In the depths of Pegula Ice Arena , past the lounge room with dark-leather recliners, past the flat-screen TV and ping-pong table, past the showers and past the film room, there’s the locker room.

For a hockey player, it's the most sacred area. There, close to 30 lockers are built into the wall, each one of wood and each for one, plus a couple extra, belonging to the members of Guy Gadowsky's squad.

Then, in the center across from the entrance to the locker room, along the wall of the longest stretch of lockers, one locker stands out.

It's as tall as the other lockers, just a foot skinnier, though. To the left is Zach Saar's stall, to the right is Eric Scheid's.

The locker in between, that's Colton Buckley's locker.

It says so right at the top, just like all the others. One of Buckley’s drawings is in there, and his shirt, too.

The name Buckley can't be found in the media guide or online with the rest of the names like Glen, McAdam or Olczyk. But for the others that share that locker room, it's equally important.

The locker serves as a sign of the strong relationship between Penn State hockey and their THON family, the Buckleys.

Nicole Buckley would pick up then-4-year-old Colton from day care with bruises all over him. When she would ask how they happened, the day care staff would say, “Nothing.”

Nicole and her husband, Denny, went to the pediatrician after Colton was suffering from flu-like symptoms for two months. Doctors diagnosed it as just a virus. When the antibiotics didn't work, they were told it was just growing pains in the middle of a spurt.

"I told [Nicole] to take him somewhere else, there has to be something going on," said Denny, who helps run a family furniture business. "I said, ‘Insist on blood work’ and the doctor actually asked us, 'Do you mind if we do blood work?' I said, 'Absolutely, do it. I want to see if there is something else going on.’ ”

Soon after, they got the phone call at 10 p.m.

The family was told to get to either the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia or Penn State Hershey Medical Center — not tomorrow, now at 10 p.m.

That wasn't the only thing they were told.

As Denny recalls, the caller said: “We have reason to believe it's leukemia. Everything points to that, we aren't positive, yet. We sent his blood work up to the hospital, and there is a room waiting for you when you get there.”

The Buckleys, who live right outside of Reading, raced to Hershey — more than an hour away — with little Colton strapped in the back seat of the car.

When they arrived, Colton was officially diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and immediately was hooked up to machines to pump blood for at least 24 hours.

"It's like the first thing you think of is the worst," Nicole said. "Then as a parent you sit and question, 'What did I do wrong? Where did we go wrong? How could we have prevented this?' That's the first thing we said to the doctors.

"But it's not anything you could have done, it's just cancer happens.”

After about a week, Colton developed sores in his mouth and led to lost appetite. At his sickest, Colton weighed close to 35 pounds.

"I sat there and I cried. It's like, ‘Why him?’ ” Nicole said.

She would have preferred it to be her.

"Everything. Nothing," Denny said of what raced through his head. "The first thing you think about, and it's terrible to say, is the mortality. You think, 'Oh my gosh, my son is going to die.' They say cancer. Knowing nothing about leukemia and I didn't, I was completely ignorant of it. That's the very first thing you think.

“It's a death sentence."

Sitting on the lap of Dana Crouse, one of Penn State’s marketing directors, is 7-year-old Colton. He’s got a giant smile on his face, talking to assistant coach Keith Fisher, who would be entering battle alongside the rest of the Nittany Lions in just more than an hour.

The rest of the family sits on the couch in the reception room of the hockey offices at Pegula Ice Arena. Nicole wears a blue Nike Penn State hoodie with the logo on the chest. On the couch’s left arm is Madison, Colton's 12-year-old sister, eagerly awaiting Penn State’s Friday night matchup with No. 10 Michigan.

Denny rocked a 1980 Team USA jersey. He's a hockey fan, and always has been. He's got two closets full of hockey jerseys and was sporting a Pittsburgh Penguins hat .

When asked what kept the parents keeping faith, Denny pointed at Colton and said simply: "Him."

And then Nicole sounded off: family, friends, doctors, nurses and — last but not least — the hockey team.

Colton is now in remission and is currently receiving chemotherapy once a month for what is called "maintenance chemo," which is less than what he used to go through. If Colton continues to get better, he will be done with therapy this September.

Back in October of 2011 when Colton was in the hospital, some of the social workers at the Hershey Medical Center approached the Buckley family about THON and the Four Diamonds Fund.

