YSU hockey team hosts CSU tonight at The Ice Zone
YOUNGSTOWN
The term student-athlete doesn’t just apply to players earning full-ride scholarships or having access to a state-of-the-art fitness facility complete with academic advisers on payroll.
It also applies to members of the club sports like Youngstown State’s hockey team.
The Penguin hockey team fully encompasses the term student athlete. They’re paying tuition and still lacing up their skates each weekend to represent the university.
The Penguins are taking on Cleveland State tonight at The Ice Zone in Boardman to end their regular season. Senior Enzo Recchia said he believes the style his team plays is a metaphor for the area — tough and not easy to push around.
“We’re a pretty gritty team,” Recchia said. “We grind and we’re very aggressive. Hitting is one of our biggest strengths.
“If you could put a picture of Youngstown on the ice, that’s us.”
The team plays lots of local programs like Pitt, Slippery Rock, Ohio University and they now have a traveling trophy with Akron, which the Zips managed to skate away with this season.
“We’ve got a few rivalries,” senior Zack Jones said. “People just hate us because of our style of play. People get mad but it comes with respect. They might not like us but they’ll respect us.”
The team has struggled to a 3-15 record this year, losing many one-goal games. But that in-your-face style is what has kept the team in games, according to the players.
“Our style definitely isn’t a bad thing,” Recchia said. “It’s the main reason why we’re competitive.”
“Other teams just don’t know how to handle how we come off,” Jones said.
The only scholarship the team has is a housing scholarship that takes care of $2,000 of on-campus housing. That evens out the approximately $2,000 per year cost of playing for the team, which takes care of ice time, travel expenses and equipment.
While there’s no strength and conditioning coach barking at them twice a day during workouts or lots of film study sessions, the team has many aspects of a varsity program. The American Collegiate Hockey Association mandates students be full time, maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average and the team has scheduled practices and conditioning.
“It’s definitely a commitment,” Recchia said. “But just like any student you’ve got to be good at time management.”
While many other club teams around the state charge students to attend games, YSU does not. Students are free while non-students pay $5 to attend. Junior Joshua Hessler said that’s helped them grow one of the strongest fan bases out of the teams they play.
“I just don’t think it’s right to charge students,” Recchia said. “We want to get our students to get out there.”
While tonight’s game is going to be the last for Jones in a competitive collegiate environment, he said the nice thing about this area and hockey in general is the ability to continue playing afterward.
“It might be my last time competitively but I’ll still play in men’s leagues and still have fun,” Jones said. “The great thing about hockey is that you’ll never stop playing.”