Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

[ansinator]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

A lot of good suggestions out there.

Mine's a little simpler, IMHO.

A single refereing standard and probably a single ref pool to choose from. Naturally, there will be regional refs, but to have "conference" refs seems to cause more trouble come tournament time than not.

If the refs were all judged based on the entire pool vs. a conference, and were told as an entire pool what IS and what IS NOT a penalty, I think a lot of us would be happier.

For that matter, a single national standard for rules would be nice, too. Shoot outs nationally or NOT (ties are just fine with me); emphasis on a particular penlaty nationally instead of a handful of games.

Single enforecement standard, single set of rules, national pool of refs and linesmen.

While I like the idea of enjoying a game without the WCHA refs, I'm not sure how I feel about unleashing that horror on the rest of the country.

[Bill]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

The kids aren't the ones that need to be reined in as much as the parents. They are the idiots that push the kids before they are in kindergarden and position them when they are in mites to 'be seen'. Do this and the parents will howl in protest. That said I think this is my favorite idea on the thread so far.

The kids, parents, and those (middlemen) steering kids towards specific colleges.

[Happy]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

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- I don't agree with increasing roster sizes. If anything, make them smaller, like the minor pro leagues. At least one CIS coach has told me he would like to see smaller rosters in Canada: a shorter bench means more ice-time per player and therefore a happier player (who is seeing his games player really reduced from Junior) who gets more development. It also means fewer scholarships to try to find the money for, and fewer hotel rooms and meals on the road.

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Minnesota usually had a comparatively short roster for just that reason (ice time), but when they were always losing 3 or 4 players to the WJC, and throw in a few injuries, and they just ran out of players. All major schools have more players than scholarships.

[MikeAnderson]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

While I like the idea of enjoying a game without the WCHA refs, I'm not sure how I feel about unleashing that horror on the rest of the country.

Basketball suffers the same fate, actually. The SEC officials, for instance, allows a lot rougher style of play than a lot of other conferences do, and it tends to hamstring a lot of SEC teams that can't adjust when it comes to the NCAA Tournament.

Just sayin'. It's a problem in *every* sport.

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

Do not acknowledge any verbal commitment from any player who has not completed his Junior year of high school. Do as much as possible to discourage unofficial recruiting of players before that same point. Let the kids mature more before pushing them into making a college choice.

Something tells me that the Major Junior recruiters would have a field day with this.

Not a bad idea, though.

[BlueDevil98]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

I have to admit that I am concerned most with the systematic reduction in teams that we've seen. Hockey is a high-cost sport relative to other programs and has several innate challenges in rising as a collegiate sport. But I do not believe the answer is cutting programs. That being said, these suggestions are more variations on a theme that I think would expand the sport's footprint and would help obtain better media deals that would allow schools to add programs and help with costs.

1. Refuse to allow viable college hockey programs to die. These aren't "franchises" that are losing money. You don't make the sport more relevant by cutting viable teams that would help college hockey expand its geographic base. So, yes, CCHA should accept UAH.

2. Invite Canadian college hockey schools as a group to join the NCAA. (But I wonder if this might hurt recruiting among US schools).

3. Stop being afraid of conference shuffling. If college hockey is going to grow, then conference shuffling is 100% inevitable. At some point, you have to realize that some traditions need to be broken (and will be broken, just as when the Michigan schools split from the WCHA.) It happens year-to-year in football to accommodate growth, and once in a generation, there is a complete reworking to accommodate this growth. And it works. If college football went the way of college hockey, football wouldn't be played anywhere there wasn't a BCS school.

4. Encourage growth of women's hockey. Schools would get twice the bang for their buck. It gives more girls an opportunity to play. And most importantly, it helps with Title IX requirements.

5. Continue to send the Frozen Four outside of the region. DC was a great choice. California should be on the list. I would have rather had the Frozen Four in Atlanta or Nashville, but Tampa still works despite its possible issues.

6. Encourage schools to partner with NHL teams. A double-dip of college hockey and NHL might prove irresistable for some NHL squads that still suffer attendance problems.

7. Reduce the number of conference games. For instance, Michigan will play 9 of 37 games OOC this season (well, they'll probably play fewer with only 11 teams). That's under 25%. Add in conference tournament games, and it gets a little absurd. Football is at 33%. Basketball is between 40-55% (depending on non-conference tournaments). Considering the attendance issues that some schools are having, it's certainly not doing them any enormous benefit, and since most OOC are going to be in-region anyway, the travel costs would not be enormous. In fact, it might give smaller schools some leverage in enticing big schools to visit because the big schools would need to fill their schedule.

8. Stop talking about the Big Ten hockey conference. If and when it happens, it's not something you can plan for now, and if it does, more schools will be needed to fill the void because we'll be looking at 4 conferences with 6-10 teams that will be looking to expand anyway. (see #1 and #3)

9. Single-elimination conference tournaments. Seeing Bemidji State in the Frozen Four was a thrill. Cinderella should be alive and well, even in the big conferences.

10. Support begins at home. Get your friends and classmates to come to games. Take your kids, your nephews, and your nieces to games. Grab 'em while they're young (like I was), and you can turn an Alabama boy into a lifetime college hockey fan.

[alfablue]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

Basketball suffers the same fate, actually. The SEC officials, for instance, allows a lot rougher style of play than a lot of other conferences do, and it tends to hamstring a lot of SEC teams that can't adjust when it comes to the NCAA Tournament.

Just sayin'. It's a problem in *every* sport.

I know. And it's still one of the easiest things to fix. In every sport. Since D-1 college hockey is so small, it would be a good place to start, I think.

At least eliminate the different conference rule details and agree on common enforcement... Anything else seems stupid.

[state of hockey]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

I know. And it's still one of the easiest things to fix. In every sport. Since D-1 college hockey is so small, it would be a good place to start, I think.

True. But college hockey also has an enormous length of schedule compared to many other sports.

In the WCHA things appear to have changed at the beginning of every season. But, by Christmas, it is back to the same old clutch-and-grab, interference-happy play. Irritating.

[unofan]

Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey

I know. And it's still one of the easiest things to fix. In every sport.

Basketball refs already are not tied to a single conference, they're independant contractors and some of them will work daily during the season as travel allows. The ones with NCAA tournament experience or even just 5+ years of experience make bucko bucks ($200k+/yr for 5 1/2 months of work), and more conferences are scheduling games on days other than Wed. and Saturday in order to hire guys who only work BCS games on those days.