The Class of 1923 Arena that houses Penn’s ice rink is unknown to most students. Straddling the end of the Walnut Street Bridge on 31st Street, it’s a hulking, faded brown building outshined by luxury apartments across the street. Its stern black lettering looks imposing, and seems to speed up the walk to Center City. Unless you’re a skater, you don’t stop to hear the thwacks of pucks hitting the boards. You don’t feel the frigid air that crackles in the rink. And you don’t hear the grunts from shaggy 20-year-olds who echo the sounds their 1978 doppelgangers made at the same pivotal moments in a game. The rink that was such a marvel in the ‘70s — because no other college in Philadelphia had one — now totters into obscurity at the edge of campus.
One Friday evening in late October, the Penn Hockey Club team prepares for its game against New Jersey’s Rider University. The zamboni is still trailing across the ice, its deep blades slicing off 1/16th of an inch. The few fans who have come out — about 10 or 11 people on Penn’s side — have brought fleece blankets to make the two and a half hours bearable.
As the game begins, Penn’s team distinguishable in its white jerseys, Rider’s red-swathed players zoom up and down the ice, pecking at the puck and shooting on goal 12 times in the first 20 minutes. After the first period, Penn leads 2-0, but Coach Bob Klein isn’t satisfied. “This is home turf,” he yells, waving his white board, stained with the red marker of previous plays. “You guys bring the energy — now!” The 22 players get it. They climb furiously onto the ice in lines of three, plus two defensemen and a goalie, trading 45-second shifts. By the end of the second period, the score is 3-2. “Better,” Klein says, scrawling on his clipboard. His players have fifteen minutes to reboot until the next period, when they will try to beat a team that has advantages Penn Hockey can only dream about: a supportive university, an extravagant budget and a student population who cares that they exist.
A tumultuous history
Penn Hockey has been around since 1900, but it only achieved varsity status in 1965. When Bob Crocker became coach in 1972, he produced one of Penn’s best seasons: a 16-9-2 record. Facing off against one of the best teams in the league at the time — the Boston University Terriers — the Quakers beat them 7-3 in front of 2,000 cheering fans. In 1976, Bob Finke, W’71, a Minneapolis native and Quaker defenseman during the 1967-68 season, took over the team, now Division I. “I don’t think we had illusions that Penn would be a powerhouse, but because we were playing competitive schools, we had a chance,” says Finke, now a manager for medical clinics in Minnesota. He wanted to maximize Philly's growing attraction to hockey; the Flyers practiced at the rink and their best player Bobby Clarke (originally from Flin Flon, Manitoba) shared the showers with Penn's players. To make the team more formidable, Finke recruited 12 freshmen for the 1977-78 season.
Though the University had been chipping away at the hockey team’s budget, there was no indication that the program would fold — until Finke received a visit from a Daily Pennsylvanian reporter on February 22, 1978. “The first thing he says is, ‘What are your thoughts on the University cutting the hockey team?’” Finke recalls. “I was stunned.” With only five games left, the men’s varsity hockey team would be downgraded to a club sport following the season’s end. To show its devastation, the team played out its last games with white athletic tape that masked the “Penn” insignia on their jerseys. On March 4, 1978, the men’s hockey team played and beat Cornell in its last game ever as a varsity sport.
More than half of the twelve freshmen who had been recruited to play at Penn scattered to other Division I schools for their sophomore year. “It was the most inopportune time for the program to get cut,” says David Akre, W’81, one of those who stayed. Furious at the situation, Akre formed Penn’s club team, which continues to play in the Class of 1923 Arena today. Now a wholesale wine merchant in Cherry Hill, NJ, he hasn’t been on the ice in 15 years. But his predecessor John Rooney, W’77, who gave up hockey out of bitterness after hearing of the program’s demise, found staying away too difficult.
