Vikings on ice

When you start asking questions about Portland State hockey, it does not take long before the inevitable question is heard: “We have a hockey team?”

We do. Well, sort of.

The Portland State Hockey Club, which operates under the auspices of Campus Recreation, fields a team of 18 Portland State students with the combined interest of playing collegiate hockey at a school without an officially sanctioned hockey team.

Ross Gale, former squad member for two years and now head coach, is no stranger to the largely unknown status of his team.

“That’s the response we always get,” he said. “It’s kind of turned into our saying: PSU has a hockey team?”
The Portland State Hockey Club competes in Division II of the American Collegiate Hockey Association, a collection of clubs from universities around the country.

Gale’s team opened the 2009–10 hockey season over the weekend with a two-game road sweep over the University of Washington Huskies.

Led by junior forward Anthony Libonati, the Viking hockey club defeated the Huskies 8-4 on Friday and 7-3 on Saturday at the OlympicView Ice Arena in Seattle.

Libonati, a McMinnville native who doubles as club president, scored a hat trick (plus one) in Friday night’s game, and another goal on Saturday for a total of five goals in the season’s first series.

“He’s one of our better players,” Gale said of his starting forward. “We always look to him to perform.”

After spraining his ankle earlier in the week, Libonati said he was not even planning on playing on Friday, and was surprised by how the game turned out.

“I went in thinking, ‘If I can help them, I can help them.’ But then to have four goals in a game,” he said. “It definitely felt good.”

Friday’s game was not the only one to feature a hat trick—three goals by a single player in a game—as forward Hunter Levengood tallied three goals on Saturday, two of which came just two minutes apart.

“It felt really good,” Gale said of his pair of season-starting victories. “We have three solid lines, and I think we’ll be able to play any team.”

The Portland State hockey team plays home games at the Valley Ice Arena in Beaverton, and will host the Western Washington Vikings this Friday and Saturday. First puck drop is scheduled for 7 p.m. both nights, and admission is free for students. More information about the team can be found at www.psuvikingshockey.com.

Gale is hopeful for the day when the word will be out that Portland State does, indeed have a hockey team.

“It’s a really exciting game, and we have a really good team this year,” Gale said. “Hopefully, people will start hearing about us a little more.”