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Expansion of a Different Kind - What's the future of college hockey?
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AllTideUp Offline
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Post: #1
Expansion of a Different Kind - What's the future of college hockey?
Saw this article on Twitter and found it interesting...

New York Times breaks down the explosion of D-1 quality players and the lack of D-1 programs to take them.

I know most here aren't hockey fans and that's fine. I happen to enjoy the sport although I admittedly am not familiar with all its rules and quirks. I've thoroughly enjoyed every game I've ever been to and marvel at the balance of skill and physicality that's displayed.

So with that in mind, I thought I'd post this article that talks a little bit about the growth of college hockey programs among Power 5 schools. With the growth of the sport across the Sun Belt(from CA to FL) and the new recruiting inroads made into Canada and Europe, there has come into existence a glut of players. There literally aren't enough D-1 programs to house them all. Some of those players fall to the lower divisions of the sport, others fall to club teams that have popped up around the country.

One of those newer club teams is, of course, my Crimson Tide. I went to the first ever game in 2005 and try to drive up to Birmingham for a few every season. The program has come a long way and has a really nice following. The past couple of seasons, they've even been bringing some players down from Canada to play.

That leads me to one of the points of the article, a lot of these players want the big state school experience. I don't blame them naturally. Most of the current D-1 hockey programs are small private schools. Many others are small state schools. Nothing wrong with that, but the experience of a major state school is different...especially one in the Power 5.

The problem with expansion by Power programs though doesn't seem to be a lack of interest across the country. It's a lack of financing to build arenas, fund scholarships, and due to Title IX, create a comparable investment in a woman's sport.

Personally, I'm hoping Bama makes the leap to D-1 in hockey. I think they're close to being ready and it's not unheard of for Sun Belt region schools to make the jump. Arizona State just did it a couple of years ago.

What's the future though? Are P5 schools going to start making investments in this sport? I think it's a good idea personally, especially for the Sun Belt region where the sport has been growing slowly but steadily. One of the reasons is hockey is potentially a revenue sport and if these schools are looking for ways to capitalize on their brands and bring in more revenue then expanding sports may be more economical than expanding with new schools?

Thoughts?
03-23-2017 09:08 PM
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XLance Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Expansion of a Different Kind - What's the future of college hockey?
$$$$$
Clemson shut down their Swimming & Diving (they didn't want to invest in building a new competition pool) because of massive expense and no return to the athletic department.
It takes a lot of money to build and maintain an ice rink and equip a hockey team.
Then where do the players go after graduation? Is the NHL still in existence?
In the land of title IX unless you start women's hockey team too, that's a lot of money and scholarships to match/balance.
03-24-2017 05:08 AM
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tcufrog86 Offline
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RE: Expansion of a Different Kind - What's the future of college hockey?
Hockey is somewhat of a unique animal on the college level.

To start, junior hockey is also a major part of the development cycle. In big hockey states in the US and in Canada it isn't uncommon for kids to stop playing high school hockey and go play juniors around the age of 16. You can play junior hockey from ages 16-20. You can play junior A or lower in Canada and any junior level in the US and still be considered an amateur by the NCAA. If you play major junior hockey in Canada you aren't eligible for NCAA. Additionally most top NHL prospects from US or Canada play major juniors thus skipping the NCAA and entering the NHL after their junior career.

The impact of juniors is that you essentially have 3 groups of kids coming to play college hockey, those who played regular HS hockey for 4 years and enter as a normal freshman at 18ish in age (this is relatively uncommon). Kids who play some mix of HS hockey and juniors hockey and enter the NCAA at 19 or 20. Then finally there are some that play juniors until 20 and determine that they don't have a good shot to go straight to pros or know professional hockey isn't in their future so seek a degree end up starting eligibility as a 21 year old freshman.

XLance asked the question about NHL or life after college hockey. The NHL draft for North American entrants is for 18-20 year olds and like baseball you can enter the NHL draft without losing NCAA eligibility. So a number of the kids playing college hockey have already been drafted and a NHL team owns their rights. For example Wisconsin's best player Luke Kunin was drafted in the 1st round by Minnesota Wild in the 2016 NHL draft after his freshman year with Wisconsin and he came back and played his sophomore year with the Badgers and is now going pro. There are a lot of ex-college hockey players in the NHL and that number will likely continue to be strong.

Expense wise hockey is a big investment, especially if you want to build a fan base and have a good on campus atmosphere. Playing in random convention centers or ice arenas many times in cities where the college isn't actually located like many college club teams do (especially in the south) isn't a sustainable way to run a NCAA level hockey program. Penn State successfully started up a program from scratch but had a single donor donate around 100 million to get things going. Arizona State has started up as well and hasn't been very successful, arena is still an issue for them and have little fan support.

