A college hockey star expected to be one of the top picks in this year’s NHL draft has been charged with felony assault after allegedly striking another man in the face during an altercation last weekend in State College, Pa.
Penn State freshman Gavin McKenna, 18, was arraigned Wednesday and released on $20,000 unsecured bail, according to the State College Police Department.
He is charged with first-degree felony aggravated assault — which in Pennsylvania is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $25,000 in fines — as well as simple assault, harassment and disorderly conduct.
His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 11.
According to police, the incident occurred around 8:45 p.m. Saturday near the Penn State campus. The man allegedly struck by McKenna suffered facial injuries that required corrective surgery, police said.
Earlier that day, McKenna had a goal and two assists during the Nittany Lions’ 5-4 overtime loss to Michigan State in an outdoor game played in front of 74,575 fans at Beaver Stadium, home of the Penn State football team.
McKenna is tied for the team lead with 32 points this season. He has 11 goals and a team-high 21 assists. His availability for the Nittany Lions’ next game, Feb. 13 at Michigan, is unclear.
“We are aware that charges have been filed; however, as this is an ongoing legal matter, we will not have any further comment,” Penn State said in a statement emailed to The Times on Thursday morning.
A native of Whitehorse, Yukon, McKenna had four goals and 10 assists to help Canada win the bronze medal at the 2026 World Junior Championships, played from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Minnesota. He is listed as the No. 1 North American skater on NHL.com’s midseason draft prospect rankings and is said to be making around $700,000 in an NIL deal this season at Penn State.
MILAN — Laila Edwards finally got out from under the spotlight and onto the ice for the U.S. women’s hockey team Thursday. It was a simple act, but one that made history.
Yet for Edwards, it was just another day at the office.
“It didn’t feel different at all,” she said. “It’s still hockey at the end of the day. Even though it’s the highest level, it’s still hockey.”
With her first shift in Thursday’s 5-1 win over Czechia, on the first day of hockey at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games, Edwards became the first Black woman to play for the U.S. national team in an Olympic tournament. On a team full of record-breakers, it was a significant milestone, one that has become a storyline for the world’s top-ranked team.
“Cameras constantly in her face. She does a good job of whatever she needs to do,” said teammate Tessa Janecke, who had two second-period assists. “It’s very inspiring for us as her teammates, but as well as the next generation.”
And that, of course, is the point.
“Representation matters,” Edwards said. “There’s been a lot of young kids or parents of young kids who have reached out or I’ve run into that say, ‘You know, my daughter plays sports because of you. And she feels seen and represented,’ and that’s just really motivating.”
Just 22, Edwards is already accustomed to breaking barriers and being the youngest this or the first that.
In 2023, she became the first Black player on the women’s senior national team in any competition; a year later, she became, at 20, the youngest player to win the MVP award in the World Championship.
But if doing that has been easy, talking about it has taken some work.
“I could not do interviews or not talk about it, but then the story doesn’t get out there,” she said. “And maybe a little girl doesn’t see me, who looks like her. So I think that’s what’s more important.”
On Thursday, playing before Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a packed house at the Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena, Edwards marked her Olympic debut by helping put the Americans ahead to stay, feeding Megan Keller in the high slot for a slap shot that Alex Carpenter redirected in a first-period power-play goal.
Second-period goals from Joy Dunne and Hayley Scamurra — both on assists from Janecke — and third-period goals from Scamurra and Hilary Knight, sandwiched around one from Czechia’s Barbora Jurickova, accounted for the final score in a game in which the top-ranked Americans outshot the fourth-ranked Czechs 42-14.
Still, the night belonged to Edwards, a player Knight calls “the future of the sport.” But she’s doing pretty well in the present too, having already won two national championships with Wisconsin and two world championship medals with Team USA.
Edwards started skating shortly after she learned to walk, then switched to hockey before starting kindergarten, when her father Robert, who played the game as a child, enrolled her and three siblings in a youth hockey program. By 8, she was so advanced she was playing with boys’ teams and for high school she left her native Cleveland Heights, Ohio, for the elite girls’ hockey program at Bishop Kearney High School in Rochester, N.Y.
Although she was a high-scoring forward in high school and college — she led the nation with 35 goals as a junior at Wisconsin — she’s proven versatile enough to play on the blue line in the Olympics. That’s a little like playing a running back at right guard.
“I couldn’t even imagine that,” forward Abbey Murphy said of Edwards, who skated a team-high 25 shifts Thursday. “She took it and she just kind of ate it up and she made defenseman look easy. She’s magic on the blue line.”
At 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds — making her the biggest and most physical player on the U.S. team — Edwards was well-suited for the move.
“She’s so dynamic, so athletic, you could put her in goal and she would perform,” said Caroline Harvey, a teammate in high school, college and now with the national team. “She’s just adjusted so well. It’s seamless. It doesn’t even seem like she’s switched positions.”
Edwards hasn’t made her journey to the Olympics alone, however, a fact she acknowledged after Thursday’s game. Although her father is responsible for her start in hockey, it looked like he wouldn’t be able to travel to Milan to see his daughter make history. So Edwards’ parents started a crowdfunding campaign to pay for flights and accommodations.
