Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

[Dirty]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

Take away one generous donation and where would Sioux hockey be today?

Grand Forks, ND.

[Osorojo]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

Grand Forks, ND.

Best answer hands down.

The "cause or effect" question is tougher. If building big stadiums is the effect of having a successful sports program then many professional team corporations, a bunch of colleges, and a a slew of municipalities have it backward and should have waited to build.
The previous example of Cleveland Municipal Stadium comes to mind, and the longevity of the Red Sox venue is explained.

[komey1]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

The "cause or effect" question is tougher. If building big stadiums is the effect of having a successful sports program then many professional team corporations, a bunch of colleges, and a a slew of municipalities have it backward and should have waited to build.
The previous example of Cleveland Municipal Stadium comes to mind, and the longevity of the Red Sox venue is explained.

Stadiums that get built by taxpayer dollars are often done so because the principal owner threatens to move otherwise in pro sports. Before the Tampa Bay Rays came into existance, several owners threatened to move their teams to St. Petersberg unless the cities gave them money for a new stadium.

[sbkbghockey]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

I'd really like to know what 5 schools comprise Paul Kelly's list

"This unprecedented game comes at a time when the sport is already expanding beyond its traditional boundaries. Paul Kelly, the president of College Hockey Inc., the year-old marketing arm of NCAA hockey, estimated that up to five more schools may upgrade their club-hockey teams to varsity status in the next few years."

I'm thinking since he's trying to raise the profile of NCAA hockey and communicate w/NHL that Lindenwood is not a team he'd be including in this list. He seems to want to make a bigger splash than that. His statements have been vague but I'm guessing there are 2 Big 10 teams in that mix. the rest I couldn't guess. I'd never heard of Iowa State/Oklahoma initiating any moves to D1 hockey or desiring that.

Syracuse is talked up a lot but apparently they're not saying anything

Lindenwood is not the most well known but part of that is because it has been in the NAIA. Now with the school moving to the NCAA DII and rumors are eventually 10-15 years DI FCS the exposure should be expanded. Also they have been accepted into the MIAA, one of the most well respected NCAA DII conference (If that sounds familiar UNO plays in the MIAA)

Lindenwood has expanded athletic facilities and academic ones, and continues to grow, it's pushing 15,000 students with about 8,000 traditional students and the rest in adult/distant learning in the regional campuses and also wants to expand to 15,000-20,000 traditional students.

LU likes to build things and they've stated before that to move to NCAA hockey they would build a 5,000 seat ice arena on campus. But that was a few years ago and since then the UHL minor league moved out of St. Charles leaving the city of St. Charles with an empty Family Arena within a few miles from the main campus. It's newish and seats 9,000. They purchased an ice arena about 15 mins from the main campus for the ice hockey programs at the NAIA/ACHA level and it's 1,000 seat capacity is fine for women's hockey, which they're already moving to the NCAA.

I suspect within a year or two we’ll hear of the men’s program moving to the NCAA and either LU taking control of the Family Arena or building a new 5,000 seat arena on campus. And I suspect after they do move to the NCAA they’ll eventually be more of a Miami (OH) Denver, type program, a school with a well known within college hockey but not overall sports, combined with a winning tradition and good academics.

I'm not sure LU is on Paul Kelly's list, because his list includes team's he's been trying to convince to add hockey, not ones that probably will on their own. I suspect they are bigger named schools with at least 1-2 being Big Ten and probably another 1-2 being Big East schools. Hopefully URI and Navy are on that list, both would be welcome additions to NCAA Hockey. URI and Navy already have Atlantic Hockey-like facilities.

[Johnny Ringo]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

Good read...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle1905238/

[Red Cows]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

Just so everybody knows, there's another country to be heard from on the "who might go D-1?" planet:

http://www.mavpuck.com/mpboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7493

Let us not forget, the Huskers have a club team of their own:

http://www.huskerhockey.com/

More interesting still, is the fact the the Huskers and the City of Lincoln are in the middle of building a new arena in the Haymarket in downtown Lincoln right now:

http://www.2015vision.org/haymarket_arena.php

Forget what this web site says, it's being built to replace the Devaney Center although it is, to a lesser degree, also a replacement for Pershing. Interesting, in case you didn't know it, is that there is an existing ice rink called the Ice Box within walking distance of the Devaney Center in Lincoln, and, it seats 5010 people, on the old State Fair Grounds right next to the Devaney Center. Stranger still is that the Husker hockey team does NOT play there! They play at a rink in Fremont, NE, about 30 miles or so north of Lincoln! Why that is, I do not know. The Lincoln Stars of the USHL play in the Ice Box.

What I intend to watch with utter fascination is:

A. Whether the Big 10 hockey conference really comes to fruition.

B. Whether, at some point in the new arena in Lincoln's construction, ice making capability for the building starts getting discussed for whatever reason.

When the Qwest Center in Omaha was originally designed, ice making was NOT part of the original plans, it got added later, for whatever it's worth here. Don't forget that the University of Nebraska at Omaha (Mavericks) and the University of Nebraska in Lincoln (Huskers) are also part of the same university system in this state.

There already exists many of the pieces of the puzzle for the Huskers to go D-1 in hockey, or, they could be put into place pretty easily and quickly if they wanted to play in the new arena. The thread above from Mavpuck is the only real serious discussion about it I have ever heard, though.

Thought I'd throw another iron in the fire.

[4four4]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

A. Whether the Big 10 hockey conference really comes to fruition.

From the looks of it the Big Ten Hockey Conference will start sometime in the next 4 to 5 years.

[Hockey Monk]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

Anybody know if Nebraska is talking about D1 hockey? I think Illinois or Nebraska would be an excellent adds to the Big 10 hockey conference as far as fan support and competitiveness. I doubt Nebraska will be anything important in basketball and with the USHL and college hockey becoming big in Nebraska having hockey at UNL would make sense.

[davyd83]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

Anybody know if Nebraska is talking about D1 hockey? I think Illinois or Nebraska would be an excellent adds to the Big 10 hockey conference as far as fan support and competitiveness. I doubt Nebraska will be anything important in basketball and with the USHL and college hockey becoming big in Nebraska having hockey at UNL would make sense.

They have said that they have no interest in adding college hockey at Nebraska-Lincoln.

[aallenpollreisz]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

Of all the Big Ten schools that could potentially add hockey in the future, the only two schools I'd put on my "Hell no, never!" list are Purdue and Nebraska.

NU adding a hockey program isn't happening in my, or any of our lifetimes.

[Old Pio]

Re: Wall Street Journal Article About College Hockey

They have said that they have no interest in adding college hockey at Nebraska-Lincoln.

Nebraska has made it clear their new basketball arena can't accomodate an ice sheet.