The Penn State Women's Ice Hockey Club (also known as the Penn State Lady Ice Lions) represents Penn State University (PSU) in Women's Division 1 of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) and in the Central Collegiate Women's Hockey Association (CCWHA). Since the team's establishment in 2012 (following a predecessor team that existed from 1996 until 2012), it has been very successful, including a pair of ACHA second-place finishes at the Division 2 level in 2012–13 and 2013–14 and an appearance at the ACHA Division 1 national championship tournament to close the 2014–15 season. PSU is one of just three teams to appear in consecutive ACHA Division 2 championship games, joining the University of Minnesota-Duluth (2007–08) and Rainy River Community College (2008–11).
Jeremy Bean became the Lady Ice Lions' second head coach since the team's founding in 2017–18, as he took over for 2013–14 ACHA Division 2 Coach of the Year winner Patrick Fung.
History
The Lady Icers (1996–2012)
Penn State's first women's hockey team – called the "Lady Icers" – began play in the 1996–97 season, after students Ellen Bradley and Kathy Beckford recruited players from around campus and Vinnie Scalamogna, the assistant manager of the Penn State Ice Pavilion (then the university's sole ice facility), as coach. The Lady Icers' first game, a 5–4 win over the Susquehanna Rockettes (an adult club team), took place on February 1, 1997.
The Lady Icers' most successful period began in 1999–2000 when it joined a conference known as the Mid-Atlantic Women's Collegiate Hockey Association along with many of the university's traditional rivals from other sports like the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Maryland, and Syracuse University, and ran up a perfect 8–0–0 league mark in the regular season, then defeated Pittsburgh 2–0 in the MAWCHA playoff championship game. Penn State would go on to repeat as MAWCHA regular season champions in 2000–01 and take the Delaware Valley Collegiate Hockey Conference regular season and playoff titles in 2002–03.
In 2000, the ACHA initiated its first women's division, with the Lady Icers as one of its inaugural members (the team would play in what was the ACHA's sole women's division through the 2005–06 season, and subsequently in Division 1 after the ACHA formed a second women's division). PSU participated in each of the ACHA's first four women's national championship tournaments (and six overall), peaking with a third-place finish in 2002's edition led by coach Billie Willits. The stars of that 2001–02 team included ACHA player of the year and tournament most valuable player Andrea Lavelle, as well as Katie King, who finished her career in 2005 as the top scorer in Lady Icers history.
The team helped launch the ECWHL in 2003 and would remain in the conference through the rest of its years in the ACHA. However, PSU struggled competitively through the middle part of the 2000s, thanks to issues with recruitment and retention, coaching continuity and cash flow – including a low point when the Lady Icers had to cancel a trip to the 2007 ECWHL playoffs for financial reasons. Mo Stroemel began his four years as head coach in the 2007–08 season, and is credited with stabilizing the club. Under Stroemel's watch, the Lady Icers made a final ACHA National Tournament appearance in 2010.
After years of speculation the program transitioned to the NCAA Division I level along with the PSU men's ice hockey team for the 2012–13 season. The move was made possible thanks to a Penn State-record $88 million (later increased to $102 million) donation from Terry Pegula (a Penn State alumnus and billionaire hockey fan) and his wife Kim. The gift, announced on September 17, 2010, primarily was used to finance the construction of a new ice arena and endow scholarships.
Penn State temporarily concluded its time in ACHA Division 1 in February 2012, with eventual NCAA team head coach Josh Brandwene behind the bench. That season, the Lady Icers played a mixed schedule, featuring ACHA and ECWHL opponents as well as eleven games against NCAA Division I and Division III teams – highlighted by Tess Weaver's overtime goal in an upset of NCAA Division I Sacred Heart on January 14, 2012. The team finished the year by claiming the ECWHL regular season title, but then losing to Rhode Island in the ECWHL playoff championship game.
A new era begins (2012–2014)
When the Lady Icers evolved to NCAA status following the 2011–12 season, several former members of that team who were not a part of the NCAA roster formed a new ACHA team at the Division 2 level during the summer of 2012. Mary Kate Tonetti led the push – an effort that would later help her win the ACHA's Off-Ice MVP Award for the 2012–13 season – along with 2011–12 Lady Icers teammates Carly Szyszko, Allie Rothman, Katie Vaughan, Ashton Schaffer and Sarah Eisenhut. Former Lady Icers assistant Patrick Fung was eventually brought on as head coach, while freshmen like Devon Fisk, Mandy Mortach, Jackie Saideh, Nina Elia and Tara Soukup helped fill out a small roster that included just 13 players when the re-christened team played its first-ever game, a 2–1 overtime loss to California (PA) at BladeRunners Ice Complex in Bethel Park, PA.
Penn State's home rink in 2012–13, purportedly, was the same Penn State Ice Pavilion used by the Lady Icers. However, while the team did practice there (using a makeshift locker room with large sheets for walls), their status as a late-arriving first-year team, coupled with scheduling congestion at the soon-to-be-decommissioned single-sheet facility then hosting four intercollegiate hockey teams and other events, meant that they did not play a single on-campus home game. PSU did manage one off-campus home contest, a blowout of Slippery Rock on December 9, 2012, at Galactic Ice in nearby Altoona, PA. The twin themes of a thin schedule entirely on the road and a light roster would dominate most of the regular season, although key wins over Michigan State and particularly over West Chester (then the second-ranked team in the East Region, one of two in ACHA Division 2) helped Penn State sneak into the ACHA National Tournament as the number four team in the East Region, the final available bid.
