By: Dan Ketler, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, dmk5614@psu.edu

The 2014-2015 Penn State Brandywine Ice Hockey season has come to an end, after a long and hard fought journey. The club team won the regular-season championship with an impressive seventeen wins and six losses. They advanced to the Delaware Valley Collegiate Hockey Conference Playoffs (DVCHC) as the top seed. The team dominated the playoffs and went on to compete in a best of three championship series against Rutgers.

The series halted at a 1-1 tie and was headed into a third and final game, but the Lion’s senior goalie, Andrew Hieber, suffered a slightly torn MCL and was unable to play in the championship. With no back up goalie to fill in, the Lion’s were unfortunately forced to forfeit the championship to Rutgers. The team was plagued with multiple roster issues throughout the season and this continued to be a challenge for the Lions as the season went on even in the earlier stages of the season.

“Basically, we headed into our season knowing it was going to be a rough road because of the amount of players we had,” junior defensemen Frank Leonardo said. “We started practicing in September with only fourteen players and one goalie.”

This proved to serve as a bad omen for the team when they reached the championship and their lone goalie was injured.

“Our goalie hurt his knee in Sunday’s game and we were waiting for a second opinion on the severity of the injury. He has a 30% tear in his MCL and he is done for the season.” Brandywine’s Head Coach Paul Gilligan stated, “our season is over.”

This was Coach Gilligan’s 12th season coaching the Lions and he has done a tremendous job leading them to victory. Gilligan had helped lead Brandywine to the American Conference Tournament every season and led the team to DVCHC title in 2012. Despite the 2014-2015 season’s unfortunate turn of events, the team worked hard and did the best they could with their roster issues.

Leonardo added, “Tough ending to a tough and hard fought season.”

One thing that is certain is that Lion’s Ice Hockey has a promising future. Nearly half the team is comprised of freshman including the team’s leading goal scorer, Jonathan Thompson. Thompson and his teammates plan to regroup in the offseason and return to the 2016 championship with a vengeance.

Many students at Brandywine are unaware of the fact that the school has an ice hockey team. They are a club team—which means they are funded through student activity fees rather than the school itself. They usually play at Ice Works in Aston or Ice Line in West Chester. Silently, the team has been working hard and going on various championship runs to make the Penn State Brandywine community proud.

Although the Lion’s Ice Hockey squad was struck with an unfortunate injury from which they were unable to recover, a heart-broken Brandywine Ice Hockey team will plan to regroup in the offseason and return stronger than ever, for the 2015-2016 season, to capture the DVCHC crown. Be sure to be on the look out for next years schedule to cheer on Brandywine’s Ice Hockey team.