(03-10-2020 09:11 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  If any of them or most other mid-majors can cobble together the cash to start up a team, women's sports program to balance out Title IX requirements, and an arena/practice facility, they're gonna use it to boost existing basketball and/or football about 99% of the time.

If Kent State had that kind of money just laying around, looking for a way to spend it with a chance of some of it coming back, next time they get a basketball coach that attract the interest of the big boys, they could bid to keep him on campus and upgrade his assistants besides.

I am well and truly happy that my alma mater has a hockey team ... it's the only one of their teams I actually cheer for, though I always pretended to care about the Battle of the Bricks when my older brother was still alive ... but it's clearly not the same situation as the Buckeyes where the effort made to support hockey is independent of the success of the FB and MBB teams. All too many of the Basketball Battle of the Bricks were all too full of ... well, bricks ... to bring comfort to Redhawks basketball fans.

The notion that Toledo would start a hockey team is a silly one.

As far as NE Ohio, it may "need" a 5,000 seat arena, but there's nobody loitering around asking to pay for building one, and if it was in Cleveland, that wouldn't be of any use to either Akron or Kent State ... and if it was in Stow or east Akron, it still wouldn't be of use to either Akron or Kent state, since Akron's third sport is soccer and Kent State's third sport is baseball, and neither is going to starve their third sport to throw money away starting a hockey program.

So it is agreed by everyone but NoDak...

When you post rumors about schools starting D-I hockey, you are required to state the following:

1.) What existing arena will be used and where, SPECIFICALLY, will the $30 million to start the team come from?

OR

2.) Who, SPECIFICALLY, is paying $100 million to start the team and build the arena?

If you can't do either, don't post.

(03-11-2020 02:22 PM)ccd494 Wrote:  So it is agreed by everyone but NoDak...

When you post rumors about schools starting D-I hockey, you are required to state the following:

1.) What existing arena will be used and where, SPECIFICALLY, will the $30 million to start the team come from?

OR

2.) Who, SPECIFICALLY, is paying $100 million to start the team and build the arena?

If you can't do either, don't post.

That won't stop NoDak, the DavidSt of College Hockey.

Never posted a rumor, just an idea. The posters here can't stand ideas.

Toledo has arena's that are more than adequate a d the crowds would be huge.

Somehow posting High Point going DI in Hockey was a sin, when the President and newspapers said it. Guess I didn't post the bank loan #.

(03-11-2020 12:52 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(03-10-2020 09:11 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  If any of them or most other mid-majors can cobble together the cash to start up a team, women's sports program to balance out Title IX requirements, and an arena/practice facility, they're gonna use it to boost existing basketball and/or football about 99% of the time.

If Kent State had that kind of money just laying around, looking for a way to spend it with a chance of some of it coming back, next time they get a basketball coach that attract the interest of the big boys, they could bid to keep him on campus and upgrade his assistants besides.

I am well and truly happy that my alma mater has a hockey team ... it's the only one of their teams I actually cheer for, though I always pretended to care about the Battle of the Bricks when my older brother was still alive ... but it's clearly not the same situation as the Buckeyes where the effort made to support hockey is independent of the success of the FB and MBB teams. All too many of the Basketball Battle of the Bricks were all too full of ... well, bricks ... to bring comfort to Redhawks basketball fans.

The notion that Toledo would start a hockey team is a silly one.

As far as NE Ohio, it may "need" a 5,000 seat arena, but there's nobody loitering around asking to pay for building one, and if it was in Cleveland, that wouldn't be of any use to either Akron or Kent State ... and if it was in Stow or east Akron, it still wouldn't be of use to either Akron or Kent state, since Akron's third sport is soccer and Kent State's third sport is baseball, and neither is going to starve their third sport to throw money away starting a hockey program.

Cleveland and Detroit do not have adequate investors, so that the reason for no 5000 seat multipurpose arenas. They could be filled every day.

(03-11-2020 02:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Never posted a rumor, just an idea. The posters here can't stand ideas.

Toledo has arena's that are more than adequate a d the crowds would be huge.

Somehow posting High Point going DI in Hockey was a sin, when the President and newspapers said it. Guess I didn't post the bank loan #.

Just stop.... every time you post, you sound more and more ridiculous.
Do I need to embarrass you again?? Because you know absolutely nothing about the city of Toledo, outside of your nephew working there for a short period of time. Let know what that second arena is that can hold college hockey in Toledo..... I can't wait for this one......

Go back to Reddit.......

(03-11-2020 03:15 PM)utpotts Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Never posted a rumor, just an idea. The posters here can't stand ideas.

Toledo has arena's that are more than adequate a d the crowds would be huge.

