It was the last person goaltender Scott Blackman expected to hear from on a Friday night.

"At first I thought they were playing a joke on me," Blackman said.

He'd soon find out it wasn't.

The call came from Penn State ACHA Div. I Icers coach Joe Battista. The message was short and direct. "Get some rest and be ready to suit up tomorrow," Battista said.

The situation is a lot less complicated than the story.

Last Friday, Blackman was called up after the Icers fell 6-3 to St. Clair College. Worse than the defeat was the injury to starting goaltender Chris Matteo, which resulted in the call from Battista.

For Blackman, it was a chance to flash back to March 7, 2004, when he was the starting goaltender for the Icers in the championship game against Ohio.

All season long you've been in a three-goalie rotation. It's rare that you'd get the opportunity to start in back-to-back games, though you managed to pull off an impressive shutout streak during a four-game stretch that lasted nine periods and just over 184 hockey minutes -- only not in consecutive games.

You earned the right to be the last line of defense for your team in the most important game of the season. But your coach didn't arrive at the decision easily, due to the play of a freshman named Matteo, the same guy whose future injury would prompt Battista to call you on a bitterly cold Friday evening, telling you to get ready to rejoin the team.

Nevertheless, you looked to deliver your team its fifth straight ACHA championship.

Your Icers take a 2-1 lead into the final period and are 20 minutes away from adding another championship banner to the rafters. But the night refuses to end how you probably envisioned. Ohio rallies to win by a score of 5-4. Devastation sets in.

Six months later the realization that there's a lot more to life than hockey sets in, too.

At that time, Blackman was suspended for the first couple of months of the 2004-2005 season for what his coach called "personal and academic" reasons, a humbling experience to say the least.

The more humbling demotion was Blackman being sent down to the Div. II level of the Icers organization to play goalie with the Ice Lions.

"It would have been easy for a guy in his situation to just give it up and say it's not worth it," Battista said.

Few would debate that.

Blackman had gone from being the No. 1 guy featured on the most prestigious stage at Penn State to playing at an entirely different collegiate level of hockey.

"It's nice to have him back because he's going to push the other guys, he's going to keep them on their toes and make them have to play better," Battista said.

"That's a good thing from a coaching standpoint."

From the looks of things, Blackman's presence has already made a difference.

Paul Mammola, the guy who, arguably, was brought in to fill the void left in the absence of Blackman, hasn't played the way he'd like to at home this season.

"I don't know what it is, I haven't really played great in this building until today ... but maybe this will turn it around and I'll feel a little more comfortable in here," Mammola said.

Mammola is talking about his almost flawless, one-goal-allowing, 25-save performance, which gave the Icers every bit of a chance to win their 1-1 tie with Saint Clair College Saturday afternoon at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion.

"He played outstanding, he made a lot of big saves and he definitely deserved the win," Blackman said about Mammola's performance.

That performance came one day after the Icers allowed their most goals in a game all season (6) to a talented St. Clair team.

You're Scott Blackman, and like the majority of college students, you were out enjoying yourself on a Friday night, not thinking about work or some occupation -- at least for a few hours. And suddenly you're called upon to help your team.

"It was pretty hard to take being suspended for the first few months of the semester, but it put a lot of things in perspective," Blackman said.

"It's a big jump to go down to Div. II and start practice with them. ... I kind of got a different outlook on life. I realized that hockey is not everything," Blackman said.

He hopes to return to the Icers fulltime next semester, but he'll more than likely begin as the third goaltender on the roster --something of which he's fully aware.

You're Scott Blackman, and just like everyone else, you've gone through the ups and downs that come with the territory of being a student-athlete at the collegiate level. But realize there's a valuable lesson to be learned when you fight back.