Robert Morris Hockey Makes Triumphant Return to Rink

Both the men’s and women’s teams held their home openers in front of sold out crowds. However each team was celebrated much earlier in the day by their fans.

While the women were finishing off a 6-1 win in their home opener, the men arrived at Clearview to a hero’s welcome. Several hundred fans gathered for their red carpet arrival. Coach Derek Schooley and captain Rylee St. Onge each said a few words to the crowd.

Now it was time for the moment everyone eagerly anticipated. The Colonials were ready to take the ice to the delight of their home crowd. At around 6:30 P.M. warmups began. With that, years of hard work and raising funds for the hockey program were realized. While it was an emotional moment for everyone, the players still had to get ready for a hockey game.

First Game Back

Bowling Green provided the opposition for the night. The visitors wasted no time in trying to ruin the moment for the Colonials. Just 51 seconds into the game, Spencer Kersten made it 1-0. As it turned out, that was the winning goal.

Bowling Green made it 2-0 shortly thereafter. They completed dominated the first period against a team who dressed 16 freshmen. Perhaps it was jitters. Perhaps it was inexperience. Shots on goal were 19-4.

However to Robert Morris’ credit, they fought back in the second in third period. They had multiple power-play chances including two where they had three minutes or more of man-advantage time. They failed to score on those. They also failed to score anything on the night.

The final score was 3-0 after Bowling Green added an empty netter. The Colonials had no shortage of chances. They had a clean breakaway after a defender fell but the shot hit the post. There were several other close call opportunities. They just couldn’t break the ice.

But on this night, none of that mattered. Of course they’d want a better result. The Colonials won as soon as the players woke up in the morning.

“Win or lose, we had already won and it’s good to be back,” Schooley said postgame. “It’s good to compete. It’s good to feel the emotion of a game. Obviously like it to be on the other side. But I thought for a young team that hadn’t played together, minus the first period, that we figured out how to play at a higher level. We had to play harder. They took it to us in the first period…We found out how we had to play and that was exciting. And it was good to feel emotional playing and good to be back, but we wanted a different result.”

Keeping Emotions in Check

This perhaps was the toughest ask of the team going into Saturday night’s game. It was years of hard work. It was years of preparation for this night. Once it got here, it was going to be emotional for everyone. But once the players hit the ice, those emotions had to be put away for a little bit. That was Schooley’s main message to the team pregame.

“Control your emotion. Obviously getting up and giving up a goal less than a minute in was probably not in the script. But enjoy the day, control the emotion. We’re back on another journey and I used a quote that I used on day one of the program. We played tenacious in 2004. (It was a) different result but we ended up splitting the weekend. Hopefully we’ll give it a better opportunity tomorrow. It’s more about trying to make sure that we control our emotion and make sure that we’re ready to play. I thought we got better as the game went on.”

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Colonials goalie Chad Veltri gave his team a chance to win. After allowing those two early goals, he didn’t allow anything else. He said the key to the night for him was to channel out everything around him once he stepped on the ice.

“I don’t have emotions. That’s pretty much it. That comes with being a goalie, right?” Veltri said. “You don’t want to see your goalie slamming his stick off the post or anything. So I’ve learned over the years to keep calm and that’s just all I can do. I think it builds confidence.”

Back to a Routine

Now the Colonials can start looking forward again to being in a routine of hockey. It will take some time to get there given how the early schedule looks. Now they can start to build the program back in a way that will bring success.

“We gotta get into a routine a little bit,” Schooley said. “We don’t even have a good one next week because we only play one game at Mercyhurst. Getting into a routine and having a Monday skill day, a Tuesday and moving into always playing Friday and Saturday is something we have to get into. But the emotion was there and we feel that. We have to build on it and get better everyday.”

Robert Morris Were Big Winners

In the end, the thing that mattered most Saturday night was that hockey was finally back where it has belonged all along. A total of 1,212 fans, which is a standing-room only sellout, attended the game at Clearview Ice Arena. It’s a small rink but it makes for an intimidating setting.

The band is in the corner behind the glass where the Colonials shoot twice. There’s a student section. The fans get to sit all on one side of the building with the standing room areas on the other side where the player’s benches are.

Robert Morris stepped us and made several improvements to the building. Upkeep was going to be an important factor with the return of hockey. They’ve done that and then some to be ready for their return.

But perhaps this was the image of the night. Once the game was over, the team gathered around as one in front of their band. They played their fight song “Go Colonials.” This put some tears in eyes of the players and fans alike.

This moment just shows everything that went into bringing hockey back to Robert Morris. It took 937 days. It took hard work and determination. It took making a commitment to keep the program sustainable long term. They did it as one. And now they’re here to stay.

Others may have just accepted being dismantled. Not this school. Not these people. They recognized the importance of the moment and rose up to meet its challenges. But now the work is just beginning and they know that.

Thanks to leaders like Derek Schooley and many others, generations of students will feel the impact of the work that was done today. That’s true leadership. That’s Robert Morris.

They’ve laid the foundation. It’s now time to build on that foundation. That’s why the best is still truly yet to come for the Robert Morris hockey program. Saturday night was just the first step.