REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

[pokechecker]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I know this may sound simplistic but couldn't UND run a program on the cheap instead of cutting the team all together? $1.5 million sounds excessive. It would seem to me that the ice arena is already there for the women to use and it's one of the best facilities around. Hire one full time coach at 50K and a part timer at 10K. Slash, travel and equipment, recruiting and operating expenses to the bone. Provide only need based financial aid. I bet they could pull off a D1 program for 250K annually and possibly pull in a bunch of full pay out of state kids who want to be on the same sheet of ice as Minnesota and Ohio State. Not ideal but better than the alternative. Make the men's team take a 250K trim and you have the dough. It seems foolish to cut a sport that already has an amazing facility when that's half the battle for most universities. Bubble D1/3 kids from Minny would still want to go there and the team would still be better than almost all of the Hockey East schools beside BC. Thoughts?

there is already one WCHA school being sued because of claimed inequity/equality between the men's & women's program
you are proposing that UND flirt with being sued for it also?
as expensive as a decent coach is, lawyers are MUCH more expensive

 

[Eeyore]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I know this may sound simplistic but couldn't UND run a program on the cheap instead of cutting the team all together? $1.5 million sounds excessive. It would seem to me that the ice arena is already there for the women to use and it's one of the best facilities around. Hire one full time coach at 50K and a part timer at 10K. Slash, travel and equipment, recruiting and operating expenses to the bone. Provide only need based financial aid. I bet they could pull off a D1 program for 250K annually and possibly pull in a bunch of full pay out of state kids who want to be on the same sheet of ice as Minnesota and Ohio State. Not ideal but better than the alternative. Make the men's team take a 250K trim and you have the dough. It seems foolish to cut a sport that already has an amazing facility when that's half the battle for most universities. Bubble D1/3 kids from Minny would still want to go there and the team would still be better than almost all of the Hockey East schools beside BC. Thoughts?

And then they would have to cut an additional sport.

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Bubble D1/3 kids from Minny would still want to go there and the team would still be better than almost all of the Hockey East schools beside BC. Thoughts?

Hahahahaha gtfooh with this nonsense

 

[D2D]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I would imagine that current high school junior and USA U18 team member Gabby Hughes won't have any problem catching on with another team.

29 goals + 38 assists = 66 points in just 23 games for Centennial high school this past year.
http://www.mngirlshockeyhub.com/roster_players/15124081

Unfortunately the Gopher already have a rather large (6) incoming class already committed for 2018-19, so adding another would seem unlikely.

 

[Ahockeydad]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

So does Penn St get invited to the WCHA? Would be interesting. Still can not believe ND, Michigan and Michigan St do not have women's teams.

Hughes is a talent for sure. I wonder if their foreign players go east. Maybe Maine or UConn just got a bit better with some package deals for some of these girls.

 

[Blackbeard]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

It's a lot simpler than that: commodity prices are volatile, full stop. They always have been, and they always will be. Any government that relies upon resource extraction as the basis of its revenue needs to keep that in mind during the boom times, but almost none of them ever do. Norway is the major exception to that.

In 2013, Williston ND. was experiencing an economic boom that was beyond belief. Salaries for workers with no experience exceeded $100,000/yr. McDonald’s employees made $20 an hour. The average rent for one-bedroom apartments outpaced New York City prices. And investors were willing to pay $200,000 for an acre of land that was previously worth $500.

Now, a few short years later, it’s a veritable ghost town.

You're right, commodity prices are volatile...and cyclical, and interestingly enough, often predictably so. (But my point was, as with most things, it's almost always made worse by government involvement). But we are talking about governments here whose ability to see the obvious is usually non existent. Far be it from me to normally want to defend any government but UND had a women's hockey program before the Bakken Formation became big news in North Dakota so any funding that it was getting was coming from elsewhere, prior to the short lived fracking boom.

(And, btw, Norway isn't doing nearly as well as it was a few years ago. It's been dipping into its sovereign wealth fund in a serious way so its shining example to the world has been seriously tarnished as well).

 

[Timothy A]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I would imagine that current high school junior and USA U18 team member Gabby Hughes won't have any problem catching on with another team.

