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Arizona State Moving To D1

Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

gfmorris said:
Can't ASU consider playing some games in Glendale?
GFM
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Glendale is really not ideal. It's hard to get casual fans interested in the Yotes that far away. I think you'd have the same issue with getting college kids out there as well. The atmosphere would probably be terrible, and ASU would have to fight with the Yotes for weekend scheduling.
 
Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

SJHovey said:
As I recall from a couple of years ago when I happened to be on the ASU campus, there is a lot of space available, even though the campus itself is essentially landlocked within a major metropolitan area.

But I wouldn't be shocked if they look at renovating the basketball arena. It seats somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000+, which would be perfect for hockey. It's already a multi-use facility. They take out the court for things like graduation ceremonies, concerts, etc...
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But does that mean it could fit a hockey rink?

The Breslin Center at MSU does that too with basketball, concerts, etc. Every once in awhile some MSU fans think they have a genius idea and say they should do hockey and basketball at Breslin. There's some problems with this. First, I don't even know if there's room for a regulation hockey rink. Width wouldn't be a problem but I'm not sure if it's long enough. Second, you would have no seats in the risers section, meaning all seats would start in the chairbacks, so all seats are at least ten feet above ice level. Would definitely be an interesting concept, like raising the stands at a football stadium, but I don't know if that would be a reasonable situation. Now, I don't know about ASU's arena but it could be a situation like that where there's just not space and it would require major renovation.

Though, I suppose if the other option is building a new rink, renovating an existing building to conform to an ice rink may be cheaper.
 
Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

Spartanforlife4 said:
Second, you would have no seats in the risers section, meaning all seats would start in the chairbacks, so all seats are at least ten feet above ice level. Would definitely be an interesting concept, like raising the stands at a football stadium, but I don't know if that would be a reasonable situation. Now, I don't know about ASU's arena but it could be a situation like that where there's just not space and it would require major renovation.
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The old DECC in Duluth was designed like that, which was kind of cool, just for the uniqueness of it. The bowl had a very steep slope though, so even though you were high, you weren't as far from the ice.

As far as the Wells Fargo Center, I think I recall the set-up for the building is more conducive to adding ice-making equipment than some other buildings. Regardless, that arena is very old by college basketball standards and will need some serious renovations in the coming years. The problem is that their football stadium also needs serious renovations and that's going to be their first priority, and they won't receive any money from the state for new facilities, so it will have to come from private donations.
 
Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

I found this graphic online of the Barclays Center, home of the NBA's Nets and NHL's Islanders, to compare a court size to ice size:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/newsgraphics/2012/1025-islanders/1025-Islanders.png

Obviously, the ice is significantly larger than the court. Now, here's ASU's bball arena:

http://www.audiovideoaz.com/images/cms-projects/40_large.jpg

As you can see, the seats on the lower part of the long side fold back. Those seats aren't parallel to the court; they're curved like the short side's. If they renovate the arena, they would have to tear down 8 rows on all sides of the court. That could get difficult behind the hoops, as that's permanent concrete seating. I don't know how the technical aspects of making ice work fit in the arena. All in all, it wouldn't be a terrible ice arena.

In my opinion, they're better off building their own arena, as long as they can get the funding through.
 
Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

gfmorris said:
Have they upgraded the Milford? That place was a real dump when I was there a dozen years ago.

GFM
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I was there two years ago. Called the game from the room above the SH net. Reminded me of many of the ACHA arenas I broadcast from.
 
Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

I was at last nights Game (a 5-3 ENG Loss to #6 Oklahoma ) I found out that since the NCAA D1 announcement they have had over 600 Bona fide DI recruit inquires. I say not bad for a school without a state of the art facility and not even NCAA yet.
As for what league? It will not be a league with an Alaskan team in it. That's what I heard weeks before the NCAA DI announcement.
As for facilities You have the Wells Fargo arena which has an upgrade/refurbish/remodel on the calendar. The Talking Stick Arena (Home of the Phoenix Suns former home of the Arizona Coyotes) has expressed interest in being the Sun Devils Home as well and Gila River Arena (Present home of the Arizona Coyotes). Now these are not "horse's mouth" statements but they did come from a very reliable source, ( to be read as "monetary boosters and the like.")

As for the climate and babe attraction Well, it helped me leave Oswego State in the early 1970s
And ASU is the largest University in the United States (not counting online studies) (sometime #2 but ASU is BIG)
 
Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

Isn't Minnesota one of the largest? I remember a number of years ago it was top five in both land and student body.
 
