By Mike Prisuta/Special to USCHO.com
As the days dwindled down this week toward the triumphant return of Robert Morris men’s hockey, coach Derek Schooley found himself wrestling with perhaps the only emotion that had escaped him since the men’s and women’s programs had been abruptly terminated in May 2021.
“I wonder if I remember how to win a hockey game,” Schooley acknowledged.
It’s been a minute.
But if history repeats itself as the Colonials are anticipating, confirmation in the affirmative won’t be long in coming.
Schooley, the only coach the Robert Morris men’s program has ever known, won the first game in program history, a 3-1 triumph over Canisius on Oct. 22, 2004, in Buffalo.
His career record of 275-275-8 includes six consecutive trips to Atlantic Hockey’s Final Four, four appearances in the conference championship game, back-to-back AHA regular-season championships, an AHA West Division championship and a 7-3 loss to Minnesota in the 2014 NCAA tournament.
The Colonials’ compete level in that one earned a standing ovation from Gophers fans as RMU left the ice at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.
Once the puck drops against Bowling Green on Saturday night on Neville Island, the school’s on-ice home on the Ohio River a little less than 10 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle, more emotion is destined to take over.
“I’m gonna cry 20 times this weekend,” Schooley admitted. “Tears of joy.”
Who they were is what they’ll aspire to be again.
A program built from the crease out, sometimes in tandem but almost always with at least one stalwart puck-stopper capable of being leaned upon when needed.
A team with at least one defenseman that can skate and create, whether that be as a power-play quarterback or joining the rush up front.
And a group of forwards that move forward and score goals, more often than not led by at least one player capable of vying for Atlanta Hockey’s goal-scoring and points titles if not conference player of the year honors.
The Colonials had just such a team set to return for 2021-22 minus only two departures from the previous campaign when former RMU president Dr. Chris Howard melted the ice from beneath the men’s and women’s skates.
“We had the ability to win Atlantic Hockey,” Schooley remembered. “We were gonna be really good.”
Now, they’re starting over.
But they aren’t starting from scratch this time.
Back when it all began, Schooley had a desk and a phone but no computer in his new office.
He was once turned down by a recruit who was at least thoughtful enough to thank “Mr. Morris” for the interest.
This time, there was a brand name to sell.
“RMU’s had so much success in the past,” noted goaltender Chad Veltri, a native of nearby Fox Chapel, Pa., and a veteran of four collegiate seasons at Niagara. “It’s nice that the coaching staff is still here because they continue that same work ethic that Robert Morris had in the past.
“The transition, there hasn’t been one. They know what they’re doing.”
Assistant coaches Matt Nicholson and Ryan Durocher worked under Schooley previously at RMU.
The staff has cobbled together a roster that includes 10 transfers with NCAA Division I experience, including Veltri, goaltender Francis Boisvert (St. Lawrence), defensemen Mitch Andres (Boston College), Luke Johnson (Providence), Trevor LeDonne (St. Thomas) and Cade Townend (Mercyhurst), and forwards Logan Ganie (Michigan Tech), Paul Maust (Mercyhurst), captain Rylee St. Onge (Mercyhurst) and Dallas Tulik (Ferris State).
Forwards Gavin Gulash, Cameron Hebert and Mathew Hutton are Colonials’ holdovers from the 2020-21 team.
That there’s a team at all might be the biggest achieved by a bunch of Colonials since the American Revolution.
RMU’s Lexington and Concord, the shot heard ’round the world, was then-Steelers General Manager and RMU alum Kevin Colbert’s resignation from the board of trustees after the school’s decision to drop hockey was announced.
That brought attention to the injustice.
The players from both programs, past and present, took it from there. They wouldn’t accept termination without representation. Neither would RMU alumni, the Pittsburgh hockey community, and the community at large.
The Pittsburgh College Hockey Foundation and others, as it turned out, had just begun to fight.
Campaigns were staged, funds were raised, pleas for the school to reconsider were made.
The cause even attracted the attention and efforts of former Steelers defensive lineman Brett Keisel, former Pirates second baseman Neil Walker and former Penguins winger Ryan Malone (he had ties to college hockey, having played at St. Cloud State, but like Keisel and Walker had none to Robert Morris).
It was as if Pittsburgh took offense to having the teams taken away.
Against all odds, the programs were eventually reinstated (the women’s team returned with a 5-2 loss on Sept. 29 and a 3-2 win on Sept. 30 at Union).
And Dr. Chris Howard is now employed by Arizona State.
“We had to drive 99.5 yards in a short amount of time,” said Schooley, opting for a football analogy in football-mad western Pennsylvania. “We were at fourth-and-50. Somehow, we got a first down.
“We kept it going.”
Both teams will be celebrated on Saturday.
The women play their first home game at 2 p.m. against Saint Anselm.
The men’s team entertains BGSU at 7 p.m.
A tailgate party is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., complete with the RMU band, a DJ and food trucks.
And both teams will be escorted on the approximately seven-mile journey from campus in Moon Township to the Island Sports Center by police vehicles and fire trucks (Schooley may even come up with the extra scratch required to have them run the sirens).
A red carpet will be waiting at the rink, just like at the Frozen Four.
In some respects, the programs have never been better.
“We never hid from our past,” Schooley said of the RMU reboot. “We were very open and honest about our history of winning, where we were, where we got to and what happened. You can’t hide from it. We used it as a positive.
“We have more donors, we have more supporters, we have more board of trustee members on our side. We have more people in the community on our side. We’ve sold more season tickets than we ever have before.
“We never lost a kid (recruiting) because of what had happened in the past. We lost kids because they had other options or they didn’t want to come but never were we told it was because they were afraid of what happened previously.”
The only asterisk in this story of redemption is the Atlantic Hockey preseason coaches poll, which projects a 10th-place finish for RMU out of 11.
“That kinda pissed us all off a little bit,” Andres said. “We’re just kinda playing with a chip on our shoulder.
“A hungry dog runs faster.”
That’s not quite “The legs feed the wolf,” but Herb Brooks would no doubt appreciate the sentiment as a rallying cry for the program’s resurrection.
Added Veltri: “Looking from the outside in people have no expectations for us. But from this locker room, we know what we have in here. We’re not just a new program. This is a team and coaching staff that has been established in the past. We have players from many different schools who have proven themselves and a lot of freshmen who are working hard right now and showing that they can be college hockey players.
“We’re just gonna go out every single day and work hard. The results will come.”
