The Gavin Mckenna Sweepstakes

A thing you care about.

I tend to shy away from recruiting because it makes my head hurt and involves so many twists and turns that the shelf life of any story can last 24 hours. I’ve lived that life and I would like to not return to it.

That said, Penn State men’s hockey appears to be [according to reports from others who would know] in the running for Gavin Mckenna.

So my personal avoidance of recruiting stories aside, it’s noteworthy - obviously - that Penn State could end up with a season’s worth of services from a generational talent and the presumed No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 Draft.

The noteworthy reasonings are twofold. The first, the obvious byproduct of a generational player being on a team - he makes the team better. Mckenna would be a Hobey Baker favorite, and is already capable of doing things none of his Blue and White predecessors could. Mckenna has the kind of talent that wins you games in spite of a whole bunch of things.

The other reason is perception. You talk to Guy Gadowsky for any length of time about recruiting and his eyes tend to roll into the back of his head as he unpacks the pipelines that already exist in college hockey. Penn State hockey plays in a very nice facility, has put together a very nice program, but it doesn’t exist within the same talent framework that many of its better established peers benefit from. For example - Michigan is just down the road from the US National Team’s U18 developmental program. You go there, and then you go to Michigan. These are the rules.

Some of that will change with time, Penn State’s most recent season is a good example of how much better the program has become from just forging ahead. But landing a player like Mckenna - legitimizing Penn State as an option for high-end talent? - that’s almost worth more than the goals he’ll score.

Will it happen? Hard to say. But if Nike is going to put up a massive Nick Singleton on a downtown apartment, somebody is going to do the same if Mckenna comes to town and then with whoever follows in his footsteps.