As promised on Saturday night, we return with visual evidence of the Icers' Thon athlete hour-winning dance.

Among the sound bites that didn't make the cut was a candid conversation with defenseman Kyle Mills, who revealed among other things, that he had no idea his teammates were so graceful. He also conceded that John Jay would best him in a dance-off.

-Dean

BTP's Note:

Enjoy.

Excitement here in Harbin, China! A 13-round shootout after three periods and an overtime. Today we faced off against Slovakia -- a very skilled team. We came out very physical right from start, but coming out of the first we were down 3-1. Our first goal was scored by Jim Gehring, of West Chester University. Coming into the second, we were still full of confidence knowing that our physical play took a toll even just after one period. Slovakia grew scared of our hard-hitting game and shied away from hits and coughed up the puck many times. The second period we continued to dominate play and control the puck much more than we did in the first period. After the second period we went in to the locker room down 3-2, another goal scored by Gehring. Excitement was streaming through the locker room once again, knowing we had the upper hand with our physical play. Once they touched the puck we would throw a check, knowing this, confidence was streaming through the whole team. Coming out even stronger in the third, four minutes into the period, Slovakia coughed up a puck and I slid it to Jordan Pringle of Illinois who then dished it back to me to bury the puck! That made it 3-3. A few minutes later Matt Swezey of Navy sniped a turn-around shot high blocker side to go up 4-3. With only a few minutes remaining we went on the penalty kill, and Slovakia tied the game. After a scoreless overtime, a shootout was next. Gehring sniped in the first goal of the shootout and Paul Marshal of Ohio University stopped the first 2 of 3 shots. Slovakia tied the shootout on their last shot. In the sudden death shootout Gehring was there to help us again to snipe five-hole, but Slovakia answered back. To save some time, in Round 9, to end the game Slovakia had an open net, but Marshall stood on his head with an acrobatic save with his pads, spinning on his back with his pads in the air for a desperation save! The next three rounds were scoreless. Next: Your very own Penn State Icer came through in clutch...Luke DeLorenzo scored high glove to put us up one goal. If Slovakia scores, we enter a 14th round, Marshall stood tall and made a pad save to lead us to victory and to keep Team USA 2-0 in the tournament! Three periods, an overtime, and a 13-round shootout...what a game! Next, we face-off against Russia, tomorrow at 8:30 p.m.

The Icers started off tonight by taking down Oakland for the second night in a row, this time by a score of 5-3.

Then, as if finishing their final weekend before the conference playoffs with a sweep wasn't enough, the team showed up at the Bryce Jordan Center a few hours later -- in full-body penguin costumes (audio, photo and video to come). Dancing in the Thon athlete pep rally, the Icers took on the other athletic teams from campus in a dance-off in front of the capacity BJC crowd -- and won handily.

The competition saw each team fashion a dance to a Disney-movie theme, the Icers chose "Happy Feet."

The dance, which was choreographed in large part by back-up goalie John Jay, featured the Icers -- in the penguin suits -- dancing in unison.

Stay tuned to the blog for more coverage of the Icers' landmark night.

-Dean

BTP's Note:

Enjoy.

Hello Again from Harbin, China. We have had a couple of days off so far to see other competitions like figure skating, speed skating, and curling as well as site seeing. We were able to get away from the regular meals, which consist of only rice and jelly sandwiches. We do not know if they substitute cat or dog for chicken here, so we were able to leave the Olympic Village and go to McDonald's for a team meal, which tasted phenomenal! We went to The Ice and Snow World show where there are ice rides such as ski bikes and long ice slides that we took part in. There were ice sculptures and buildings surrounded by lights built inside the ice which was an amazing site. It was a beautiful place to visit and a great team bonding experience. We had a great time at the Ice World. We have practice today and we play Slovakia tomorrow. I will check back to with all of you after our game vs Slovakia. Bye for now!

The Icers downed Oakland University tonight, 5-1.

The lineup had a new flavor, too.

Of note were the injury replacements for Frank Berry, Chris Cerutti and Chris Pronchik -- Both Kurt Collins and Nick Seravalli made rare appearances and Taylor Cera made his long-awaited return.

Forward lines we saw with the team facing the injury mini-crisis and World University Games absences:

Kirstein-O'Brien-Polidor

Peck-Rubio-Paradis

Cera-Diethorn-Daley

Herel-Seravalli-Collins

-Dean

BTP's Note:

Enjoy.

Game 1 vs Korea: I wanted to first start off by saying hello from China. It is a big culture shock here, but it is a great experience so far. We have finally adjusted to the time difference just in time for our first game against Korea. The experience cannot be described in words, or at least it is difficult to describe it. We had the opening ceremonies last night, which was an unbelievable experience. Walking in front of thousands of people with the American flag was an experience of a lifetime. After the ceremonies were over, we came back to the Olympic village to get a good night's sleep before our first test, Korea. We started out a little sluggish, coming out of the first period, 2-1 Korea.

Korea was a different paced team to what we all are used to. They move the puck rather slow but always had a guy hanging behind our defenseman, which threw us off. During the second we started playing more aggressive and throwing the body as well as using our speed. At the end of the second, we were down 3-2, but dominated play. Going into the third, the atmosphere was USA hockey atmosphere, we were ready to dominate finally. We took the momentum from the second period and continue to dominate. We were able to take the lead 4-3 about 9 minutes into the third, but Korea scored another power play goal. We were a man down going into overtime and just as our penalty ran out, our captain Johnny Liang led us to our first victory on a 2-on-1 back door play.

We have two days off before we go back to work against Slovakia. We will practice the next two days and most likely be able to sight see which will be a great experience as well as a great way for team building. I want to wish the Penn State Icers GOOD LUCK in their upcoming weekend if I am not able to blog before that time.

I got a chance to speak with Icers captain Frank Berry after practice today, who'd managed to loose the pair of crutches he'd been on this week.

(If you remember, he left the team's game Saturday part-way through with a knee injury, was later seen on crutches as the team celebrated the 7-1 win over Drexel and had been waiting to get his MRI results back until now.)

He said he hasn't met with the doctor -- and won't until later in the week -- concerning the MRI results, but what he does know is that the injury isn't as bad as once feared.

According to Berry, all he knows as of now is that he didn't tear any of the knee's major ligaments. He'll know more concerning his actual diagnosis -- and in turn any possible timetable for return -- once he meets with the doctor.

You have to think as of now, Frank and the team as a whole dodged a major bullet with his diagnosis so far.

-Dean