Critical Thinker said:
I found this graphic online of the Barclays Center, home of the NBA's Nets and NHL's Islanders, to compare a court size to ice size:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/newsgraphics/2012/1025-islanders/1025-Islanders.png

Obviously, the ice is significantly larger than the court. Now, here's ASU's bball arena:

http://www.audiovideoaz.com/images/cms-projects/40_large.jpg

As you can see, the seats on the lower part of the long side fold back. Those seats aren't parallel to the court; they're curved like the short side's. If they renovate the arena, they would have to tear down 8 rows on all sides of the court. That could get difficult behind the hoops, as that's permanent concrete seating. I don't know how the technical aspects of making ice work fit in the arena. All in all, it wouldn't be a terrible ice arena.

In my opinion, they're better off building their own arena, as long as they can get the funding through.
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I have been in bowels of The Wells Fargo Arena (AKA ASU Activity Center) There is really not much that would have to be done to convert it take out the Permanent end line seats and replace with moveable seats and risers and there has already has been a engineering study to include ice in the remodel.
There is land available and drawing board plans for a Hockey/Volleyball/Gymnastics Arena. ASU has a LARGE and deep pocketed booster Association
 
dxmnkd316 said:
Isn't Minnesota one of the largest? I remember a number of years ago it was top five in both land and student body.
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There are a number of "polls" on the numbers but it seems ASU is at the top on more of them till you start using different filters undergrad, online, etc BUT with bodies on campus Undergrad and Grad ASU is the largest
 
Red Cows said:
This should be true in this case. Perhaps it is. But, they sure announced this with what sounded like very little planning or forethought. When you announce something like this, and then admit you have no idea where you are playing, next season, at the press conference where ASU announced this, one has to wonder just how many of the ducks are in a row here.

As I said earlier in the thread, the land, even if it is currently available on campus, is not a slam dunk. This is public, state institution spending taxpayer's tax dollars and universities have things like master plans for their campuses. I bet there is nothing in ASU's master plan about land use for a hockey arena. It is going to take some sort of discussion to use land they may already own suitable for the purpose, even. I'm not familiar with Arizona law, obviously, but there is no way this happens without some fairly serious discourse about it on a number of levels by a variety of entities with in that state.

Once that hurdle is cleared, then there is the little matter of funding the actual design and construction of a hockey facility. As I said earlier in the thread, the going rate for that, for a dual rink facility (which is almost certainly what they will need), both at Penn State and currently at UNO was and is about 90 million dollars, at least. Unless a donor comes forth, that is big expenditure of state money for a hockey facility. A school the size of Penn State needed the single biggest donation in the history of the school, let alone to the Athletic Department, to pull this off and about half of the cost of UNO's building has been donated.

When it comes down to brass tacks for public funding of this facility (which as things stand right this second, would be a necessity) we'll see just how interested in hockey the state legislature in Arizona really is in this as well as the school's governing body. I have to think that some donor or donor arm of the university is going to have to be involved, and, in a big way.

No matter what, all of this is going to take some time. As I also said earlier in the thread, I can't see any way this is done in anything less than 4-6 years and that is if all of these processes start today.

The way this got announced (if you didn't see the actual press conference, watch it) it looked for all the world like this was a knee jerk reaction to this sudden donor gift of money to move the program up (kids at Christmas was sort of the vibe) and little more than that sounded very well thought out. They didn't give real substantive answers at the announcement press conference about much of anything of import. They very much talked in hypotheticals. I didn't get warm fuzzies about it, anyway.

And, FWIW, I just did a quick Google News search using the term "Arizona State Hockey" and I could not find any news stories since this announcement was made that talks about or addresses any these "logistics concerns" or that they are somehow even starting to be addressed. We are less than 10 months away from the beginning of next season, now.

I'm very skeptical about this on a number of fronts unless that are much larger machinations going at the conference level within in the Pac-12 that we don't know about.
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There is a lot of behind the scenes action going on.
First ASU is going to develop the land that is the on Campus golf course (soon to be closed) into a business and commerce district where the profits go straight into the athletics department for use by lesser sports (as you know almost all DI football programs are self-sufficient and then some )
The donation given to the hockey program is THE LARGEST donation to any sport in ASU's history (since 1885).
Even through the semester does not start till the 12th the crowd last night was good size.
The "logistics concerns" was merely holding the cards close to the chest which is something Westerners have been doing since the OK corral days.
Being an alumni with very small ties to the booster club I was sworn to silence until the announcement. At first My feeling was it is still too soon but after what I have seen I am coming around to believing that ASU will be competitive.
 
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Re: Arizona State Moving To D1

The BIG push is to get PAC 12 schools to form a Division DI league But you may have to talk to Marty McFly and his DeLorean to see those games.
 
#1collegehockeyfan said:
Will a new rink be in place by the time ASU becomes D1 hockey team?
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I do not think so BUT I have seen MONEY move mountains in Phoenix and Tucson when It come to to ASU and UofA. We have a great rink at Gila River Arena and an almost great rink at Talking Stick Arena (sight lines, but should not affect college hockey because of lower attendance than Pro.)
 
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