Somehow posting High Point going DI in Hockey was a sin, when the President and newspapers said it. Guess I didn't post the bank loan #.

Just stop.... every time you post, you sound more and more ridiculous.
Do I need to embarrass you again?? Because you know absolutely nothing about the city of Toledo, outside of your nephew working there for a short period of time. Let know what that second arena is that can hold college hockey in Toledo..... I can't wait for this one......

Go back to Reddit.......

Your rants are embarrassing to you and you are not even aware to them.

(03-11-2020 04:01 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 03:15 PM)utpotts Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Never posted a rumor, just an idea. The posters here can't stand ideas.

Toledo has arena's that are more than adequate a d the crowds would be huge.

Somehow posting High Point going DI in Hockey was a sin, when the President and newspapers said it. Guess I didn't post the bank loan #.

Just stop.... every time you post, you sound more and more ridiculous.
Do I need to embarrass you again?? Because you know absolutely nothing about the city of Toledo, outside of your nephew working there for a short period of time. Let know what that second arena is that can hold college hockey in Toledo..... I can't wait for this one......

Go back to Reddit.......

Your rants are embarrassing to you and you are not even aware to them.

You couldn't even answer one question.......

(03-11-2020 04:07 PM)utpotts Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 04:01 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 03:15 PM)utpotts Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 02:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Never posted a rumor, just an idea. The posters here can't stand ideas.

Toledo has arena's that are more than adequate a d the crowds would be huge.

Somehow posting High Point going DI in Hockey was a sin, when the President and newspapers said it. Guess I didn't post the bank loan #.

Just stop.... every time you post, you sound more and more ridiculous.
Do I need to embarrass you again?? Because you know absolutely nothing about the city of Toledo, outside of your nephew working there for a short period of time. Let know what that second arena is that can hold college hockey in Toledo..... I can't wait for this one......

Go back to Reddit.......

Your rants are embarrassing to you and you are not even aware to them.

You couldn't even answer one question.......

Thought the idea was complimentary as it shows that Toledo was thought to be at least on WMU's level, but the Rocket fans become all offended at the comparison.

WMU managed to have a nationally ranked FBS while in the highest level hockey conference and MAC bb. Thought Toledo was capable but guess not.

WMU promised when the league formed that they would have a new arena, but nothing yet.

"Just finished up a Zoom chat with @IlliniAD, who said @IlliniAthletics was set to formally announce #Illini hockey as early as next month. COVID-19 has put that on hold for now. Regardless, the 3-year project is nearing the finish line"
-Bret Behrens WCIA 3

Link

(04-20-2020 02:51 PM)dreamlander Wrote:  "Just finished up a Zoom chat with @IlliniAD, who said @IlliniAthletics was set to formally announce #Illini hockey as early as next month. COVID-19 has put that on hold for now. Regardless, the 3-year project is nearing the finish line"
-Bret Behrens WCIA 3

Link

That's good to hear. I just posted on another thread about how I was very worried about the progress of Illinois adding hockey due to the pandemic. Hopefully, the money that has been committed to the project isn't as impacted by pandemic issues. I've long been very optimistic that Illinois hockey would work out great, but I have a lingering pessimism about it actually ever getting finalized from what I've observed for nearly 25 years. I want to see an actual announcement with shovels in the ground.

(02-28-2020 11:08 PM)esayem Wrote:  I’m surprised Northwestern doesn’t have a team.

NW should really have a men's lax team.

In looking at Illinois AD Josh Whitman's full comments on adding hockey, I'm back to being worried again:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/co...story.html

If this college football season goes on as normal this year or at least isn't a total loss, then I'm more optimistic that this really will be just a "short-term pause" on adding hockey and it will pick back up again. However, if we don't have college football this year, then that revenue impact is going to be massive at every FBS school.

This is why I won't feel good about Illinois hockey until there are actually shovels in the ground showing that there's a true legitimate financial commitment that the parties can't turn back on. It had already taken 3 years of talks just to get to the point of being ready for announcement... and then the pandemic hit.

There are 60 D-I men's college hockey teams. If you set that as the line for the number of programs when college sports start up again, I'd take the under.

(04-21-2020 10:08 AM)westwolf Wrote:  

(02-28-2020 11:08 PM)esayem Wrote:  I’m surprised Northwestern doesn’t have a team.

NW should really have a men's lax team.

On paper, Northwestern has the demographic profile of a lot of hockey and men's lax schools (e.g. wealthy private university, a lot of students from the East Coast, etc.).

However, it's always a different ball game when you're competing in the Big Ten. A school can't just halfway add a program, as evidenced by the amount of money that it took for Penn State to add hockey and the amount of time and hoops that Illinois is needing to jump through in an attempt to do the same. When you add a sport in the Big Ten, it needs to be a fully-funded sustainable program that has the resources to compete at the very highest level quickly. No one "wings it" or rushes things in the Big Ten.

