Legend has it -- though stories tend to change somewhat over 20 years -- that just before the 1984 ACHA National Championship game, the Arizona coach walked over to Icers assistant coach Larry Rocha and pointed to where the Icers could pick up their runner-up trophy after the game.
Down two goals to host Arizona in front of 7,000 screaming fans, the Icers rallied late in the third period to pull out a 7-5 victory, claiming the Penn State ACHA Div. I Icers' first of seven ACHA national championships.
"When that buzzer went off in Arizona and we won the national championship, the feeling of all of us together, getting a job done that we set out to do ... it was a feeling you can't describe," former Icer John Holland said. "It was the best feeling I ever had."
That 1984 team was honored Saturday in front of a packed Greenberg Ice Pavilion on alumni weekend, and two of the team's members, Holland and Nick Pappas, were inducted into the Icers Hall of Fame.
"Looking at some of the guys on the list of the Hall of Fame, it's an honor to be in with the same people," Holland said.
Sharing smiles and memories, and a common bond of a national championship, the former players were greeted with warm applause and handshakes from the current Icers players between the second and third periods.
"It's exciting. It was a great team and it's great to get back and see all the guys," said Jon Shellington, the coach of the team.
"We had a core group of guys that worked really, really hard, were committed to the team and the program and made some sacrifices to make the whole thing work."
Arguably better the two previous years when they finished third in 1982 and second in 1983, the Icers skated through a brutal 40-game season the following year, a schedule that matched them against several Div. I and Div. III varsity teams.
Finishing with a respectable, but not glamorous, 24-15-1 record, the daunting schedule had the Icers battle-tested heading to Alabama.
One day late in the season, captain Art McQuillan approached Shellington and Rocha with a request, one that may have seemed odd at the time. However, it was nothing out of the ordinary for this team.
"He actually asked us to turn the heat up a little bit and make sure that nobody got off the page," Shellington said. "I remember that as the key focal point to bring us down the stretch."
Focusing on winning the elusive title that season, everyone agreed that the players were determined to work harder than ever to do so.
"It's still like it was yesterday," Rocha said. "I think sometimes, like in sports in particular, you get that special chemistry or whatever you want to call it, I think that group kind of had it."
And for Arizona, they had the runner-up trophy.
