve stuff,” Dowiak said. “We have some things that really wanted to bear down, crack down on, so we were able to work on those things for three good practices last week and then get back.”

The Nittany Lions look to take down No. 2 Michigan. at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, February 13, in Yost Ice Arena.

Alex is a third-year Journalism major from Sarasota, Florida. Alex is a huge Tampa Bay sports fan and even has a cat named Kucherov. You can contact her at [email protected].