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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSeptember 24, 2014Guy GadowskyDETROIT, MICHIGAN GUY GADOWSKY: At Penn State we continue to be extremely excited about what's going on, not only with our program but with Big Ten hockey. On the ice we feel that we made vast improvements from last October to March, and that's very exciting, but also I think the way that Penn State feels about our program and especially the Big Ten hockey conference, I think they made a huge statement by the student section selling out in three minutes. I think that says a lot about what Penn State feels about the Big Ten hockey conference. Q. You talked on the student section selling out. You have a great facility. Do you feel like all these things are helping you become a contender in the Big Ten quicker than you might have expected? GUY GADOWSKY: That's how we feel, but I guess it depends on who you talk to on what their expectations are. With us I think the Big Ten Conference attracts great hockey players on its own, so that's a big factor, but certainly we have a lot going on at Penn State that we're really proud of and very excited about the facility as one, the atmosphere of the student section is another, the University itself. I feel all those factors are contributing to us to improve and improve, and we're just going to continue to do that. Q. You talked about building the foundation of your team, but for a new program you also have to build the foundation of your student section and your fan base, and to have the possibility for them to sell out your student section in three minutes, can you talk just about the work you and your team have done throughout the community to raise awareness of the program? GUY GADOWSKY: I think the guys have done a great job, but really the credit goes to Penn State University. The student body, they're very excited to support anything, and they love hockey. So that hasn't been a tough job. It's just happened naturally. They've really taken to it. The atmosphere is tremendous, and I think that's probably the biggest factor is how much fun everybody had when they were in the building. They saw incredibly high‑quality hockey. They had a great time doing it, and I think that's the biggest factor. Q. How close are you to being a revenue producing program for the school? GUY GADOWSKY: How close are we? Q. You may be there, I don't know. GUY GADOWSKY: We are there. Q. In the black, making money for the athletic department? GUY GADOWSKY: Yes, sir. Q. You went through successful rebuilds at Fairbanks and Princeton. Now you're with a startup. What do you draw from those previous experiences where you're maybe looking for immediate gratification with this program? GUY GADOWSKY: Yeah, actually we've taken a few things from both programs that you mentioned, and coming back here to Joe Louis Arena, which is something at Fairbanks we were very motivated to do for the first time, so to be able to come walk around here it does bring back great memories and certainly an unbelievable building with great history is motivating. What you can take from there is they just loved hockey up in Fairbanks and they loved our program. I think that's very similar to what's happening at Penn State, so it's a similar feel. I think Princeton, a lot of success was made with high‑quality student‑athletes, and it's something that we're continuing to do at Penn State, as well. Q. What was the biggest benefit to Penn State being in the Big Ten a year ago, playing in the Big Ten for the first time? GUY GADOWSKY: Oh, I think the experiences that we had to grow I think was tremendous. We certainly improved greatly, and I think the biggest factor to that was we played such great hockey teams night in and night out in the Big Ten, and you can't help but improve and get better, and that's what happened. Q. Can you talk to the value of the variety in your competition that you're having with an expanded non‑conference schedule? GUY GADOWSKY: I think it's great experiences for our student‑athletes. We are going to Alaska this year. We played in tournaments in CONSOL Arena, at Wells Fargo, we'll be in Madison Square Garden this year, as well. Any time you can have those unique experiences and play other programs, I think it benefits you. I think that is also what you saw due to our improvement last year. I think it helps all of us. I think our alumni in those areas really enjoy to come see us, because it's a tough ticket to get at Pegula Ice Arena, so that's another benefit. Q. You've had this group now at least a majority of these kids for a handful of years. Where do you still need to improve? GUY GADOWSKY: Oh, we have to improve everywhere. We're in the Big Ten, so I don't think we're ever going to say, geez, we've arrived, we're here, we're good to go. We have a lot of room to improve in a lot of different areas. We're trying to get better in every area every week. This is a great conference. It's an honor to be a part of it, but with that comes the responsibility that you know you have to be at your best every night. We don't feel‑‑ we're certainly not a place where we feel we've arrived here and this is where we're good, we can go against this opponent in Big Ten and we're going to have success. We have to get better at a lot of areas. Q. You said that there was a lot of improvements last year from October to the spring. What were the big areas of improvement for your team? GUY GADOWSKY: I think the biggest was adapting to the quality of play in our league, and that's something that you have to go through those growing pains. I think that we did it‑‑ we certainly were on the same page in a lot more areas in March than we were in October, so maybe you can say a lot of it is just natural happening. But I think the guys worked very hard. I think they benefitted from the great experience from playing such great teams in this league, but also they really committed to pulling together, and I think that's what you saw at the end of the year. Q. To what degree has the gap closed between the bottom of this league and the top of this league? GUY GADOWSKY: We'll see this year. I think that's something that we'll see. I can't answer that yet. I hope that you will see it a lot closer this year, but that still remains to be seen. We want to get better, we're improving, but so is every other program. We all have the same goal, to get better. As we improve, so will other programs, but I hope it's going to be a lot closer than it was last year. Q. Going with that theme again about you have a lot of players coming back, who has to play well for you to have success? GUY GADOWSKY: There's not one‑‑ I don't think we can put that responsibility on one position or one player. Obviously if you look at the statistics and the wins that we had last year, Matt Skoff was a big factor in all of the wins, so for us to be successful, I feel any team in this league, you're going to have to have great goaltending, and right now with Matt Skoff at all our wins last year, he's going to have an opportunity to start that way. If we're going to have success, he's going to have to have success. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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