(Photo: Sun Devil Athletics)
TEMPE — At 9 a.m. local time Monday morning, student tickets went live for Arizona State hockey’s season opener. After a frenzy of log-ins into the Sun Devil Athletics Game Day app through Ticketmaster, there were no seats left for Friday’s matchup vs. No. 5 Penn State. It took four hours and 37 minutes for students to claim a packed house.
The home opener will be the 48th sellout in Mullet Arena history from the Inferno.
“It’s going to be great for our fans and everybody that’s going to be in the building,” head coach Greg Powers said during Monday’s press conference. “I know it’s going to be a tough ticket, but they are going to see college hockey’s very best right away out of the gates this year.”
Tuesday morning brought more chaos online. Once again, student tickets for the second half of the series were sold out just a little over four hours after being released.
“I have full intentions of making sure we’re sold out every night this year,” Powers said.
The No. 14 Arizona State Sun Devils will host the No. 5 Penn State Nittany Lions Friday and Saturday night to open their 2025-26 campaign. Last season, the Sun Devils defended their house, earning an 11-6-1 home record.
A short, 5,000-seat capacity arena with a lot of passion, like Mullet, can have a major impact on the ice.
“I mean, it’s momentum,” said senior goaltender Connor Hasley during media availability after practice. “You make a save, you hear the crowd behind you. It boosts you up.”
Hasley was announced as Friday’s starter by Powers on Monday. The Bentley transfer, who was the Atlantic Hockey Association Tournament Most Outstanding Player and finalist for Goalie of the Year in 2024-25, is no stranger to the spotlight.
Hasley will try to stop a Penn State offense that went 9-7-1 on the road last year and rostered expected future first overall NHL Entry Draft pick freshman forward Gavin McKenna.
“I’m really excited for [the game],” Hasley said. “I think pressure’s a privilege. I can’t wait to showcase what I got.”
“Activate the Valley” is the mantra for ASU Athletics. With successful teams up and down Tempe, the athletics department has seemed to come together under Athletic Director Graham Rossini. Last school year, Sun Devil football and volleyball exemplified that by taking home conference championships.
The football program has had great success with student attendance under head coach Kenny Dillingham. So far in 2025, the Inferno at Mountain America Stadium has sold out each home game.
“Everything trickles downhill from football,” Powers said. “When they’re successful, it just adds to the notoriety. It adds to everything being really positive around the athletic department as a whole. Winning breeds winning. Success breeds success.”
Now entering its second year in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, ASU’s hockey program is building a culture of its own. Powers said on Monday that Sun Devil hockey will be starting to move away from using the portal as often. He noted the portal will still be used to supplement certain needs of the team, but that he will focus more on building classes.
For ASU hockey fans, they can get more used to seeing the same players putting on a maroon and gold sweater year after year.
“In today’s college landscape, it’s hard for fanbases to really build true affinity to teams and players,” Powers said. “The turnover is so volatile. We want to be a program where we don’t have a lot of turnover, we don’t send guys into the portal… That’s our goal — to build classes that our fans can become attached to for four years. Kind of like how college sports used to be. If we can give that to our fanbase, we’ll be really proud of that.”
Junior defenseman Anthony Dowd said on Tuesday that winning is a big part of keeping players out of the portal, and that building a culture is a big part of that. Dowd is one of just five players on ASU’s roster that has experienced Power’s system and the culture he’s built for two or more years, as he helps lead the way for future retention.
“I think a lot of it is just being that culture everyone wants to be a part of,” Hasley said. “Just pushing everyone to be that little bit better. We’re all competitors…We play NHL online for a little longer than we probably should, just because we want to beat each other.”
A start to this new culture can be helped by the Sun Devils’ four freshmen defensemen this season. Dowd, an assistant captain and the only player with a letter on the back-end, vocalized how the newcomers will adjust to such a loud environment this weekend.
“It definitely might be a little surprising,” Dowd said. “They know what they’re coming into…A little nerve wracking, but I think they’re going to do great… They’re super fired up. They’ve been playing confidently in practice this whole year so far, so I don’t have any worries.”
The squad will hope to use this homestand to show how relentless they are, a word used to describe the team’s identity.
“Never giving up,” Hasley said. “Every puck’s ours…Just being relentless at all times.”
“I’d say relentless, hard and fast,” Dowd said. That’s how we want to be.”
