UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Have you ever wondered who on the Penn State men's hockey team has the best taste in music? Who is the funniest? Who is the best at ping pong?
Well, if any of these questions crossed your mind, you're about to have them answered.
Over the second half of the season, 10 players were selected to spill the tea about their teammates. Ben Copeland, Jimmy Dowd, Carson Dyck, Tyler Gratton, Kenny Johnson, Xander Lamppa, Connor MacEachern, Chase McLane, Liam Soulière and Kevin Wall each answered 12 questions, ranging from simple ones, like who has the best hair, to more complicated ones, such as who would be your first call from jail.
Welcome to the Penn State men's hockey 2021-2022 player poll.
1. Who on the team has the best style?
Winner: Liam Soulière
Other Mentions: Paul DeNaples, Carson Dyck, Tyler Gratton, Tyler Paquette, Ben Schoen, and Kevin Wall
"(Soulière) kind of dresses a little bit out of the box, but he always makes sure his outfits are looking good," Lamppa said.
"He's just kind of a pretty boy, I don't know," Copeland agreed.
Johnson was adamantly against Soulière coming in first as best dressed, and opted to vote for Gratton instead.
"He's always pretty spot on, sharp," Johnson said. "He's good with the weather. He's good with knowing what to wear when."
Soulière himself voted for Gratton.
"He's really good at dressing up for occasions," Soulière remarked.
"Waller's got good style," McLane, the lone player who voted for Wall, said. "Occasion-wise I'm not sure, I was thinking more game day style."
2. Who on the team has the worst style?Winner: Connor MacEachern
Other Mentions: Paul DeNaples, Jimmy Dowd Jr., Carson Dyck, Kenny Johnson, Simon Mack, Christian Sarlo, and Ben Schoen
"(MacEachern) looks like a third grader going to school," Wall said. "It'll be like red shorts with a green shirt or something pretty crazy."
"The guy will go out in sandals in the middle of winter," Johnson added. "Nothing ever matches. He'll wear his hat sideways and he just won't even realize it. Or he'll have different colored shoes on."
"(Dowd) wears moccasins to the rink sometimes and flip flops when it's minus 20-degree weather. I mean I do that sometimes (too), but I look good wearing it, so it's fine," MacEachern said.
MacEachern was voted first for worst dressed by a landslide, but Sarlo was the second most popular name brought up in response to this question.
"It's just terrible," Dowd commented.
"I think he only owns one pair of shoes," Lamppa said.
3. Who on the team has the best taste in music?Winners: Ben Copeland (also self-voted) and Tyler Paquette
Other Mentions: Kenny Johnson (self-vote), Connor MacEachern (self-vote), Adam Pilewicz and Kevin Wall
"(Paquette) and I have similar tastes in music," Lamppa offered.
"I'm a big rap guy," Copeland said. "No one really likes that on our team, we're more of a country kind of team."
It should be noted that while both Copeland and Paquette won best taste in music, they also both received a significant number of votes for having the worst music taste.
"Me and (Pilewicz) have similar tastes in classic rock or country," Gratton said. "None of the new rap that's out, because it's trash."
4. Who on the team has the worst taste in music?
Winner: Adam Pilewicz
Other Mentions: Ben Copeland, Carson Dyck and Tyler Paquette
"(Pilewicz) overplays too many songs," Dyck said. "There's this song called 'Honey,' that he loves and completely overplays. Every time we all hear it, no one likes it except for him."
"He likes the complete opposite music that I like," Copeland added.
"(Paquette) thinks he's the best," Johnson said, noting that Paquette's music choices give him headaches. "It's EDM all the time."
"I guess it's not the worst taste, it's just (Copeland) repetitively plays songs until it's just like 'I'm sick of hearing this song.' It was a good song, but now I'm sick of it," McLane added.
5. Who would be your first call from jail?
Winner: Paul DeNaples
Other Mentions: Danny Dzhaniyev, Chase McLane, Clayton Phillips, Adam Pilewicz, Coach Sarni (Assistant Athletic Trainer), Liam Soulière and Kevin Wall
"I don't even know if I would call anyone on the team," Johnson said. "Is that bad?"
"I feel like (Paul) could just find a way to get me out, honestly," Wall said.
"The last call would probably be Phil (Clayton Phillips), because his phone is always turned off," Gratton said. "He never answers a phone call."
"I was gonna say Bergs (Christian Berger), but Bergs couldn't answer the phone if his life depended on it," McLane added.
If Johnson ever ends up behind bars, he would immediately call Athletic Trainer Patrick Sarni over any of his teammates.
"He would be the first one there to help me out," Johnson added.
6. Who on the team is the funniest?
Winner: Ben Copeland
Runner Up: Connor MacEachern
"(Copeland's) a funny guy," Wall said.
"He's just a character. He's always just bouncing off the walls, saying just random funny stuff," Lamppa added.
"He's just hilarious. Like you look at him and it's like 'what is he doing?," Dowd agreed.
