Scott_TG
Well-known member
I was at Oswego for the SUNYAC championship and their booster club attracted and kept students by giving each student raffle tickets for things like TVs and not holding the raffles until the intermissions.
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Big Ten Women's Conference is Coming!
- Thread starter Hockeybuckeye
- Start date
I was at Oswego for the SUNYAC championship and their booster club attracted and kept students by giving each student raffle tickets for things like TVs and not holding the raffles until the intermissions.
Hockeybuckeye
Well-known member
Good idea!
Hockeyfan1979
New member
Responses are similar to parents of kids who all want their kid on the AAA super elite team. Everyone wants to say D1 instead of D2 or D3 but playing college hockey is great at any level IMO. With the portal if girls are dominating D2 and D3 they can feed the D1 programs that are actually competitive.
Having #29 in the tournament is embarrassing. Maybe a rule that says auto bids are available if your conference has at least 1 team in the top 20 pairwise?
The talent pool is not deep enough to support the current D1 roster spots and you can't look at the bottom of the rankings and convince even yourself that's not a true statement. Maybe multiple year end tournaments like Mass hockey does. Super 8 then big school and small school tournaments. No idea should be off the table unless of course everyone is happy to watch one conference dominate the landscape for years to come.
it’s about opportunities for scholarships, not about someone being able to say they played D1. People who know sports know to take things with a grain of salt when people start announcing what they did or where they played.
Besides 29 gets bounced on Thursday night then you have the round of 8. What’s the big deal?
We have had the same two teams in the finals the last three years. Hell, the talent pool isn’t deep enough to support the frozen four, let alone all of D1.
Hockeybuckeye
Well-known member
As far as the same two teams making the finals, yes they have talent but you need to factor in the level of coaching as the trump card. I don't understand how you don't see the level of talent out there. You have to recruit a decent roster and coach them up.
Seems pretty analagous to March madness basketball. There are a dozen or whatever small conference champions in that bracket every year, and folks love it.
Also if more players had the guts to go somewhere other than like 5 preferred programs it would improve parity. But they don’t, nor should they have to, and this is the result and that’s fine.
ARM
Fan of chipmunk-like mascots.
I don't think it's a question of guts. If people wanted to shy away from competition, wouldn't they pick a league where they could be a standout, rather than somewhere that will require them to battle in practice every day?
People like nice things. If they go a program where the facilities are upgraded, the travel is easier, or the support staff is more specialized, it doesn't mean that they are lacking in fortitude. Add NIL to the mix, and far be it from me to tell them that they should value bringing parity to the sport over putting green in their pocket.
it wouldn’t be right to tell a player to go to a certain school to create parity much like it isn’t right to tell schools to sit on the sidelines and not go D1 because there isn’t parity, imo. every program added helps the sport and entices, bit by bit, more schools that can legitimately compete, to get on board.
The guts thing, I suppose it depends on your goals. If you want to win a championship, going to Wisconsin is not the gutsy move. If you are a freshman determined to get huge amounts of ice from day one, going to Wisconsin is the gutsy move. Your example holds true as well.
Timothy A
Let's go RED!
I get betting on yourself, but you've got to be some kind of special to make the top 9 F at WI as a Fr. Freshman D play quite regularly.
ARM
Fan of chipmunk-like mascots.
That's a good point. I do wish that more programs that opted for D-I would give their programs the resources needed to compete at that level. Obviously, I don't know what schools are looking to gain when they introduce athletic programs (exposure, opportunity for students), so I can't judge whether or not objectives are met.
Exactly right. The coach will recruit, or inherit, the pieces of a team, but it is how those pieces are put together, or even if they fit, that will determine the success of a team. A coach isn't on the ice during a game, the players are doing what they have trained to do. Certainly there are some amazing talents in women's hockey, but one person on the ice won't put a team into the finals.
There has been a lot of discussion about the decline of the Gophers of late. Look at the assistant coaches that have moved on. Coaching plays a big role in team success, and that is what Mark Johnson and Nadine Muzerall have contributed. They both deserve all the credit they have received. And people need perspective about how hard it is to reach the finals. There is nothing wrong with finishing 2nd, 3rd, or last in a conference. These are young athletes we are watching, and they deserve our respect wherever they end up.