At the same time, hockey in the Big Ten region is not an upper crust niche sport. NHL teams in the region like the Blackhawks, Red Wings, Penguins and Blues have huge fan bases and they aren't relative bit players in their respective sports markets in the way that the NHL is in most other markets. So, that makes hockey fandom more well-suited in the Midwest/Big Ten region for the large public universities compared to how it's generally a private school sport in the Northeast.

If you ever visited an Illinois club hockey game (or a Penn State State club hockey game before they moved up to Division I) and compared it to going to a Northwestern club hockey game, it wasn't even a contest in terms of fan support and competitiveness (even accounting for the fact that Illinois is a much larger school). There's just an innate underlying culture at Illinois (partly because most of the students come from either the Chicago or St. Louis metro areas, which are both huge hockey markets) that the average observer could see that the school is primed to have a Division I program more than Northwestern (which has the private school demographics but doesn't have the same sports culture and, despite its location, actually has fewer Chicago-area students and alums than all of the other "original" Big Ten schools - e.g. outside of Penn State, Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland).

I'd argue the same for places like Iowa, Nebraska and Indiana as schools that would be more likely to add Division I hockey before Northwestern, although a big advantage that both Penn State and Illinois have is that they have a critical mass of hockey talent within their home state borders.

(04-22-2020 11:10 AM)ccd494 Wrote:  There are 60 D-I men's college hockey teams. If you set that as the line for the number of programs when college sports start up again, I'd take the under.

You always say 60 is the max teams and no one has been added for 20 years except Penn St and Ariz St. But Robert Morris was added 20 years ago and Niagara 21 years ago. Just prior to that the CHA added many teams.

College hockey has so much talent available to them now so any added teams would have good talent. 16 rated teams have won many games against the #1 overall NCAA team, but that is impossible according to you. The South is in prime position to expand but you constantly deny this. The west coast is also on the verge of expanding but the chicken little comes out in you whenever it's brought up.

What is true is that Maine is merely a shadow of its last program strength and because Maine can't raise money and that thought infuriates you. A new team will exceed Maine in strength soon.

I suspect that all the college & university closures due to COVID-19 will have an impact on any school considering adding a new sport, such as D-1 Hockey at the University of Illinois. Not without somehow massive gift $$$ like Penn State and Arizona State received...

In a future where media rights and tv deals reign supreme, it seems to me like Hockey is one of the few sports that can fill the television void that exist after March madness until the NHL/NBA playoffs start . What hurts Hockey is that it starts before basketball in October and and it's tournament is during March madness with the Finals being the week after the basketball finals. IMO they should push back the season and start it in January. Allow them to do some Holiday tournaments to get a few games in if needed. It would lower the overall games per year but they should start in January and start their conference tournaments after March Madness and wrap it up by early May.

(03-11-2020 03:07 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(03-11-2020 12:52 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(03-10-2020 09:11 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  If any of them or most other mid-majors can cobble together the cash to start up a team, women's sports program to balance out Title IX requirements, and an arena/practice facility, they're gonna use it to boost existing basketball and/or football about 99% of the time.

If Kent State had that kind of money just laying around, looking for a way to spend it with a chance of some of it coming back, next time they get a basketball coach that attract the interest of the big boys, they could bid to keep him on campus and upgrade his assistants besides.

I am well and truly happy that my alma mater has a hockey team ... it's the only one of their teams I actually cheer for, though I always pretended to care about the Battle of the Bricks when my older brother was still alive ... but it's clearly not the same situation as the Buckeyes where the effort made to support hockey is independent of the success of the FB and MBB teams. All too many of the Basketball Battle of the Bricks were all too full of ... well, bricks ... to bring comfort to Redhawks basketball fans.

The notion that Toledo would start a hockey team is a silly one.

As far as NE Ohio, it may "need" a 5,000 seat arena, but there's nobody loitering around asking to pay for building one, and if it was in Cleveland, that wouldn't be of any use to either Akron or Kent State ... and if it was in Stow or east Akron, it still wouldn't be of use to either Akron or Kent state, since Akron's third sport is soccer and Kent State's third sport is baseball, and neither is going to starve their third sport to throw money away starting a hockey program.

Cleveland and Detroit do not have adequate investors, so that the reason for no 5000 seat multipurpose arenas. They could be filled every day.

There is a ton of old wealth in Cleveland and Detroit.

If you're going to pick on a city for not having people wealthy enough to invest $100 million on a profitable project, then you might want to choose cities where the old wealth has left (like Rochester or Youngstown) or never existed (like Orlando or Sacramento).