"Copeland's like dumb funny… he'll ask us what time practice is at when it's literally on the board in front of us," MacEachern said. "Just an airhead."
"(Copeland and MacEachern's) brains are just the size of peanuts… I don't know what goes on up there," McLane said.
7. Who on the team is the smartest?
Winners: Oskar Autio and Liam Soulière
Other Mentions: Christian Berger, Paul DeNaples, Kenny Johnson (self-vote), Chase McLane, Connor McMenamin, and Adam Pilewicz
"There are a few smartypants on our team," MacEachern said.
"I'd say Oskar is probably overall the smartest," Johnson said. "I could put myself, but I'm going to say Oskar to be nice."
"Wow this is tough actually, we have some dummies," McLane said. "We have some guys that are really smart in the classroom, but if you put them in a scenario that didn't involve math, they're screwed."
8. Who on the team would you not want to fight?
Winners: Kenny Johnson (also self-voted) and Chase McLane
Other Mentions: Danny Dzhaniyev, Tyler Gratton (also self-voted), and Connor MacEachern
"(McLane's) a psychopath," Wall said.
"(McLane's) the last guy that cares about his body getting hurt in those situations. He'll fight you to the death," Lamppa added. "If Claner and Gratts fought, I'd put my money on Claner."
"Maybe Kenny because he has 40 pounds on me," Gratton said.
"I would rinse Kenny," McLane said. "Kenny's a big teddy bear."
"That might be a battle to the death (if I fought Gratton)," McLane added. "I don't know (if I would win), Gratts is pretty strong."
"(Gratton) doesn't scare me. Claner? Maybe a little bit," MacEachern said.
"Kecks (MacEachern) is low-key a little nuts, too," McLane said. "I don't know if I'd fight him. He's a little meatball… he's short but he's also really stocky, I feel like those guys are kind of hard to go at it with."
"Might be ironic because he's the smallest guy, but (Danny) has a background in wrestling," Dyck, the only player who voted for Dzhaniyev, said.
9. Who on the team is most likely to become a coach?
Winner: Adam Pilewicz
Other Mentions: Oskar Autio, Christian Berger, Paul DeNaples, Clayton Phillips, and Liam Soulière (self-vote)
"I feel like even though (Pilewicz is) done with hockey now, he'd be a guy that would come back and coach somewhere," Wall said.
"He's already kind of a player coach," Lamppa added.
"(Autio) knows everything and he's just kind of a geek with hockey," Copeland said.
"I feel like (Berger) knows the fundamentals of the game really well," McLane said. "He knows our systems really well."
"Definitely not Kenny Johnson," Dyck said. "Would not want him as a coach."
10. Who is the best at ping pong?
Winner: Xander Lamppa (also self-voted)
Other Mentions: Christian Berger, Guy Gadowsky (honorary mention), Kenny Johnson (self-vote), Connor MacEachern (self-vote) and Kevin Wall (self-vote)
"I gotta go with myself," Lamppa said. "Me and Christian play pretty much every single day… we play (Guy) all the time."
"I'm self-voting for this one and this one only," Wall said.
"Waller's usually on the bottom… he's not even on the board right now," MacEachern said.
"Yes, I am," Wall replied.
"People hate playing me because I only play defense," Johnson said. "Gads is actually the best one on the entire staff."
11. Who has the best hair?
Winner: Adam Pilewicz
Other Mentions: Christian Berger, Ben Copeland, Tyler Gratton, Connor MacEachern (self-vote), Clayton Phillips and Liam Soulière
"Anyone but Doug… it's not working out," Wall said.
"(Gratton's) got a good mop on his head," Lamppa added.
"Copes got some good hair… Souly's got a good set on him," Wall said.
"It's just really thick too," McLane added about Soulière's flow.
"Me, probably," MacEachern said. "My flow, especially in the helmet, looks pretty good."
12. Who is always late?
Winner: Kenny Johnson (also self-voted)
Runner Up: Jimmy Dowd Jr.
"I like to sleep," Johnson said.
"He's always late," Wall added.
"I don't know what time (Dowd) runs on, but it's always 20 minutes behind," McLane said. "He's not late often to team stuff, but if you have a tee time or something and Jimmy's going with you and you have to pick him up, he's going to be late every time."
And there you have it. This season's player poll.
Shoutout to Carson Dyck for coming up with some of the questions, Kenny Johnson for self-voting for five different questions (the most self-votes out of all the players) and Chase McLane for thinking outside the box with his answers.
Who is the best at ping pong is a question that doesn't have a clear answer, because nearly every player asked the question self-voted. When asked who was at the top of the leaderboard, a clear answer wasn't given or the question was ignored entirely (three players all said they were all the second ranked on the leaderboard, so take from that what you will.)
Regardless of who is the best on the team at the game, all of the players agreed that Guy Gadowsky is the best ping pong player in the entire organization. Challenge him to a match at your own risk.
Did any of the winners surprise you? Who would you have guessed for some of the questions?