Jason and Travis Kelce, brothers and former Super Bowl players who also grew up in Cleveland Heights, learned of the campaign and quickly kicked in $10,000, allowing 14 members of Edwards’ family to come to Italy — where their cheers were audible every time her name was announced.
“They show support,” Edwards said. “And they’re really cool guys.”
After her Olympic debut Thursday, there are a lot of little girls who can say the same about Edwards.
Shane Wright scored twice to lead the Seattle Kraken to a 4-2 win over the Kings on Wednesday night.
Vince Dunn and Adam Larsson also scored and Chandler Stephenson and Frederick Gaudreau each had two assists for the Kraken, who have won five of their last six games. Joey Daccord made 25 saves.
Andrei Kuzmenko scored both of the Kings’ goals and Darcy Kuemper made 19 saves.
The Kings took a 1-0 lead at 7:42 of the first period when Kuzmenko scored on the power play.
Wright tied it at 1 at 9:16 on a backhander for his first goal of the game and Larsson put Seattle up 2-1 at 10:14 on a one-timer. Dunn made it 3-1 on the power play at 15:21.
Kuzmenko cut it to 3-2 on the power play at 10:27 of the second period, but Wright gave the Kraken a two-goal lead again with a power-play score at 5:50 of the third.
Before we see elephants at Elephant Valley in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, we come face to face with destruction, only the wreckage is beautiful. A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints.
The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail walked not by humans but traversed and carved by elephants, a creature still misunderstood, vilified and hunted for its cataclysmic-like ability to reshape land, and sometimes communities.
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“It starts,” says Kristi Burtis, vice president of wildlife care for the Safari Park, “by telling the story that elephants are ecosystem engineers.”
Elephant Valley will open March 5 as the newest experience at the Escondido park, its aim to bring guests closer than ever to the zoo’s eight elephants, which range in age from 7 to 36, while more heavily focusing on conservation. The centerpiece of the 13-acre-plus parkland is a curved bridge overlooking a savanna, allowing elephants to walk under guests. But there are also nooks such as a cave that, while not previewed at a recent media event, will allow visitors to view elephants on their level.
In a shift from, say, the Safari Park’s popular tram tour, there are no fences and visible enclosures. Captive elephants remain a sometimes controversial topic, and the zoo’s herd is a mix of rescues and births, but the goal was to create a space where humans are at once removed and don’t impede on the relative free-roaming ability of the animals by keeping guests largely elevated. As an example of just how close people can get to the herd, there was a moment of levity at the event when one of the elephants began flinging what was believed to be a mixture of dirt and feces up onto the bridge.
An aerial view of Elephant Valley at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, home to eight elephants.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Our guests are going to be able to see the hairs on an elephant,” says Kristi Burtis, vice president of wildlife care for the Safari Park.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Our guests are going to be able to see the hairs on an elephant,” Burtis says. “They can see their eyes. They can see the eyelashes. They can see how muscular their trunks are. It’s really going to be a different experience.”
Elephant Valley, complete with a multistory lodge with open-air restaurants and bars, boasts a natural design that isn’t influenced by the elephant’s African home so much as it is in conversation with it. The goal isn’t to displace us, but to import communal artistry — Kenyan wood and beadwork can be found in the pathways, resting spaces and more — as a show of admiration rather than imitation.
“We’re not going to pretend that we’re taking people to Africa,” says Fri Forjindam, now a creative executive with Universal’s theme parks but previously a lead designer on Elephant Valley via her role as a chief development officer at Mycotoo, a Pasadena-based experiential design firm.
“That is a slippery slope of theming that can go wrong really fast,” she adds. “How do we recognize where we are right now, which is near San Diego? How do we populate this plane with plants that are indigenous to the region? The story of coexistence is important. We’re not extracting from Africa, we’re learning. We’re not extracting from elephants, we’re sharing information.”
But designing a space that is elephant-first yet also built for humans presented multiple challenges, especially when the collaborating teams were aiming to construct multiple narratives around the animals. Since meetings about Elephant Valley began around 2019, the staff worked to touch on themes related to migration and conservation. And there was also a desire to personalize the elephants.
“Where can we also highlight each of the elephants by name, so they aren’t just this huge herd of random gray creatures?” Forjindam says. “You see that in the lodge.”
Two of eight elephants eat during an Elephant Valley preview.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
That lodge, the Mkutano House — a phrase that means “gathering” in Swahili — should provide opportunities for guests to linger, although zoo representatives say reservations are recommended for those who wish to dine in the space (there will also be a walk-up, to-go window). Menus have yet to be released, but the ground floor of the structure, boasting hut-like roofing designed to blend into the environment, features close views of the elephant grazing pool as well as an indoor space with a centerpiece tree beneath constellation-like lighting to mimic sunrises and sunsets.
Throughout there are animal wood carvings and beadwork, the latter often hung from sculptures made of tree branches. The ceiling, outfitted with colorful, cloth tapestries designed to move with the wind, aims to create less friction between indoor and outdoor environments.