In all, I love to see hockey growing and would love to see college hockey grow. But I'm not totally sold on the fact that there is a huge influx of D1 caliber players lining up to play college hockey. The bottom teams like Alabama-Huntsville or Niagara are already pretty bad and adding more teams unless they go all in like Penn State did would just glut up the bottom rungs.
03-24-2017 08:32 AM
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murrdcu Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Expansion of a Different Kind - What's the future of college hockey?
(03-24-2017 08:32 AM)tcufrog86 Wrote:  Hockey is somewhat of a unique animal on the college level.

To start, junior hockey is also a major part of the development cycle. In big hockey states in the US and in Canada it isn't uncommon for kids to stop playing high school hockey and go play juniors around the age of 16. You can play junior hockey from ages 16-20. You can play junior A or lower in Canada and any junior level in the US and still be considered an amateur by the NCAA. If you play major junior hockey in Canada you aren't eligible for NCAA. Additionally most top NHL prospects from US or Canada play major juniors thus skipping the NCAA and entering the NHL after their junior career.

The impact of juniors is that you essentially have 3 groups of kids coming to play college hockey, those who played regular HS hockey for 4 years and enter as a normal freshman at 18ish in age (this is relatively uncommon). Kids who play some mix of HS hockey and juniors hockey and enter the NCAA at 19 or 20. Then finally there are some that play juniors until 20 and determine that they don't have a good shot to go straight to pros or know professional hockey isn't in their future so seek a degree end up starting eligibility as a 21 year old freshman.

XLance asked the question about NHL or life after college hockey. The NHL draft for North American entrants is for 18-20 year olds and like baseball you can enter the NHL draft without losing NCAA eligibility. So a number of the kids playing college hockey have already been drafted and a NHL team owns their rights. For example Wisconsin's best player Luke Kunin was drafted in the 1st round by Minnesota Wild in the 2016 NHL draft after his freshman year with Wisconsin and he came back and played his sophomore year with the Badgers and is now going pro. There are a lot of ex-college hockey players in the NHL and that number will likely continue to be strong.

Expense wise hockey is a big investment, especially if you want to build a fan base and have a good on campus atmosphere. Playing in random convention centers or ice arenas many times in cities where the college isn't actually located like many college club teams do (especially in the south) isn't a sustainable way to run a NCAA level hockey program. Penn State successfully started up a program from scratch but had a single donor donate around 100 million to get things going. Arizona State has started up as well and hasn't been very successful, arena is still an issue for them and have little fan support.

In all, I love to see hockey growing and would love to see college hockey grow. But I'm not totally sold on the fact that there is a huge influx of D1 caliber players lining up to play college hockey. The bottom teams like Alabama-Huntsville or Niagara are already pretty bad and adding more teams unless they go all in like Penn State did would just glut up the bottom rungs.

Thanks for the info and great post '86.

Arkansas also has a ice hockey program at the club level. It kind of reminds me of the rugby clubs from a decade or two ago that would travel to play other local university clubs. Only difference is the operating and equipment costs of ice hockey is huge but it can me manageable as long as there is enough student and fan support.

The fact that a lot of SEC schools are forming and developing these programs bodes well for the future of a possible competitive D1 level hockey programs in the Deep South. I would love to see these games broadcasted on SECN app or YouTube.
03-24-2017 01:33 PM
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Starfox207 Offline
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Post: #5
RE: Expansion of a Different Kind - What's the future of college hockey?
ECU has a Ice hockey Club Team =P
03-26-2017 10:46 PM
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BePcr07 Offline
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RE: Expansion of a Different Kind - What's the future of college hockey?
Football, basketball, and baseball are definitely the power (men's) sports. The next group, in my opinion, is ice hockey, soccer, and lacrosse. I can definitely see all three growing in some capacity. With Title IX and the limits it puts on scholarships, I don't believe all schools will be able to afford all 3, even if they wanted to do all 3, but I could see a lot of larger schools choosing 1 or 2.

No SEC schools have men's lacrosse. Florida and Vanderbilt have women's lacrosse (both in the Big East). Kentucky and South Carolina have men's soccer (both in CUSA). All 14 SEC schools have women's soccer.

I can see, sometime in the next 10 years or so, an SEC women's lacrosse league and an SEC men's soccer league.

Hockey, however, might be a stretch in the South - not impossible - just a stretch.
03-26-2017 11:43 PM
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