Seems Like Old Times for RMU Hockey Team — Finally

PHOTO: ROBERT MORRIS HOCKEY

It was the kind of game the Robert Morris Colonials used to win all the time, but it had been long enough since they’d actually won one that the hockey team could have been forgiven for beginning to wonder if it would ever win such a game again.

That’s no longer a problem in the wake of RMU beating Penn State, 5-2, last week in Not-So-Happy Valley.

Penn State was winless (0-3) when it hosted Robert Morris at the palatial Pegula Ice Arena, as were the Colonials (0-4), but this is also a Penn State program that had been to the NCAA Tournament six times in the last 10 campaigns, including in each of the last two seasons; the team also had gone to the NCAA Frozen Four two seasons ago.

The Nittany Lions jumped back into NCAA Division I hockey, their first foray into the sport since the 1940s, in 2012-13, eight seasons after Robert Morris had first started attempting to make Division I hockey work on Neville Island.

It didn’t take long for Penn State’s big brand and big donors and Big Ten Conference excess of resources, riches and publicity to turn the PSU program into one of the most competitive in the country.

The lineup Penn State iced on Tuesday night featured nine NHL draft picks, including defenseman Jackson Smith, who was taken 14th overall by Columbus in 2025.

Robert Morris had one, center Ryan MacPherson, a sixth-round selection of Philadelphia in 2023.

This was NIL vs. SOL.

It also was something of a grudge match given the nature of the on-again, off-again commonwealth rivalry that can easily be perceived as frosty.

The two schools hadn’t even played each other since 2020. So for the Colonials, the win was especially satisfying because this wasn’t a game they were supposed to win.

Still, it was familiar if they squinted.

There was a time when RMU hockey made a habit out of punching up, out of consistently beating nationally ranked and/or brand-name, blue blood programs.

The first such occurrence was in January of 2007, midway through the Colonials’ third season, when they knocked off No. 2 Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.

The following October, No. 8 Boston University was felled on the way to RMU winning the Nye Frontier Challenge in Anchorage, Alaska.

In January of 2010, Robert Morris authored consecutive upsets of No. 1 Miami, one in Oxford, Ohio and one on the NHL Penguins’ home ice, then beat No. 5 Bemidji State in February.

In December of 2012 it was Miami again, this time falling to RMU as the nation’s No. 5 team in the championship game of the inaugural Three Rivers Classic in Pittsburgh.

In December of 2014, No. 20 Penn State was bested.

In October of 2015, No. 10 Michigan, with a roster that included future Norris Trophy winner and U.S. Olympic hero Zach Werenski, was shut out in Ann Arbor.

In December of 2016, down went No. 13 Quinnipiac (a program that would eventually capture a national championship in 2023).

And so it went.

From 2013-14 through 2018-19, Robert Morris reached Atlantic Hockey’s Final Four six times, appeared in the conference’s championship game on four occasions, and captured the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid (in 2014).

The local media rarely, if ever, took notice. Robert Morris hockey was the best-kept secret in Pittsburgh sports.

Then COVID hit. Not long after, the university opted to discontinue hockey.

A groundswell of opposition to the decision, helped immensely by the high-profile likes of Ryan Malone, Brett Keisel, Neil Walker and Kevin Colbert, among others, helped get the men’s and women’s teams restored for the 2023-24 season following a two-year hiatus.

Starting from scratch again guaranteed growing pains, though, with an emphasis on the pain.
The Colonials won 11 games in their comeback season and 10 the next.

Late last season, RMU’s game at long last began to once again look recognizable and promising. This season, they’ve picked up where they left off.

RMU opened at No. 6 Wisconsin, which had played in college hockey’s national championship game last April, and dropped a couple of highly competitive decisions, 4-2 and 1-0, in Madison.

Then came a home-and-home with Miami (unranked this time although the RedHawks will be again soon) that resulted in a 7-1 blowout and a 3-2 battle that, as the Wisconsin series had, suggested the Colonials were close.

Frustratingly so.

It finally came together against Penn State, but is it tangible evidence that Robert Morris hockey is indeed finally back?

Was it a breakthrough? A statement game?

It’s still a little too early for such declarations, but the Colonials can now be forgiven for wondering if it’s once again time to at least begin clearing their throats.