“I got cut my senior year,” cheerfully booms Rooney, now the president of a company that manufacturers solar-powered light panels. Recruited to play at Princeton, Harvard and Wisconsin, he came to Penn but broke his hand junior year. How? “At Smoke’s,” he says sheepishly, then guffaws. “I was a bouncer and things got a little out of control. Coach [Finke] had to cut the older players when he recruited so many younger ones, and I had been out all year.” Rooney has since returned to the ice, playing in a number of over-40 leagues for which he has traveled all over the world.
The price of ice
Today’s team is no less dedicated to the sport than are players at other schools, but the situation here is unique in terms of budget. To play for a single season — early September to late February — each player must fork over $1,200. This amount is matched by SAC, creating a $50,000 annual budget. With ice costs totaling $350 per hour and a half of practice, the team must require dues to sustain itself, practicing on Monday and Wednesday nights when ice slots are cheaper. “I made the players realize how much their time was costing per minute in terms of the ice,” says former coach Brian Gallini, now a law professor at the University of Arkansas. “We literally could not afford to stand around.” When Gallini first came to Penn in 2006, the locker room was antiquated, the relationship with the university was strained and the alumni felt isolated. Until the end of his contract in 2008, Gallini rebuilt the team, making overtures to university officials and alumni. Current Coach Bob Klein, a former hockey player at Penn State and Assistant Coaches Mike “Flash” Flasinski and Richard Cecchini have vowed to continue his work.
The smaller-than-average players may not play as well as their predecessors, but they nonetheless curse and grit their teeth and stomp around mightily. They’ve grown up with the game, skating from ages three and four and dominating prep schools like Avon Old Farms and Deerfield Academy, but they have no delusions about playing in the NHL. Penn currently ranks near the bottom of Division II in the American College Hockey Association, which falls below the NCAA.
But while they’ll never be a match for Boston College or Wisconsin, they don’t seem to care. Told that thousands of people crowded the arena in the ‘70s to watch Penn Hockey beat Princeton, senior Dan Tavana, a forward, is impassive. “Whatever,” he says, flipping on the Flyers-Oilers game in his room. “We don’t play for the fans. We play for each other.” In light of those sentiments, which are echoed by Tavana’s teammates, a poster of Coach Herb Brooks and the miracle team that beat the Soviets in the 1980 Winter Olympics seems an appropriate bedfellow.
Prepping for a Saturday game against the University of Scranton, Tavana stalks around the locker room that was renovated in 2007 thanks to alumni donations. The old wooden slats are gone, replaced with individual blue metal stalls. The pungent odors of stale jockstrap and just-can’t-get-clean shoulder pads are permanent, though, emanating from the interchangeable black hockey bags. It’s easy to swagger in the locker room — the testosterone is palpable as the guys suit up, a process that can take 20 minutes for the goalies. DMX blasts into the room, urging the players to “fuck the police” and other assorted aphorisms that will get them pumped for today’s game. There’s no special training diet for club hockey, so while some players scarf down pasta the night before a game, others have no compunction about downing a bowl of won ton soup twelve minutes before face-off.
“Why are you late?” Coach Klein asks Alex Berman, a freshman with a thick mop of black hair.
“I came on Rosh Hashana — give me a break!”
“You came with indigestion!” Klein retorts, grinning.
“I had brisket that night!”
Sophomore Kenny Csaplar shakes his head from his locker at the other end of the room. Csaplar, a defenseman who provides much of the team’s oratorical amusement, admits he likes fighting a little too much when he’s on the ice. “I’ve only been kicked out of four games in my career, though,” he says earnestly. Headbutting is his chosen method of interference, with the cage on his helmet smashed up to prove it. Later that afternoon in the game, a fight will break out between senior Dave Farber and a purple-and-yellow clad Scranton opponent in Penn’s goalie net. Csaplar, eager to assist, will try to rush out of the penalty box before being restrained by Flash, who could reasonably be mistaken for Frank Sinatra. “Don’t make me bench you,” he’ll threaten. Csaplar will get the point and slink back to the box, albeit disappointedly.
