Panthers on ice: A look inside Pitt club hockey

It’s 7:20 p.m. on Feb. 7 in Pittsburgh. In a small locker room at the Alpha Ice Complex, Pitt Club Hockey prepares to take the ice against its conference rival, Delaware. The stakes loom large for tonight’s matchup — wins tonight and tomorrow would clinch the conference and give Pitt an auto bid for the AHCA Nationals. 

The game is held about 15 minutes outside Pittsburgh’s city limits, but a sizable number of fans repping the blue and gold filed into the cramped rink for tonight’s game. 

“There’s butts in seats. It’s never this crowded,” one of the players muttered to another teammate during warmups. 

“Welcome to the Jungle” roars over a decades-old sound system, and the Panthers take to the ice.

Pitt skates out, and they look the part of an official Pitt team. They wear blue and gold and have the Pitt wordmark scrawled across their jerseys. But the players are not student-athletes — at least not in the official sense. Hockey has a rich history in this city, but at Pittsburgh’s flagship university, support for a team seems to have fallen by the wayside.

There’s a love for hockey that permeates Allegheny County, which is clear by glancing at the walls of Alpha Ice Complex. Penguins gear is a regular sight on campus, yet Pitt hockey merchandise is a rarity. 

Club hockey has a long history at Pitt. The team’s modern era began in 1971, when the club team joined the Western Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Hockey Association. 

Pitt bounced around a few different conferences throughout the decades, eventually joining the Eastern States Collegiate Hockey League in 2022. The Panthers found early success, claiming the regular season ESCHL championship and winning the ESCHL tournament in 2023. Dozens of banners around the rink tell the story of Pitt’s previous success in other conferences, most recently winning the CMHA in the 2021-22 season. 

Despite the club’s winning history, hockey is not a varsity sport offered at Pitt. The players are not able to receive athletic scholarships and get none of the benefits of typical student-athletes. 

“There’s a million restrictions,” first-year Johnny Luckac said. “You can’t use the Panther logo, and we have to specify that we are not a Pitt-affiliated team.” 

Luckac enjoys the club team life but wishes the team had D1 support. 

“I wish it was Pitt-supported, 100%. We would have better funding, better equipment and could actually play on campus,” Luckac said.

Head coach Stu Rulnick thinks that transitioning to a D1 team would benefit the program, “1,000%.” 

“We’re a medical school and yet we don’t have a trainer. We have an EMT on staff, but we have to pay for it,” Rulnick said.

Athletic training is not the only expense coming out of the pockets of the players. All equipment is paid for out of pocket, and the players have to pay a fee to simply play on the team. 

Rulnick, who’s in his 15th year with the team, has seen a lot during his time as coach. He’s coached through two different venues, two conferences and six championships. The Pittsburgh native is proud of his team’s success and is hopeful to add a couple more banners. 

Another thing Rulnick hopes for is more student support, which is made more difficult because the team plays so far from Oakland. 

“If we had an arena on campus, we would probably sell it out,” Rulnick said. 

The Alpha Ice Complex, the current home of the Panthers, is a set of rinks in Harmar Township that hosts all levels of hockey. The arena is covered with hundreds of banners on every wall, bearing the name of high school teams, rec teams and even peewee-level youth clubs. 

Pitt has called the complex home since 2005, and the facilities have started to show their age. The complex’s location is nearly 20 minutes outside downtown Pittsburgh, making it inconvenient for fans and players alike. 

“They should build an ice rink on top of the Fitz,” Luckac joked after the game.

With two minutes to go in the third period, Pitt trailed 1-0 against Delaware. Despite the stakes, Pitt came out flat. The Panthers generated some good looks on offense but didn’t break through to start. 

Pitt eventually fell to Delaware in overtime 2-1 and later lost in the ESCHL semifinals to Rhode Island. The hungry Panther team looks to bounce back in the 2025-2026 campaign with rising hopes of eventually becoming a D1 program — or, at the very least, selling out a few games.