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Mercyhurst Announces Academic Adjustments and Discontinuation of its Division I Mens Ice Hockey Program

Boy if I donated money in the past few days for Giving Day, I'd be pissed. It's sad to see another program get axed, hopefully there's a route to them coming back.
 
Disappointing to see another program disappear, especially before the tourney is even finished. Going to be a rough time for anyone trying to transfer in this environment. At the very least it sounds like scholarships are being honored but still not enough esp with how donors were misled.
 
jwheeler001 said:
Following in AIC's footsteps, Mercyhurst will discontinue its mens program at the end of this year. The division 1 womens program will still compete.


Mercyhurst University announces strategic program adjustments to strengthen future growth

www.mercyhurst.edu www.mercyhurst.edu
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Mercyhurst had 37 games last year 20 of them away games not sure how many with flights. Hockey has one of the longest if not longest seasons. Their mens lacrosse team had 13 games total. You could add multiple other sports with the money saved from hockey unfortunately. On another part of the forum is a “who will be next for d1” seems kind of moot if just as many fold. Very sad. I wonder if mercyhurst will move whole athletics down eventually like AIC as well. Might as well.
 
BrooksideHH said:
Mercyhurst had 37 games last year 20 of them away games not sure how many with flights. Hockey has one of the longest if not longest seasons. Their mens lacrosse team had 13 games total. You could add multiple other sports with the money saved from hockey unfortunately. On another part of the forum is a “who will be next for d1” seems kind of moot if just as many fold. Very sad. I wonder if mercyhurst will move whole athletics down eventually like AIC as well. Might as well.
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What's ironic is the success and path of the men's and women's hockey teams are probably what paved the way for the addition of so many sports at Mercyhurst, including the eventual elevation of the entire athletic department to Division I.
 
I think the MAAC and early (relative) success of Mercyhurst probably led to other smaller athletic programs keeping or pushing forward with hockey. IIRC they were one of the driving programs of AHA slowly raising scholarship caps. The overall landscape improved through their participation - hard to believe much of that was 20+ years ago, and hard to believe they’ll be gone.
 
Disappointing to read about Mercyhurst, especially for the players and everyone involved with the program over the years. How many schools can sustain D1 athletic programs in today's environment.
 
I have fond memories of DII play in late '80s = early '90s with Union, Elmira, RIT and Mercyhurst. ECAC West was a very strong league. Still think Scott Burfoot from Mercyhurst was oner of the best DIII players I have ever seen.
 
Let's not forget Notre Dame went to the Big10 bc Hockey East travel was eating their lunch and they cried Uncle. Going way back it was also a major factor why Notre Dame, Michigan State and Michigan left the WCHA in 1981. The original CCHA provided easy bus travel for most every team.

This is something the smaller schools are going to have to look at that dont have budgets like HE/Big 10 schools....realigning to limit costs. There are few big programs even that are revenue generators.

Mercyhurst comms dept should have been fired to fund the hockey prgm judging on how they rolled this one out.
 
ericredaxe said:
As the NIL era evolves I suspect there will be more to come - especially in “Olympic” / non big revenue sports.
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To be honest I feel that NIL has very little to do with the folding of programs like AIC and Mercyhurst

They may say or people may speculate it was but we’ve seen waves of teams rise and fall over the years before well before NIL.

The main issue with hockey is the pure cost of the sport from scholarships to equipment to cost etc. It’s an incredibly expensive sport for a school to sponsor and administrators often look at it to be the first sport to eliminate or find ways to cut the budget.

Also schools are operating at massive deficits and there’s going to be more, I suspect that some of the other AHA schools may be at risk and I continuously wonder what Minnesota D2 schools may do as well. (I believe other schools that have a rich hockey history have discussed it but thanks to powerful NHL alums those talks were tabled)
 
phillyfan2113 said:
To be honest I feel that NIL has very little to do with the folding of programs like AIC and Mercyhurst

They may say or people may speculate it was but we’ve seen waves of teams rise and fall over the years before well before NIL.

The main issue with hockey is the pure cost of the sport from scholarships to equipment to cost etc. It’s an incredibly expensive sport for a school to sponsor and administrators often look at it to be the first sport to eliminate or find ways to cut the budget.

Also schools are operating at massive deficits and there’s going to be more, I suspect that some of the other AHA schools may be at risk and I continuously wonder what Minnesota D2 schools may do as well. (I believe other schools that have a rich hockey history have discussed it but thanks to powerful NHL alums those talks were tabled)
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I suspect the same thing for some AHA schools. Programs like canisius or Niagara I would say are most likely candidates to lose hockey. I hope not but unfortunately the costs are insane. These small schools are operating in deficits. Unfortunately
 
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