Tim Benz: Robert Morris hockey has been reinstated. Now it needs to be rebuilt

For Robert Morris University men’s hockey coach Derek Schooley, the past seven months have been dedicated to resurrecting the school’s hockey programs.

The next two years will be dedicated to rebuilding them.

In May, the RMU administration cut the men’s and women’s hockey teams from the athletic department. Thanks to seven months of fundraising, outcry from alumni, legal pressure and media scrutiny, the school decided to reinstate the teams two weeks ago.

But they won’t resume play until 2023-24. That means roster-building with a long lens.

“The first thing is, you are looking for players who are available to come to school in two years,” Schooley said Monday. “The transfer portal is way too early to look and predict where and who is going to be making those decisions in two years. … The transfer portal will really ramp up when it comes towards this time next year.”

Schooley knows he’ll have to rely a lot on transfers, even if he can’t guess who they will be right now.

“We are going to need some older kids. Most definitely,” Schooley said. “We are going to have to go out and get a few older players. Some veteran presence. You want some people who have been through the battles and the wars of college hockey.”

In theory, players could transfer to Robert Morris at the end of this season. But then they’d just be practicing, training and attending classes until the team hits the ice again in the fall of 2023.

But, with the NCAA’s new one-time free transfer rule, any player could come to RMU once the 2022-23 season ends and be immediately eligible for 2023-24. Also, since the program was cut, any player who left the Colonials to skate elsewhere could come back to RMU in two years without penalty.

In fact, numerous players who have spoken with TribLIVE over the past seven months told us that their new coaches said if the RMU programs were reinstated before this current season started, they’d allow those players to return to Moon, given the odd circumstances.

By coincidence, the day that Robert Morris officials were holding their press conference at the Island Sports Center to announce the return of Colonials hockey, American International College coach Eric Lang was in the building, watching his son play in a tournament. When RMU hockey folded, Lang landed two Colonials transfers, forward Santeri Hartikainen and defenseman Brian Kramer.

“When we first recruited them, I said, ‘If Robert Morris got their program back, I would always give you the opportunity to go back to the place that recruited you.’ I would always honor that for them,” Lang said. “Because they had to make a decision based on necessity, not based on what they want, or don’t want.”

What makes that offer even more notable is that AIC is an Atlantic Hockey rival of Robert Morris. The Yellow Jackets won the Atlantic Hockey tournament in 2019 and 2021. They won the 2020 regular-season crown before the pandemic shut down the tournament.

“That goes to show (a lot) about his character,” Kramer said of Lang. “He is a really nice guy when it comes to that. Loyalty. That was really a cool gesture by him.”

That sentiment about Lang was echoed by Schooley, who praised the bond they shared as conference combatants going back to Lang’s days as an assistant at Army.

“College hockey is a special group. A special knit of people,” Schooley said. “Everybody is together. I think you saw that from not only the support (for RMU) in the Pittsburgh hockey community but also college hockey nationwide. It’s a bond. It’s a fraternity.”

For a player such as Kramer, a Wexford product who is only beginning his sophomore season, in theory, he would have eligibility remaining if he wanted to transfer back home. But he said he is happy with the Yellow Jackets and may find it hard to return to Robert Morris anyway because of how the programs were cut.

“As much as I loved playing there last year, there is still a sour taste in my mouth from how it was handled by leadership at the school,” Kramer said. “But program-wise, I loved my time there.”

Aidan Spellacy is a different story. After three years with the Colonials, he transferred to St. Cloud State to play his senior season. He is just happy to know that when he calls himself an alum of the Colonials program, it’ll still be a living entity.

“I spent three years at that school and played with and for a bunch of great people. So I definitely wanted RMU to have a program so I could say I played for that program. And have a place I called home for three years,” Spellacy said.

Schooley is reticent — and technically not allowed — to talk about bringing back any ex-players who are currently with other teams. If they put their names in the transfer portal, that could be a different story. But that’s a conversation the players would have to initiate down the road.

There are still a handful of student-athletes who remain on campus and didn’t transfer — players such as Nick Lalonde, Geoff Lawson and Nolan Schaeffer. Many of them are upperclassmen, close to graduation who would be looking at sixth years and/or extended graduate programs to remain enrolled as hockey players.

Now that the decision has been made by the school to delay a return until 2023-24, they may be encouraged to transfer for next year or just finish out their degrees without playing hockey again.

“It’s a lot for them to think about,” Schooley said. “They’ve got to take a long, hard look at it. But if they want to come back, we’d love to have them all back.”

As for the women’s team, before anything else, they need a head coach. And staff. Schooley is maintaining the title of Director of Hockey Operations at RMU — along with former player and U.S. Olympian Brianne McLaughlin — to recalibrate both programs. And he says the search for a women’s coach will begin after the first of the year.

This isn’t the first time Schooley has had to build a Colonials team from the ground up. He’s the only coach the men’s team has ever known. He was hired in September 2003, and the team first took to the ice 13 months later.

Back then, his roster was a blank piece of paper. Ten years later, it was good enough to win an Atlantic Hockey championship and go to the NCAA Tournament.

“600 days,” Schooley said of the wait before that next lineup card is printed out.

For a coach who nearly lost his program and has to rebuild it once more, it probably doesn’t feel like enough time. Yet, those days probably can’t go by fast enough.