Penn State Women’s Hockey: Barbour Talks Future in CHA

Penn State women’s hockey is happy to stay in the CHA, according to Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Sandy Barbour, but that doesn’t mean the Nittany Lions won’t weigh their options in the future if need be.

To set the scene, Penn State women’s hockey is a member of the five team CHA conference, which was previously a six team league until earlier this year when Robert Morris announced plans to disband men and women’s hockey.

Those plans are still ostensibly in place, although Robert Morris announced just days ago a plan to raise funds in order to reinstate the program in 2022.

This impacts Penn State on more than one level. Generally speaking, the CHA is perceived to be the weakest conference in women’s college hockey. In turn, as the Nittany Lions managed to run out a 16-3-2 record and a regular season CHA title, a late season loss and the another defeat in the CHA Tournament would prove to be the final straw that kept Penn State out of the eight-team NCAA Tournament.

“What is what is frustrating is just the lack of respect our league gets from an overall standpoint,” coach Jeff Kampersal said earlier in the year.

“There’s previous years where both Mercyhurst and Robert Morris have been two really strong teams where they potentially both could go [but only the automatic bid did]. This year it’s going to be interesting because there are no crossover [games between conferences] So perceptions will be based on last year like ‘Program X is really good. They’ve been really good for a long time so therefore they still must be good and still must be better than any CHA team.”

Effectively despite playing a near full slate of games and winning almost all of them, three losses was too many for Penn State to overcome a weak strength of schedule in league play.

When it comes to Robert Morris, bringing the CHA to just five teams only continues to weaken the argument for any at-large bids. The winner of the CHA Tournament is given an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, but that has only been in place since 2014.

To a certain extent the weakness of the CHA had rendered the regular season a race to essentially go nearly undefeated, or win the conference tournament. Only one team in the entire country posted more wins than Penn State in 2020-21 and yet the Nittany Lions missed the postseason. Some of this was a product of COVID-19 impacted seasons, but the Nittany Lions fielded a consistent unit all year long.

The long and short of it is a question posed to Barbour this past weekend. Can Penn State women’s hockey have national success in the CHA, and are there conversations about what happens next if Robert Morris does not return to the conference?

“Yes and yes.” Barbour said.

“I actually do think [Penn State can have national success in the CHA],” Barbour added. “The access to the NCAA [Tournament] is a really important thing, and we certainly have that in the CHA. I’m really proud of Coach Kampersal and the young women in that program and the year that they did have. Obviously it was a breakthrough year for them and we expect that moving forward.”

“Having said that, what you referenced with Robert Morris certainly gives us, whether it’s cause for concern or an opportunity to make sure we understand what the landscape looks like and what our options might be. We’re kind of constantly doing that everywhere in everything, and so we’ll be analyzing what’s always the best for that particular program. I mean obviously we’ve got men’s volleyball, our two fencing programs and women’s hockey that are not in the Big Ten and so those are constant conversations.”

For all of the doubts that the sport might have about the CHA, there is something to be said for both sides of the “stay or leave?” argument. On the one hand, Penn State’s only noteworthy season to date has yet to be followed up with another, jumping ship from the CHA would mean an increase in the opposition which would be a blessing and a curse. Until the Nittany Lions can prove that their improved play was not an outlier, taking it easy might not be the worst thing.

As for leaving, at some point Kampersal will only be able to do so much with a program playing teams that nobody really cares to play. That said, Mercyhurst – a fellow CHA member – has made the NCAA Tournament on 13 occasions, a number bested by only Wisconsin and Minnesota. All of those appearances came as a member of the CHA.

The result is a delicate balance between the pragmatism of where the CHA is as a conference and where Penn State is as a program. The Nittany Lions could do worse than racking up high win totals, but they may be left unfulfilled if they’re on the outside looking in.

On the other hand, the only way to prove you belong is by playing the teams that already have.