“I always want to pave my own path,” he told NHL.com. “I don’t want to be a follower. I want to do my own thing and go with my own heart. From the start, I had people telling me that Penn State was a new and upcoming school, and might not get you pro ready. But I want to stick with my gut and go with what I want to do, and kind of block out whatever everyone else says, and just go with my heart.”<\/p>\n
One of the things that won his heart at Penn State was the ping-pong table in the player lounge at Pegula Ice Arena. That table allowed him to create a bond with Gadowsky during his recruiting visit.<\/p>\n
“I can tell he’s a fun guy to be around,” McKenna said. “He’s a competitive guy. Loves to win. I played him in ping pong there, and he didn’t take it easy on me when I went and toured there. It just shows he’s a competitive guy and loves to win. I’m looking forward to it, and it should be a fun year.”<\/p>\n
McKenna said Gadowsky pulled out the win, in part because he hadn’t picked up a paddle in a while.<\/p>\n
Will he get a rematch?<\/p>\n
“I will, for sure,” McKenna said.<\/p>\n
That will come, but hockey obviously will be the main topic for McKenna this season. That starts with a weekend set at Arizona State on Oct. 3-4.<\/p>\n
His first games at Pegula Ice Arena will come the following weekend, Oct. 9-10 against Clarkson University.<\/p>\n
And he’ll also be in the spotlight when Penn State hosts Michigan State in the first men’s hockey game played outdoors at 106,000-seat Beaver Stadium on Jan. 31.<\/p>\n
“Gavin is a special player and a terrific young man,” Gadowsky said. “Our staff could not have been more impressed with how he presented himself on his visit. His arrival to Hockey Valley is extremely significant not only to our hockey program, but to Penn State athletics and to college hockey as a whole. We are absolutely thrilled and excited to witness his contributions on the ice, to our locker room, and to the Penn State community.”<\/p>\n
There’s no doubt McKenna’s arrival raises the stakes at Penn State, which will have back its top four scorers from last season.<\/p>\n
But the McKenna effect won’t just be felt this season. He could become the focal point of future recruiting efforts. In addition to an energetic campus, a top-flight arena and player amenities, Penn State can sell the opportunity to play for the program that helped launch the next generational NHL player.<\/p>\n
As eventful as the first 15 years of the Penn State program has been, what could be in store for the next 15?<\/p>\n
“We find ourselves now in a spot where we’ve checked off everything on our checklist except for one,” Gadowsky said. “So that’s what we’re shooting for.”<\/p>\n
Olczyk, who now works as a certified public accountant in Chicago, is as excited as anyone else about McKenna’s arrival.<\/p>\n
“Penn State kind of went from a new kid on the block to … there’s no denying that it might always be truly a football school deep down, just for all the football history there. But they’re making a case that they’re one of the most premier places to play hockey,” he said, “from their facilities, from the coaching staff to all the amenities that the players have access to. It’ll just be really exciting to watch them come fall.”<\/p>\n
NHL.com independent correspondent Craig Merz contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I always want to pave my own path,” he told NHL.com. “I don’t want to be a follower.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-149662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}