'First of many firsts': Robert Morris hockey returns as women's team opens season at Union

For Robert Morris University hockey player Wasyn Rice, the realization hit her a few hours before the puck dropped.

“The feeling came when the jerseys were put out (on) gameday, walking into the dressing room. It almost felt surreal. I was taken aback that I was back playing a game,” Rice said.

On Sunday afternoon, the Colonials quietly played an exhibition game against the Cambridge Rivulettes, a Canadian women’s junior team. It was a soft launch of sorts to begin the 2023-24 season.

It was also the first time those jerseys were to be worn on a gameday since the women’s and men’s teams were cut from the RMU athletics department two years ago.

“It was the best feeling,” Rice said of walking into the locker room. “It was a feeling I never felt before. It was an exciting feeling to know that I was going to be part of this coming back.”

Friday night, though, Rice and her teammates will be donning those uniforms on the ice for the first time in a game that counts. She and the rest of the Colonials will take on Union College at 6 p.m. in Schenectady, N.Y., for the official relaunch of the team after a two-year absence.

“It’s going to be definitely emotional,” head coach Logan Bittle said this week. “I think we got a little bit of a preview with our exhibition game on Sunday. But just kind of falling back into that routine of waking up on a gameday and preparing for a game during the week is just so exciting.”

After both programs enjoyed frequent success since the teams were born in the early 2000s, they were surprisingly discontinued in May 2021. But a fundraising campaign led by students, local supporters, alumni and the displaced players themselves got the teams reinstated six months later.

The target was to return this fall. Now, two years of waiting are over and the teams are ready to reboot a legacy of hockey at the school that began when the men’s team played its first game on Oct. 22, 2004.

Bittle was a player on that inaugural team under head coach Derek Schooley, who is still in charge of the men’s program. The men will return to the ice Oct. 7 against Bowling Green at 7 p.m. after the women host St. Anselm at 2 p.m. The home debut doubleheader at Clearview Arena on Neville Island is being billed as a university-wide celebration for the return of hockey to the school.

“I told our team in the locker room before our game Sunday that this is going to be the first of many firsts,” Bittle said. “The exhibition game was our first time putting on the jersey and playing against another team. This weekend will be our first time competing as an NCAA team together. Hopefully, we’ll get our first win this weekend as well. Then, coming back on Oct. 7 in front of a sold-out crowd will be our first time playing at home. To be a part of all those firsts, like I was on the men’s side back in 2004, is something that I know these girls will never forget.”

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Rice, Chace Sperling, Gillian Thompson and Allyson Hebert are the only four remaining skaters from the last edition of the women’s team before the programs were cut.

That 2020-21 squad won the College Hockey America conference title and skated in the NCAA tournament. After the plug was pulled on Colonials’ hockey, Rice (a native of British Columbia) went to play college hockey in Canada but returned when she found out her team in Pittsburgh was being reinstated.

Even though that meant spending the entire 2022-23 season away from competition and exclusively practicing every day with 11 other holdovers and incoming players for the rebooted programs.

“Originally, I thought I was gonna stay (with my Canadian team) for the rest of my hockey career. But as soon as (RMU’s team) came back, I had a feeling that I needed to come back,” Rice explained. “Going through the decision process, it was hard. But it felt so right in my gut.”

Aside from Rice, Sperling, Thompson and Hebert, the rest of the roster is made up of incoming freshmen and lots of transfers. One of those transfer students is Madison Primeau. The daughter of former Penguin Wayne Primeau, the junior forward is continuing her career after two seasons at Syracuse University.

Despite not having been part of the original Colonials prior to the elimination of the teams, Primeau says the new players on the club share the emotional investment of the relaunch.

“Putting on the Robert Morris jersey is just an extra special thing. It gave me chills putting it on the other day,” Primeau said. “The excitement, you see it all over social media. It was something special before. You see all the support you get from around (campus). Just looking at the star and ‘Robert Morris’ on the front of a jersey, … starting a new chapter is always exciting as is. So I think just adding all those extra elements (of the relaunch) to it made it even more special.”

That special feeling would heighten if the Colonials could replicate the success they had before the shutdown. Doing so in the first year may be difficult. But the talent Bittle and his coaching staff have assembled already has the Colonials ranked third out of six teams in the CHA preseason poll.

But those results are well down the line. A few more of those firsts Bittle discussed need to take place, such as the opening series this weekend against Union and that home opening celebration next week.

“When you see the whole rink being filled with all the people that got us to where we are today. That’s gonna be a really good feeling,” Rice said.

“It’s about getting cut and now the feeling that you’re back. So all the emotions are just going to come. I’ll be a little teary-eyed on the ice.”

Listen: Tim Benz and head coach Logan Bittle discuss the return of Robert Morris women’s hockey.