Graduate Transfer Doherty Finds Happy Home in Hockey Valley
To quote Kesha and Pitbull’s song “Timber”: “It’s going down, I’m yelling timber! You better move, you better dance.” Tim Doherty has been moving opposing players and making them dance with his nifty moves on the ice.
The Maine graduate transfer has found himself at home as a member of this Penn State team and provides veteran leadership for an extremely young group.
Doherty has had an extremely successful college career thus far with 77 points in 101 games as a Maine Black Bear, coming to Penn State for his final year of eligibility.
From the start, Doherty took note of just how different Hockey East is compared to the Big Ten.
“It’s actually a lot more different than I thought it was going to be,” Doherty said. “Just the way Penn State plays, I thought that was a little different.”
Doherty wasted little time getting acclimated with his teammates, as his impact could be felt right from the start.
He registered five shots on goal in the first two games of the season against Minnesota and finally buried the biscuit in the first Wisconsin game that resulted in a 6-3 loss.
The senior has been paired with Alex Limoges, and their chemistry can be seen on the ice, as the duo has made opposing defenses look silly.
Doherty said Limoges is a “pretty easy player to play with.” The duo has combined for 15 points through eight games.
But Doherty’s path to Penn State was not an easy one.
He entered the collegiate game during the 2015-16 season at Brown University but did not register any stats in his time with the Bears.
After that season, he became a Bear again, this time at Maine, but he was forced to sit out the 2016-17 season due to the NCAA transfer rule.
Then, once the 2017-18 season came, Doherty finally got his chance to get back onto the ice after nearly two years of not playing in a game.
Doherty has made an impact wherever he has gone, but it was somewhat difficult at first given the pandemic and a lack of time to build chemistry with his new teammates.
“Preseason is usually the time of bonding and becoming a team, a close team,” Doherty said. “So it was difficult, but at the same time, kind of seamless because there’s such good guys in that room.”
That veteran leadership and experience Doherty brings to a young, scrappy team is something that he prides himself on.
The 25-year-old forward, although new to this Penn State team, wants to be a leader and lead by example for those around him.
“I think that something that I wanted to do coming in is be a leader no matter what,” Doherty said.
Doherty has found a happy home in Happy Valley for his graduate transfer year, especially in the final three games in 2020. He will enter the 2021 portion of the season on a three-game point streak with two goals in those last three games.
Christopher Hess is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email christopherhess22@gmail.com.
