With the help of the Roar Zone, Pegula Ice Arena explodes.
The environment of the hockey student section can be majorly attributed to the contributions of the executive board.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A wall of students are wearing white, and screaming their rendition of “Hey Baby!” They’re trying to heckle the opposing goalie at Pegula Ice Arena. Welcome to the Penn State men’s hockey student section: the Roar Zone, a die-hard group who make games come alive.
What goes into making this all possible is something special to the five executives who devote their time to the student section. There’s planning that goes into all levels of the Roar Zone — from the date of the annual Wear White game and making sure everyone gets the words (and beat) to the different chants and songs through the game.
Olivia Dunshee, the secretary of the Roar Zone, is from North Hanover, Massachusetts and got into hockey because of her local college team. When she came here for an orientation tour, she went to a Penn State hockey game where she “fell in love with the atmosphere” of Pegula and the student section.
Dunshee helps communicate between Penn State athletics, the executive members, and the group. “I send out emails in the Listserv about upcoming events with the women’s hockey team and men’s hockey teams as well as do meeting recaps and anything else that comes up that pertains to hockey,” she said.
While Dunshee liked hockey before coming to Penn State, Roar Zone Vice President Cori Trosch (senior-hospitality management), became a fan at Penn State “on accident” by deciding to buy season tickets on a whim her freshman year.
As vice president, Trosch’s role is to help keep everyone organized to ensure a great season. “I am not as loud or as big of a personality as Hugh,” she said, referring to the president. “So a lot of times I take on more of a behind the scenes role with our work.”.
Hugh Walton (senior-aerospace engineering) is from Greensboro, North Carolina and the president of the Roar Zone. He became interested in hockey by playing in the arena that the Carolina Hurricanes built in his area to allow visiting teams to have a morning skate and came to Penn State with little college hockey knowledge.
“Coming from the North Carolina Prep Basketball scene, the student sections are very large and aggressive,” he said. “Knowing that Penn State has the best student sections around, I knew that this was the place for me.”
The Roar Zone has many traditions. There are the staple chants — like the “YOU SUCK” chant at the beginning of every game which is meant to intimidate the opposing goalie, the Hockey Valley chant at puck drop, and the infamous Cowbell Guy.
This year’s Cowbell Guy is Troy LaPolice, a first year Ph.D student in bioinformatics and genomics, and was the president of the student section group at the University of New Hampshire. At Penn State, he wanted to get involved with the different student sections, especially the Roar Zone after his experience at New Hampshire. He said he “jumped all over” being in charge of the cowbell when he found out that the spot was open this year.
“One funny story was at one of the first Roar Zone meetings Hugh joked when I asked him, ‘How do you get the Cowbell Guy job?’ that I ‘needed three years of D1 Cowbell Guy experience’ having no idea that I actually had done that,” he said.
The Roar Zone’s web team coordinator, Bella Klekner (junior-marketing), had a unique experience during the second game of the Wisconsin series this season. The team ended up winning that game, which happened to be the Wear White game, 7–2 and when the team scores an “Ice Touchdown” they do the football tradition of tossing someone in the air.
“Our VP Cori looks over to me and goes ‘we should throw you’ and I was like ‘you’re joking right now.’ Only the elite get thrown at football and hockey” Klekner said. “So the entire Roar Zone is chanting on as my exec board was throwing me in the air, which was probably one of the best experiences. That was such a cool moment for me, I will never forget it.”
The Roar Zone is organizing for a group to travel to a game at Michigan State Feb. 26, which is State Patty’s Day. Twenty students will go, which is about the same as in previous years, according to Walton.
“I personally think driving 14 hours round trip to scream your head off at an away hockey game and get the weirdest looks from old people is way better entertainment than blacking out at 3 a.m. in one of the planters on the side of Beaver Avenue,” said Walton.
