Two years ago Penn State Ice Lions coach Mo Stroemel called goalie Brian Gratz into his hotel room.

With five key players injured and an impending match-up with No. 4 SUNY-Stony Brook looming, Stroemel was about to issue a challenge that only a game competitor like Gratz would relish.

The Penn State Div. II Ice Lions were going to go into hockey's form of a shell, which in laymen's terms meant that Gratz was going to have to handle more shots than the local bartender on a Friday night.

Seventy is what Stroemel estimated. What he needed from his sophomore goaltender was to stop all but two of them. Yeah, that's all.

OK, so he only faced 67 shots, but he did manage to save 65 of them.

Ask and ye shall receive.

One year later, with his team stuck in traffic and arriving only minutes before the game, Gratz performed magnificently again in a 3-1 win against Stony Brook, saving 58 of 59 shots, while handing Stony Brook its first home loss in three years.

"He's one of those players who you watch in practice and you say, 'Oh my gosh we're in trouble,' " Stroemel said. "But when it comes down to it he stops the puck in the game and that's the bottom line."

Gratz, who signed a contract to play with the ECHL's Johnstown Chiefs, an affiliate of the San Jose Sharks, will play just on an interim basis the rest of the season, but he is no stranger to adversity. In fact, it's followed him around like a shadow at sunset.

The Fort Wayne, Ind., native made the Penn State ACHA Div. I Icers team his freshman year, where he toiled as a backup, seeing limited action in only four games. But when he didn't make it the next year, Gratz decided he had had enough. He was leaving school to go play junior hockey.

A month later he was back.

"I decided that was a cop out and I didn't want to give up," Gratz said. "I wanted to come back and show I belonged."

Showing it meant once again splitting goaltending duties, this time with then fellow sophomore David Levine on the Ice Lions. Despite putting up better numbers than Levine, while earning UHL All-Conference honors and being named the team's Most Valuable Player, he seemed to be treading water. That's how it goes when your singular focus is to make the Div. I Icers and you fall short.

That summer Gratz worked tirelessly, changing his strength-training techniques to adapt to the rigors of goaltending. He turned in the best season of his life, recording a 1.76 goals against average, 0.950 save percentage and a litany of awards, among them first-team All-American goalie and Northeast Region Player of the Year.

"I gave the [Icers] coaches no other choice but to take me," Gratz said.

When tryouts began this season, Gratz's senior campaign, Penn State Icers coach Joe Battista called Stroemel every day to tell him how well Brian was doing. For Stroemel, who grew close to his goalie, the news was bittersweet -- in the best way possible.

"I would say don't tell me that, jokingly of course," Stroemel said. "It's sad that Brian would leave us but it's what we hoped for all along."

And what Gratz hoped for was a starting job with the Icers. For most other teams and on most other years, he would have been good to fill that role.

But for a team that won four straight ACHA national championships, he would be just one part of the three-man rotation in net with junior Scott Blackman and freshman Chris Matteo.

With the team's future interests in mind, Battista explained to Gratz early in the season that he was going to focus on the two younger goalies. Deep down he was obviously disappointed, however, he never let it show.

"He handled it like a true professional," Battista said.

Instead, Gratz became a mentor for Blackman and Matteo, keeping in their ear between periods while being relegated to the bench. But his message to the other guys was more than technique about stopping the puck.

"More than anything he really taught me how to be mentally tough," Matteo said.

What this year taught Gratz was just how much he loved hockey, that it was in his blood and that he just couldn't see a future without hockey in it. More than anything it taught him that he wanted to be a coach. But for now, his playing career will continue with the Chiefs, and former Icers teammates Curtiss Patrick and Bill Downey, something that seemed improbable only a few years ago.

"It makes me feel like [the tough times] was all worth it," Gratz said.

Recently Battista and Gratz joked about his coaching prospects, and Gratz pointed out that as a goalie he would make the better coach because all the action happens in front of him. As a former defenseman, Battista remarked he must be the second best coach then.

One day that may actually be true.

"My aspiration is to play a couple years of professional hockey and then come back when Penn State is Div. I and take Coach Battista's job," Gratz said with a laugh.

If so, this time he won't have to come back and show he belongs.