Few anticipated what came next at the tournament, held at the Ashburn Ice House in Ashburn, VA from March 7–10, 2013: wins over West No. 1 Alaska (2–1) and defending Division 2 national champion Wisconsin-Stout (3–1) on the first two days of the championships. With the top seed in the semifinals already secure after just the pair of games, the Lady Ice Lions tied with North Dakota State (3–3) to close the pool round of the tournament. In the semis, PSU once again ran into UW-Stout, a game that stands as one of the signature contests in team history. With the Blue Devils leading 1–0 midway through the third period, a Soukup shot on the power play from the top of the left circle flew through Fisk and past Stout goalie Kaye Collier. Following the remainder of regulation, a five-minute first overtime and nearly four minutes of a second one, Elia pushed home a third-chance transition goal after tries by Fisk and Elizabeth Denis to send the team to the national championship game. The run ended one win short however, as West Chester overturned an early 2–0 Penn State lead and took the title with a 5–2 victory.
The 2013–14 season was marked by both continuity and change. Nearly all of the senior-free 2012–13 squad returned (with second-leading scorer Mortach a notable exception), this time with a little bit of depth, thanks to a strong freshman class including future captains Lucy Yeatman, Anna Marcus and Cassie Dunne. Newness came in form of the Penn State's joining a conference for the first time, College Hockey East (CHE), a league that included Cal, West Chester and Delaware and guaranteed a robust schedule. PSU's other major issue during 2012–13 was cured with the opening of $90 million Pegula Ice Arena, a twin-sheet facility that allowed the team a permanent locker room and largely cured scheduling headaches. The Lady Ice Lions played the first intercollegiate hockey game in the arena's history, topping Liberty on September 27, 2013.
Other than, notably, an intense rivalry with Cal that saw the teams split six overall meetings in 2013–14, high expectations and the remainder of the schedule proved no burden as Penn State ran up a 14–2–2 regular season record, 6–2–2 of which came within the CHE to take the league's regular-season title. Although the Vulcans defeated the Lady Ice Lions in the CHE's playoff championship game, a bid to the 2014 ACHA National Tournament at Fred Rust Ice Arena in Newark, DE was expected, with PSU placing in ACHA Division 2's East Region's top two during every 2013–14 ranking period (in stark contrast to the previous season).
At nationals a familiar pattern emerged, as Penn State opened with another tight win over Alaska (3–2), then topped Delaware (3–0) to once again wrap up a trip to the semifinals in short order. This time though, the repeat low-stakes game against NDSU and eventual Zoë M. Harris Player of the Year Kacie Johnson resulted in a dominating 5–2 Penn State win featuring two goals by Marcus. Fisk then added her own brace, with Vaughan making 20 necessary saves, as the Lady Ice Lions held on for a 2–1 victory over frequent nemesis Cal to head back to the ACHA Division 2 championship game. However, PSU once again came up short in the final, this time to Iowa State and tournament MVP Millie Luedtke, who scored the game's only goal on the power play with 7:21 remaining in the third period.
Elevation to ACHA Division 1 (2014–2017)
Following the quick success of consecutive second-place finishes in ACHA Division 2, Penn State elected to move back to ACHA Division 1 for the 2014–15 season. As part of the jump, the team initiated membership in the ECWHL, significant as the league occupied by the previous Lady Icers team from 2003 to 2012.
Coinciding with the division change, the Lady Ice Lions received a significant boost in the effort to succeed in Division 1 in the form of four players cut from PSU's NCAA Division I team during the 2014 offseason: forwards Darby Kern, Cara Mendelson and Katie Murphy, along with defenseman Madison Smiddy. Mendelson, Murphy and Smiddy had spent their freshman years in 2011–12 as Lady Icers before joining the NCAA team for two seasons, while Kern was a year younger with no prior ACHA experience. A fifth NCAA cut, Jessica Desorcie, also joined the Women's Ice Hockey Club as an assistant coach. Numerous key players from the Division 2 seasons also remained, including Fisk, Schaffer, Saideh, Elia and Tonetti, while the regular incoming class was highlighted by Kelly Watson, Riley O'Connor, Claire Gauthier and Tarika Embar. Tonetti, despite being a senior, was also an addition in a sense, as she was finally able to move back to her natural goaltending position after two years playing forward in order to balance out the occasionally-wobbly roster count.
Even with the team's rapid growth, an uneven start to the season followed, as an opening sweep at Vermont was tailed by a somewhat uninspiring pair of wins against Delaware (now in a lower division, of course) and a goal-less weekend at Massachusetts. Slowly but surely though, big wins started rolling in. The first major blow was a 3–2 win over Rhode Island on November 9, 2014, and a 2–1 overtime result against UMass followed on January 10, 2015. The Rams were fourth in the ACHA rankings at the time of the meeting, while the Minutewomen were fifth.