Before that fight can take place, Klein addresses the team in the locker room. “Guys,” he says, “keep the puck away from the center but, goddamnit, get to it first! Don’t give them the luxury of time. First man on the puck — be that guy. Defend your territory!” While it’s too early to assess Klein’s coaching skills, the enthusiasm he tries to impart is impressive, as neither he nor Flash receive a salary for coaching. Klein practices law but barely sees his wife, who he says “is okay with the arrangement because she got to date a hockey player in college,” referring to their courtship at Penn State. Flash, a detective by day, solves husband-and-wife murder cases in Lower Merion.
The guys lose to Scranton 8-5, but they’ve forgotten about it two weeks later. They’re riding a coach bus to Lawrenceville, NJ, where they’ll face off against The College of New Jersey. They’re excited for the game, but are busy recounting the details from a party the previous weekend. “Yo, did you take that girl back with you?” one calls out.
“Which girl? Ah, the gutterslut.” The guys break out into giggles, peering nervously at the female reporter as one player, who asked not to be named, explains his sexual hierarchy. “There’s a huge difference between a gutterslut and a regular slut,” he says seriously, his voice getting louder. The freshmen openly crane their heads to hear his sagacity. “A regular slut I will let sleep over. A gutterslut, well, she’s a loose broad and the bed’s just not big enough.” Hoots fill the air, and he leans back, shrugging.
“WHAT ARE YOU TELLING HER?” Klein bellows from the front of the bus.
The laughter ends abruptly as the game begins. They weave in and out of each other’s lines with the grace — and perhaps anger — of Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. They’re nimble and skip daintily over each other when they fall, quick to pick up their sticks and defend their area, even if CRUNCH — they hit the boards again. Penn loses 6-3 and the players walk out in silence, averting Klein’s fearsome glare.
There’s one man missing from the bus. “Where’s Horn?” someone asks team captain and junior Sam Lerer. “He doesn’t need to come to away games anymore.” Tim Horn, a senior forward, is 6’1, with a slight build, blue eyes and cropped blonde hair. After a screw from a previous surgery came loose in his shoulder, Horn learned that he would never play competitive hockey again. “Maybe it’s a sign I should start coaching now,” he says resignedly. “I want to be able to throw my kids in the air.” He’s wearing his shoulder pads one last time for the game against Scranton. Early in the first period, he makes a few quick passes, hits the bench and goes out for one more shift. Barely three minutes later, he skids to a stop, swooshing bits of clean ice in the air. There is no fanfare. The game doesn’t stop, no one claps and none of the fans realizes the significance of the moment. But the player closest to Horn gets up, tousles his hair and skates off, anxious to catch up to the 39 shots on goal Scranton has accumulated.
Going into overtime
The team will probably never be restored to its varsity status. The Athletics Department refused to comment but pointed to a statement made by Athletic Director Steven Bilsky in April 2005: “We certainly can’t predict the future, but the resurgence of a program at Penn is not in the present plans.”
A more serious problem may be the demolition of the rink itself, since Penn’s plans for development of the postal lands do not include the arena. And while expansion may not occur for another 10 to 15 years, alumni are worried that the Penn community’s little regard for club hockey might inform the University’s decision to raze the rink. “This place is a gem,” Coach Finke says softly. “How else can you get kids from Peace River, Alberta, and Grand Rapids, Michigan to come play?”
The current players aren’t as concerned. Right now, they’re content to enjoy the last years they’ll ever have playing competitive hockey. The ride back from Lawrenceville, at first somber and quiet, eventually reaches a higher pitch. The guys joke about moronic referees who never seem to catch anything and the number of fans who came to the game that night (six). As the night stretches out before them, they make plans to go out after dropping their bags at 2 a.m. They have practice on Monday and a game next Friday, so really, what’s the worry? As long as they clean their jerseys before then, they have all the time they need.
