Re: hockey major?
For one thing, a significant part of this 99% devoted to discussing hockey is devoted to discussing the relationship between college hockey and professional hockey.
Wrong - unless you are using this off season as your first foray into this thread. During the off-season, it is MUCH more common to discuss who moved on to pros and some discussion of what can be done to recruit the best hockey players to play college. During the season, more emphasis is placed on rankings, upcoming matchups, and playoff implications.
The other 1% is devoted to nicknames, mascots, buildings, and various quibbles but NOT to how college hockey programs help or hinder the mission of colleges: education.
Have you considered that many of the posters here are students and/or alumni that really cannot do much if anything about this? I also don't know what that statement even means. Are you refering to the college experience? What hockey programs teach? I don't see how hockey could hinder the mission of the colleges themselves at all. The students get an opportunity to play hockey and go to school - what could be wrong about that unless the individual screws up.
Do you suppose hockey programs should trump educational expectations in colleges, or should hockey programs exist to promote and facilitate college education? If the latter, then there's good reason to talk about it and celebrate individual successes. If the former, then it's easy to understand efforts to stifle discussion about the relationship between college hockey programs and academic achievement.
What exactly is the relationship? Many of us have already shown proof that in general, hockey players perform at or better than the general public. Yes, we don't discuss that much, because from a hockey perspective, that and $1 gets you something from the McDonalds Extra Value Menu. RIT had the player with the best GPA of any player at the Frozen Four. They got beat 8-1 by Wisconsin. What is more relevant on a hockey message board?
What in blazes is wrong with asking about the educational interests and goals of a group of students, or celebrating their ability to excell in both academics and athletics?
Nothing is wrong with that. But bringing up a problem that currently does not exist is wrong. You seem to have it in your head that most hockey players are there to go pro and cannot do the work simply because the NCAA standards (NOTE - note the individual university standards) are a sliding scale of GPA and SAT scores. When you take all the reports that are provided by the NCAA, you simply find that it is not the case.
The successes in the classroom don't always equate to success on the ice. I'm sure Michigan Tech has some fine students playing hockey. But their hockey team is one of the worst in their conference. You don't get a trophy for being good students. It's great that there are FAR more successes than failures.
The bottom line is that the majority of us really don't care how they perform academically until a player becomes ineligible. I don't go to a calculus class to root on my favorite engineers. I go to a hockey rink to watch my favorite team. However, I know that the higher ups at my alma mater consider academics when recruiting players, so there is little to worry about. I know of players who have been suspended academically in the past. I know that if there is a problem it will be taken care of the right way. I believe that is the case with nearly every, if not all, college hockey teams.
I conclude with this simple phrase:
Is it October yet?
