Re: ACHA D1 to NCAA D1
But if the school has made the commitment to DI, why wouldn't they announce it and ramp up fundraising?
Since there has been SO much discussion about this around here (I mean, to the point that Eichorst is ALREADY being asked about it 3 weeks into the job, to give you an idea) I am pretty convinced that this is going to be on his radar at some level in the next year or so. I also think it might be that he may not yet realize this. He has much larger fish on his plate to fry right now, too. UNL is currently finalizing the construction of a brand new arena:
http://www.pinnaclebankarena.com/
....................a
massive upgrade to the east stadium at Memorial Stadium:
http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205413069
........and a major, major retooling of the Devaney Center is now going on to turn that facility lock, stock, and barrel over to the volleyball program:
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120102/HUSKERS/701029843/-1
Boosters very much drive the athletic department here, WAY more than the A.D. does. It is probable that Eichorst doesn't "realize" that he might be overseeing the jump to D-1 hockey as yet. I wonder if he yet has a real understanding of the dynamics/politics of what is going on, having himself been involved in none of the preliminaries associated with all this construction.
The Breslow Ice Center is basically being built by boosters (the NU Foundation). In a little over a year, there will be 4 ice rinks in 3 different buildings, all practically on campus, ALL under university control:
1.The existing Ice Box, where the Lincoln Stars play, that seats 5010. This building is on the old fairgrounds, right next to the Devaney Center.
2. Pinnacle Bank Arena, with an as-built capacity of 15,000+ (12,700 for hockey--right from the Huskers own web site, I might add), currently being built in the Lincoln Haymarket area in a sort of quadrangle that includes Memorial Stadium (football), Haymarket Park/Hawks Field (baseball/softball) and the new Breslow Ice Center (hockey). The arena has been constructed with all the necessary piping in the concrete slab to add ice making capability, later, if wanted or needed. It's being built so that it can be increased in size to 18,000, much like what was then known as the Qwest Center in Omaha was when it was originally built (and it ultimately was).
3. The Breslow facility, which is a dual rink facility, one standard size and one Olympic, that will have 1500 seats on one side and about 750 on the other, with the capability to expand the 1500 seat side to 6000 seats or so although the plans are not yet finalized.
Understand that ALL these buildings are under direct control of the University of Nebraska.
No way has any "commitment" been made as yet. I am certain that the real issue will be/is that a women's sport is going to have to be added to offset the addition of 18 scholarships on the already weighted-towards-the men side of that ledger.
I don't care what Eichorst has to say on the topic at this moment in time. Come see me in a year or two. As I said earlier in the thread, some of the local Husker press is so sure this is going to happen that they have publicly said so. Since the facilities will already mostly exist there, you are basically talking about endowing the requisite number of scholarships required for a men's team and whatever number you'd need to offset that on the women's side. Can anybody say "women's hockey", maybe?
I realize that some of this is sheer speculation, but if you were sniffing around for a school that appears to be headed down this road the University of Nebraska is sure doing an awful good impersonation of a school headed that way. Throw in that the Big 10 hockey conference is getting off the ground with only 6 schools...........put it this way, at the Big 10 meetings this year, you can't tell me that that some sort of "where do we come up with a couple men's hockey teams to round out the conference to 8 teams" conversation isn't going to happen. It has to be on the agenda on some level.
I don't think it's even out of the question that the conference itself provides some sort of initial subsidy to make this happen, given the financial situation of the conference. 6 teams are not gonna cut it.
Given what is happening here on the facilities side, what school is going to be farther down that road than any other? And, for added benefit, they'd have a built-in rival 50 miles up the interstate from them, too.
The pieces appear to be slowly coming into place despite what Eichorst is
currently saying about it.
