GENESEO — Raucous chants of “GEN-E-SEE-O” echoed through cold confines of the Ira S. Wilson Ice Arena on Saturday night.

Like they have all week in the face of unspeakable tragedy, the Geneseo community came together, became #OneKnight, to show how much it cares.

Because the parents of slain student Mattew Hutchinson, a senior on the men’s ice hockey team, asked for togetherness in a letter to the community, fans, friends, and family packed into Wilson Ice Arena.

A sellout crowd of more than 2,500, most adorned in the navy blue and gray of the State College at Geneseo, gathered because that’s what ‘Hutch’ would’ve wanted. They witnessed a 6-1 win over conference rival Cortland.

“I think there was very little doubt about what the outcome was going to be,” Geneseo hockey coach Chris Schultz said. “I don’t think it mattered who we played. The coaching staff knew that our players were going to fight like dogs to make good things happen. I told them before the game that it’s not a coincidence you have have close to 3,000 people here to support you. It’s not a coincidence that the community has been nothing but amazing through this whole process. It’s because of who they are and who they’ve been. It’s because of our love for Matthew Hutchinson.”

One week earlier, Hutchinson was found dead inside a Geneseo home, along with Kelsey Annese, 21, a senior guard for the women’s basketball team. Police say the two were killed early Sunday morning in Annese’s Wadsworth Street apartment, in the shadow of the campus, by Colin Kingston, 24. Kingston then took his own life.

#OneKnight signs were handed out to all the spectators. And during the Canadian national anthem, fans held up two fingers on one hand and three on the other to match the jersey numbers — 23 for Hutchinson and 32 for Annese.

Hutchinson and Annese were honored, remembered, and celebrated pre-game with moment of silence that was punctuated by an emphatic stick tap on the ice for the two teams gathered on opposing blue lines.

And when the Ice Knights finally took to the ice, you could feel the roof shake. The noise was deafening, It was a collective explosion of emotion. It was done to show their love for Geneseo community. It was a show of support for the Hutchinson family. You could feel the love.

Keith and Susan Hutchinson, Matthew’s parents, traveled to Geneseo from their home in North Vancouver, British Columbia. They wrote of Matthew’s immense love for Geneseo. In a letter than was read to the campus during a remembrance ceremony in the Kuhl Gymnasium, Keith and Susan that their son would send photos of “beautiful sunsets.” They also shared a memory of a photograph of their son “holding a beer keg over his head while wearing a Knights jersey.”

They continued, “I want to hear about that one when we come to see you all this weekend. We want to meet as many of you as we can when we arrive in town this weekend to pick up our beautiful little boy, hold him in our arms and bring him home.”

Keith and Susan were in the crowd to hear those stories, feel those love, and get those hugs from the people who loved their son most.

“I think it really speaks to the support you get no matter who you are in our family,” said Sean Fischer, a senior on the men’s cross country team and a Pittsford Sutherland graduate. “In athletics, we always say that we’re part of a family. But I think it goes farther now when you see one small group suffering and then thousands of people coming out to help them or an outpouring of messages through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As a student, you feel like you’re part of something bigger.

According to Geneseo hockey coach Chris Schultz, the team made the decision to return to practice almost immediately after learning of Hutchinson’s death.

“We wanted to do it together,” said senior forward Ryan Donnelly. “He was an incredible guy, an incredible member of this community. I think that’s evident from all the outreach you’ve seen this week. I think it shows, at a time like this, the true character of Geneseo. Geneseo showed that when faced with adversity. They come together strong. We really appreciate the crowd and their support. It definitely put some wind in our sails”

For someone as loved and connected to the Geneseo community as Hutchinson was, Saturday’s game was a love letter from all the people he touched, whether they knew him or not.

“The support we’ve got from every teammate, everybody at the school, the fans, the community, all the outreach we’ve received has really helped us battle through it,” senior forward AJ Sgaraglio said. “We have a reason to play and that’s what Hutch would want us to do. He was the definition of a team player. He would do anything for anybody. He didn’t care if he played, he didn’t care if he scored. He just wanted the team to win and to see happiness in everybody. That’s what we want to do for him.

“It was actually pretty tough to hold back tears during the starting lineups with crowd yelling so much, just knowing that they support us this much. That’s what Hutch meant to everybody here. But the love we have for our team, the love the community has for all of us, it’s helped so much.”

WCLEVELAND@Gannett.com