Penguins, Chatham University bring college hockey to Hunt Armory

With Robert Morris hockey on the shelf until the 2023-24 season, the Chatham Cougars men’s and women’s teams are the new local college hockey teams on center stage.

Now the center stage itself is also new. For a few nights anyway.

The Cougars men’s team will be playing a game at the Hunt Armory on Friday night — at 7 p.m. — against King’s College. It’ll be the first college game at the recently repurposed Shadyside building. In November, the Pittsburgh Penguins, City of Pittsburgh and Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh cut the ribbon on the redevelopment landmark as a seasonal ice rink. It’s the first new sheet of ice within the city in over 20 years.

The ice rink is funded by the Penguins along with NHL and NHLPA. According to Penguins chief operating officer Kevin Acklin, the franchise and the league are “seeking to provide greater opportunities for children from city neighborhoods to learn the game of ice hockey.”

With Chatham’s campus just half a mile away from the Armory, Acklin sees an opportunity to help grow the college game in Pittsburgh as well.

“The Penguins have been partnering with Chatham University to continue to strengthen their men’s and women’s ice hockey program,” Acklin said Wednesday. “They have expressed interest in working with the Penguins and the city toward a longer-term future at Hunt Armory. It’s truly historic that Chatham will be playing the first NCAA hockey game at the Armory, and we hope to continue to partner and even help elevate their program to the Division I level.”

Discusion about Chatham’s hockey program going Division I has been minimal in the past. But with the Penguins lending a voice to that hope — as well as at least partial use of the facility — that adds credence to the conversations.

Both the men’s and women’s programs are only scheduled to have two games each at the Armory this year. And seating is limited to 300 under city zoning codes for a seasonal rink. But men’s coach Michael Gershon is excited for the Cougars’ chance to christen the new sheet of ice.

“Getting the opportunity to showcase the building and what the Penguins and the city have done to the historic building is amazing,” Gershon said. “Our guys are really excited to be the first — the opportunity to be the first at anything. We are trying to build this program. There are a lot of firsts we are trying to create. This just adds to the legacy of what we are trying to do here by building this program.”

Making Hunt Armory the permanent home for both Cougars programs isn’t the immediate goal.

Acklin described the first season of the building as a “test year” for the Penguins and the URA to focus on “youth learn-to-play programs and better establish our Black hockey program, and create recreational opportunities for city residents.” As Acklin pointed out, in order to forge a permanent connection between the school and the rink, it’d be necessary to make the Hunt Armory into a permanent year-round facility. For now, it is just being used seasonally between late November and March 1. Acklin says any such advancement would “require additional investment into permanent ice-making fixtures and insulation and require additional city approvals.”

For the time being, though, the connection with Chatham is two-fold.

• Bringing a college team into the mix heightens the awareness of the building’s capabilities to host local teams and of its public skates. It also furthers the franchise’s hope of expanding the game on the college level.

• From Chatham’s point of view, the goal is to have a few games closer to campus for players and fans so more eyes can get on the program. The men’s team currently plays in Valencia at Frozen Pond Arena. The women are at Pittsburgh Ice Arena in New Kensington. Both facilities are about 35 minutes from campus.

“Everyone wants to be as close as they possibly can to school, especially student experience-wise,” Gershon said. “We would get quite a bit more people close to campus. Just the convenience factor. For students not having to get on a shuttle and drive, just to walk down, that’s extremely important to me and hopefully the athletic department and the school as well. That’s one of the reasons we are trying to make this work — make the student experience for our athletes and Chatham and the surrounding community an exciting one.”

Gershon, a former assistant with Robert Morris’ Division I program, wouldn’t speculate on Acklin’s long-term hope of Chatham perhaps making the leap to D-I. And a university spokesperson had no comment on the prospect.

But one thing is clear, having a recently renovated building just a five-minute drive from campus with a stamp on it from the NHL and the Penguins certainly doesn’t hurt.