There are, of course, research and educational goals of the space as well. The Safari Park works, for instance, with the Northern Rangelands Trust and Loisaba Conservancy in Kenya, with an emphasis on studying human-elephant conflict and finding no-kill resolutions. Nonprofits and conservation groups estimate that there are today around 415,000 elephants in Africa, and the African savanna elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Water areas in Elephant Valley have been redesigned with ramps and steps to make it easier for the elephants to navigate. The hope is to inspire play.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Studies of the zoo’s young elephants is shared with the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in the hopes of delivering care to elephant youth to prevent orphanage. Additionally, the Safari Park has done extensive examination into the endotheliotropic herpes virus. “The data that we collect from elephants here, you can’t simply get from elephants in the wild,” Burtis says.
One of the two entrances to Elephant Valley is outfitted with bee boxes; bees are known to be a natural elephant deterrent and can help in preventing the animals from disrupting crops or communities. To encourage more natural behavior, the plane is outfitted with timed feeders in an attempt to encourage movement throughout the acreage and establish a level of real-life unpredictability in hunting for resources. Water areas have been redesigned with ramps and steps to make it easier for the elephants to navigate.
The view from Elephant Valley’s Mkutano House, a two-story dining destination in the new space at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
With Elephant Valley, Forjindam says the goal was to allow visitors to “observe safely in luxury — whatever that is — but not from a position of power, more as a cohabitor of the Earth, with as much natural elements as possible. It’s not to impose dominance. Ultimately, it needed to feel natural. It couldn’t feel like a man-made structure, which is an antiquated approach to any sort of safari experience where animals are the product, a prize. In this experience, this is the elephant’s home.”
And the resulting feel of Elephant Valley is that we, the paying customers, are simply their house guests.
If you want to see what a top 15-year-old girls’ soccer player looks like, go watch freshman Mia Rizo of St. Genevieve.
She has scored 19 goals and contributed six assists for the Valiants while earning universal respect for her play.
“Mia is a crafty midfielder with great vision,” coach Marlon Archey said. “She has a nose for the goal that is remarkable for a freshman playing at the varsity level.”
She has participated at the U.S. Soccer Talent Camp and continues to climb the ranks of young players.
St. Genevieve is 13-3-3 overall and 4-2-3 in the Del Rey League. The Valiants play Paraclete on Tuesday for second place in the league.
“Mia has an impeccable soccer IQ at such a young age,” Archey said. “She’s a coach’s dream.”
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
If defense wins championships, the Moorpark High boys’ soccer team is looking good for the playoffs. The Musketeers are 11-3-2 overall and 6-1 in the Coastal Canyon League. They’ve given up four goals in seven league games.
Coach Manny Galvez relies on junior Austin Nickels and sophomore Isaac Zapata to provide the offense, with Nickels having 11 goals and Zapata 10.
Moorpark hosts Oak Park on Friday to decide the league title in one of the top soccer games of the weekend.
“They’re just young, hard-working guys,” Galvez said.
Moorpark suffered a 1-0 loss to Camarillo on Tuesday.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
How good is senior Nathan Castrejon scoring goals for South East’s soccer team?
Coach Felipe Bernal said, “His strength and speed gets him through like Mbappe of Real Madrid. That’s the way I see him at this level.”
Castrejon, 5 feet 10, 160 pounds, entered this week with 38 of South East’s 90 goals. South East has its best chance to win a City Section title since it won in a big upset in 2022. This season would be no upset, since the Jaquars are 16-1-3.
Bernal has so many players with the first name of Nathan that he has to call them by their last name. Besides Castrejon, there’s Nathan Medina, who has eight goals, and Nathan Vargas, a backup goalie who has filled in well while the starter was sick.
“We’re a complete team this year,” Bernal said.
One of the most interesting players is 5-4 David Velasco. “The kid gets the job done,” Bernal said. “He’s amazing.”
Velasco has 11 assists.
South East is 6-0-1 in the competitive Eastern League that includes longtime power Bell.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
EDMONTON, Canada — Mattias Ekholm scored a hat trick and the Edmonton Oilers rode a dominant second period to a 7-4 victory over the Ducks on Monday.
Zach Hyman and Connor McDavid each added a goal and an assist for the Oilers, Spencer Stastney scored his first in an Edmonton jersey and Darnell Nurse also scored.
Leon Draisaitl contributed four assists and Tristan Jarry stopped 36 of the 40 shots he faced.
Three of the Ducks’ four goals came from Mikael Granlund on the power play, starting with his 10th tally of the season 3:24 into the game.
His linemate Alex Killorn added an even-strength tally 55 seconds into the second period, Beckett Sennecke notched two assists, and Ville Husso made 25 saves in the loss.
The result broke a seven-game win streak for the Ducks, who downed the Calgary Flames 4-3 in overtime on Sunday.
The Oilers got some fresh faces into the lineup with winger Kasperi Kapanen returning after missing three games with an injury and center Josh Samanski made his NHL debut.
Cutter Gauthier helped out on Granlund’s first goal of the night and extended his point streak to five games with three goals and four assists across the stretch.
