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Eastern Illinois adding D1 hockey?

Re: Eastern Illinois adding D1 hockey?

What I see is Illinois is going DI and 7th Big Ten member, Eastern Illinois tweet a joke.

This is like the old NWO on who the next member was going to be...
 
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Re: Eastern Illinois adding D1 hockey?

thebrain said:
What I see is Illinois is going DI and 7th Big Ten member, Eastern Illinois tweet a joke.

This is like the old NWO on who the next member was going to be...
Click to expand...
According to the other thread, Illinois is getting new sweaters. Maybe that is what Eastern's big news is, too.
 
Re: Eastern Illinois adding D1 hockey?

slowe said:
If true it is out of left field, but I can see it. I'm not that familiar with Eastern, but it is a smart play. University of Illinois and Northwestern obviously have a lot going for them. Northern Illinois has a strong football program. Illinois State doesn't stand out really, but is bigger than Eastern I think. Illinois has a lot of hockey players but no D1 school. It would be a good way to carve out a niche for themselves.

As for how it would work? Again, if serious, they would need to build an arena on campus. There isn't even a small ice rink there. The ACHA team uses David S. Palmer Arena in Danville, IL which is about half an hour away. It's an arena built in 1980 that houses 2,300. It's been home to an NAHL team and several small minor league hockey teams, currently the Danville Dashers in the FHL. That might be a temporary plan, but they would have to build an arena on campus to be competitive.

I assume the WCHA would take them in a heartbeat. Another team to minimize travel to Alaska AND it would beat out Bowling Green to be the new closest team to Huntsville by about 150 miles and two hours by bus. It's not right in the middle of the footprint but it's close enough. Probably not "like minded" enough for the NCHC.

I'd love to see it since Illinois needs a D1 program. But at this point it's an unofficial tweet that might be a joke. Illinois isn't that rich, Eastern isn't that big, and I'm not sure how many sugar daddies they have lined up. Worth watching but I'll wait for something more.
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Yeah, would have to think that their likely home would be the WCHA. Yeah, that would give em another body to allow for some team to not make one trip up to Alaska that year, but they're not exactly an easy bus ride way for anybody. Bowling Green would be the closest to them. But I would think even the Alaska schools wouldn't mind seeing a school near the Chicagoland area joining the league. Another flight or a decent bus trip for them to make it there. Then there's the whole issue of being an eleven team league. Not that its a deal breaker, but with a league that's going to have to watch the travel budget, it could be a big issue when somebody gets the short end of the stick when they have trips to Alaska, and somehow the schedule maker doesn't send them to their closest rival.
 
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