At first, the Buckleys were hesitant.

They didn't know what Colton's condition would be days from now, let alone months. The Buckleys were told by social workers and families they had to go to THON. They had to experience it and join the Four Diamonds Fund or they would be missing out.

That's when they were presented with the adopt-a-family program. At first, Nicole was confused.

"We went and the application says, 'Are you a part of the adopt-a-family organization?' I'm like, ‘No, my family is not adopted. What does that mean? I don't want adopt anybody else. I can't afford the ones I have,’ ” Nicole said, laughing.

As part of the program, the family was asked to put down interests. Sports and soccer were on the list, but so too was hockey, something Denny will watch any time.

Denny, who converted his wife into a hockey fan after they married, had some knowledge about Penn State's club program and knew there were talks about Penn State getting a Division I team.

What he didn’t know was how the team would change his son and family’s lives.

The Buckleys were matched with the then-club-hockey program, and since then, the bond has grown.

"I talk to Nicole on a weekly basis," defenseman Luke Juha said. "Almost two times a week. [Defenseman Nate] Jensen and I are really involved with the family. We like reaching out to them, seeing how the family is doing all the time."

After the Buckleys had made visits to the Greenberg Ice Pavilion in Penn State's final season as a club team, they went to THON 2012 and 2013.

Jensen and Juha quickly became attached to not just Colton but the entire Buckley family. During the 2013 season, Jensen and Juha were both injured. Juha spent all of THON weekend carrying around Colton, playing and celebrating.

Colton admits Juha and Jensen are his two favorite players. The shy 7-year-old said the two are "the best" friends he has.

Jensen, who is also in regular contact with the family, has visited the Buckleys’ residence in Sinking Springs.

"You go through days where you have a little adversity where you miss the CATA bus or you don't do well on your homework. And then you see him," Jensen said, "where he's going through a hard day or he's fighting for his life. That makes you think those little things throughout the day aren't that big of a deal."

The family has been to a few games this season, but the two hour-plus drive makes it hard to get to State College. They were at last season's games in both Hershey and Philadelphia. Juha watched some of the Hershey game with the family.

As the relationship has grown, so has the fandom for Penn State hockey from the Buckleys. The family has become such big fans that Denny will modify his work schedule to watch the games any time they air on TV. If he can't find them, he tries to watch them on his phone.

If that doesn’t work, Nicole will text Crouse every so often when the team is playing for score updates.

The Buckleys will be across the street from Pegula Ice Arena for their third THON this weekend. And while the Penn State hockey team is on the road, the Buckleys plan on checking scores.

"It doesn't feel like you go and you give your ticket stub and you're just another fan," Nicole said. "We get the warm welcome in the side door. Everybody else has to go in the bottom door. You feel a sense of belonging. This is where we are supposed to be. We are part of this organization."

It was originally supposed to be a stick tape stall.

Zach Saar and Eric Scheid, whose lockers surround Colton’s, are glad it doesn't belong to an archive of white, black and clear hockey tape.

"It's me and Scheid so whenever he comes in to town we like to joke around that our locker mate is back because it's kind of the ghost stall," said Saar, a towering gentle giant at 6-foot-4 to anyone, but especially Colton. "We miss him."

Some of the players didn't know Colton was getting a locker, but in the first days of Pegula Ice Arena, they decided to give Colton a spot in the locker room.

However, it wasn't until the Buckleys first visit in December that they got to see it.

"I was overwhelmed when I saw it," Denny said. "I couldn't even talk. … I didn't know what to do. I knew they had something planned for him, but I didn't expect that. That was unbelievable."

The locker is more than just another spot for the team’s tiniest player to put his stuff.

"They love him,” Gadowsky said with his trademark smile. “He means a lot to everyone in our program.”

“At the same time, he really gives them a lot of inspiration. The guys really genuinely care for him and his family."

On that visit, Colton got to skate on the ice after a practice with some of the team and shoot some pucks on net with some help from Juha and Jensen.

In the coming weeks, Colton, who has been bugging his parents about playing hockey, will also begin skating lessons in hopes of playing the sport one day.

For now though, he has a locker waiting for him at Pegula Ice Arena. The one with his name at the top. To the naked eye, it’s an average locker, just a hair smaller than the rest.

To those who know its true meaning, it belongs to the team’s most important player.

That one belongs to Colton.