Penn State Eyes “Wear White” Spotlight Against Fighting Irish
In the first half of the season, it was the second half of series that Penn State struggled with. Last weekend it was the second half of games that led to the blue and white’s downfall.
Now the No. 6 ranked Nittany Lions need to dig deep to make sure the second half of the season doesn’t give them nightmares.
And there’s no better weekend to put a team to the test than with one of the most anticipated series of the 2022-2023 campaign.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish come into Pegula Ice Arena for a series that includes the famous “Wear White” game, and this year showcases a new jersey for the contest.
“It is awesome,” head coach Guy Gadowsky said. “You talk to alumni, fans and supporters that have been here for all the games and they will tell you the atmosphere is unbelievable.”
The Nittany Lions will look to feed off of that raucous atmosphere at Pegula, especially coming off a rather tough series against the Michigan State Spartans.
That series included two games where blue and white saw two-goal leads vanish in a matter of minutes, leading to an overtime loss and a shootout loss.
“We were starting to get comfortable and just did not bear down,” Gadowsky said. “We thought things were coming easy and we let things slip a little bit.”
Despite only getting two points in the Big Ten standings, Penn State found themselves in a three-way tie for second place in the Big Ten, and moved up a spot in the PairWise rankings to No. 3.
The PairWise rankings are the most critical at this juncture of the season, and the Nittany Lions find themselves battling another ranked PairWise team with the Fighting Irish sitting at No. 18.
The white and gold are coming off a surprising series against the top-ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers, where they got the extra point in a shootout win in game one and dropped game two 3-0.
“They’re not good, they’re excellent,” Gadowsky said. “We want to take it one game at a time and strive for consistency.”
The Fighting Irish play a gritty, defensive style of hockey under head coach Jeff Jackson, holding opponents to under three goals a game this season.
A huge factor in their defensive success has been the play of senior goaltender Ryan Bischel.
The Medina, Minnesota native has posted .924 save percentage and a 2.56 goals against average through 24 games this season.
Even with that defensive playstyle in mind, this weekend feels like one where goals will come in bunches given what lies ahead.
The “Wear White” tradition has been one that every Nittany Lion looks forward to, both upperclassmen and fresh faces in the locker room.
“I’m super excited to play in it, we have the best student section and some of the best fans in the country,” freshman defenseman Jarod Crespo said. “When you have fans that are so electric already, it makes this game insane.”
Crespo is coming off a weekend where he saw his first collegiate goal and has carved himself a nice role on the blueline for the Nittany Lions.
“It’s been awesome,” Crespo said. “All of our captains and seniors and even the juniors have been super welcoming and it’s been extremely helpful.”
While the “Wear White” game has been the key component coming into this weekend, Ashton Calder has another factor coming into this series: revenge.
Calder, a transfer forward from North Dakota, was knocked out of the NCAA tournament by the Fighting Irish last season, and has been eyeing this series ever since making the move to Hockey Valley.
“We’re 1-1 against [Notre Dame] this year and we want to get to 3-1 this weekend,” Calder said. “But this series is extremely important to me, especially with what happened last year.”
Emotions will be high for both players and fans at Pegula this weekend, in what may be one of the most critical series of the final stretch for the Nittany Lions.
“Whoever can play their game the best the most often wins,” Gadowsky said. “We’re both going to go and do what we do and hope we can execute our game at a very high level.
“The team that does that has the best chance to win.”
Joshua Bartosik is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jsb6137@psu.edu.
