History

Hockey at Penn State spent four decades as a club sport. The Icers were founded in 1971 and became one of the strongest programs in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, winning seven ACHA national titles — in 1984, 1990, 1998 and then four consecutive championships from 2000 through 2003.

Home games were played at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion, and the whole enterprise ran on volunteer labour and student organisation. The supporters' organisation that became Friends of Penn State Men's Hockey was incorporated in that period as Men's Hockey Booster Club, Inc.

Two pages from the club years are preserved on this site:

• The 2004–05 Icers season — game reports, ACHA rankings and the 2005 awards banquet.
• The 2007 World University Games — three Icers on the United States team in Torino, Italy, reported from the club newsletter.

In 2010, Terry and Kim Pegula committed $88 million to Penn State to establish varsity men's and women's ice hockey programs and to build an arena — the largest private gift in the university's history at the time. The family's total support for hockey at Penn State later grew beyond $100 million.

Guy Gadowsky was hired in 2011 and coached the final Icers season before the transition. The 2012–13 campaign was Penn State's first at the varsity level since 1946–47; the team played as an independent and finished 13–14–0, beating three future Big Ten opponents along the way.

Pegula Ice Arena opened on October 11, 2013. The main rink seats a little over 6,000; a second sheet, the Community Rink, seats 300 and is used by youth and community programs.

The same season, Penn State began play as a founding member of the Big Ten's men's ice hockey conference alongside Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State and Wisconsin. Notre Dame joined in 2017. That first Big Ten season included seven games against NCAA tournament teams and ended with a double-overtime win over Michigan in the conference quarterfinals.

The program built an identity on tempo and shot volume, and a home building that visiting teams found uncomfortable — the student section, the Roar Zone, established itself quickly as one of the better ones in college hockey.

Penn State won a Big Ten tournament title and reached the NCAA tournament for the first time in 2017, and returned to the national tournament in later seasons. In 2025 the program reached the Frozen Four for the first time, thirteen years after its first varsity game.

For a longer account, see our article From the Icers to Hockey Valley.