A half an hour before last weekend's Nittany Lion Invitational Tournament championship game, a handful of men in suits sat at a table in the back of the Greenberg Ice Pavilion.

They were making jokes, telling tales of better times, oblivious to the pressure that comes with coaching the No. 1 club hockey team in the country.

On one end of the table sat a man of diminutive stature, who wasn't taking part in the ribbing.

The man was Mike McNeill.

McNeill is in his second season as the Div. I ACHA Icers assistant coach and for the past two weeks has had to fill arguably the biggest shoes in Happy Valley. McNeill was named the head coach of the Icers while current head coach Joe Battista traveled to Italy with four of the Icers to coach the U.S. team in the World University Games.

McNeill's debut didn't go as planned as the Icers dropped both games to the No. 2 Fighting Illini, the Icers' first losses of the season. But neither McNeill nor the Icers let these losses get them down.

"I thought I coached very well," McNeill said. "I don't think that the two losses were due to coaching."

McNeill and the rest of the team bounced back the following weekend, winning two games, including one without the ACHA's second leading scorer, Glenn Zuck. The second of the two wins was for the NLIT tournament championship.

McNeill came to Penn State after serving as an assistant coach at rival Kent State, his alma mater. McNeill played four years for the Golden Flashes on defense and as a forward.

According to Battista, McNeill is credited by many as the main recruiter for Kent State's national championship team in the mid-90s.

Battista coached against Kent State while McNeill was a player.

He jumped on the opportunity when he heard that McNeill was available.

"We called right away," Battista said.

"We knew that Mike had worked a lot with youth hockey and U.S. Select teams."

Part of McNeill's duties as Icers assistant coach is serving as assistant director of the Penn State Ice Hockey Camp.

As far as coaching is concerned, there are a few differences between McNeill and his boss.

"He's a lot more quiet that I am," Battista said. "But he's not afraid to get in a guy's face. We complement each other very well."

While Battista was gone the players knew what to expect with McNeill at the helm. He ran things almost exactly the same as Battista did. He playedfour lines and wore teams down, which has turned into the Icers' mantra.

"It's tough to fill the shoes of coach Battista," Zuck said. "But I respect coach McNeill and I really enjoy playing for him."

To go along with hockey McNeill was an accomplished baseball player. Battista believes that one day that may help him turn into a great coach at a prep school or Div. III school where he would be able to coach multiple sports.

So with four games and two wins under his belt, McNeill is only some 400 wins behind Battista. He seems happy to return to the position he was in as the man behind the legend -- where he can sit back at the table and start joking around with the other coaches again.