29 goals + 38 assists = 66 points in just 23 games for Centennial high school this past year.
http://www.mngirlshockeyhub.com/roster_players/15124081

Unfortunately the Gopher already have a rather large (6) incoming class already committed for 2018-19, so adding another would seem unlikely.

Wisconsin has 3 departing with 3 coming in, but if Clark or Pankowski do no get centralized, they will have 1 extra spot.

 

[Runsub5]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I know this may sound simplistic but couldn't UND run a program on the cheap instead of cutting the team all together? $1.5 million sounds excessive. It would seem to me that the ice arena is already there for the women to use and it's one of the best facilities around. Hire one full time coach at 50K and a part timer at 10K. Slash, travel and equipment, recruiting and operating expenses to the bone. Provide only need based financial aid.........

I think you just described Maine's program.

 

[vicb]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I would imagine that current high school junior and USA U18 team member Gabby Hughes won't have any problem catching on with another team.

29 goals + 38 assists = 66 points in just 23 games for Centennial high school this past year.
http://www.mngirlshockeyhub.com/roster_players/15124081

Unfortunately the Gopher already have a rather large (6) incoming class already committed for 2018-19, so adding another would seem unlikely.

May be she would like to exchange ND green for National Championship Green.

 

[dd17]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I know this may sound simplistic but couldn't UND run a program on the cheap instead of cutting the team all together? $1.5 million sounds excessive. It would seem to me that the ice arena is already there for the women to use and it's one of the best facilities around. Hire one full time coach at 50K and a part timer at 10K. Slash, travel and equipment, recruiting and operating expenses to the bone. Provide only need based financial aid. I bet they could pull off a D1 program for 250K annually and possibly pull in a bunch of full pay out of state kids who want to be on the same sheet of ice as Minnesota and Ohio State. Not ideal but better than the alternative. Make the men's team take a 250K trim and you have the dough. It seems foolish to cut a sport that already has an amazing facility when that's half the battle for most universities. Bubble D1/3 kids from Minny would still want to go there and the team would still be better than almost all of the Hockey East schools beside BC. Thoughts?

Have you seen how far UND is from other programs? Travel is $$. I heard OSU has a $500k travel budget so I could not guess what the travel costs would be like at UND. This isnt a team in Boston with a lot of close schools.

 

[crutch]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

Not usually how you want to operate though. At OSU some players that were told they wouldn't be playing had the option to finish school with their scholarship level.

Yes, Potter decisions. As mentioned earlier, Big 10 has 4 year scholarships. If a coach cuts a player they still lose the scholarship for the remainder of the contract. That particular player above is finishing her degree on a full ride and not playing hockey. Not a bad gig.

I expect the best options for UND players is to look at some of the struggling programs and transfer there. Those programs may not have commitments for the next 3-4 years like the top schools have.

 

[Happy]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

Yes, Potter decisions. As mentioned earlier, Big 10 has 4 year scholarships. If a coach cuts a player they still lose the scholarship for the remainder of the contract. That particular player above is finishing her degree on a full ride and not playing hockey. Not a bad gig.

I expect the best options for UND players is to look at some of the struggling programs and transfer there. Those programs may not have commitments for the next 3-4 years like the top schools have.

it depends on what UND meant by honoring their scholarships. If it's for more than 1 year, many players would be better off just to give up hockey, and get their degree at UND. Other than the Olympic players, it's not like they are giving up the NHL.

 

[Sieve1]

Have you seen how far UND is from other programs? Travel is $$. I heard OSU has a $500k travel budget so I could not guess what the travel costs would be like at UND. This isnt a team in Boston with a lot of close schools.

I remember when Wisconsin cut baseball back in the 90s b/c the athletic dept was in deep trouble. Now that things have turned around in Madison they could afford to bring it back. Alvarez is asked about it regularly, but there are no plans. Once something is cut it's probably hard to reinstate without a deep pocketed donor willing to step up. We're probably looking at the end of women's hockey in ND. If Holy Cross is going D1 next year maybe some of those players could head east?

 

[upfromtheminors]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I agree this is extremely bad day for women's hockey. All the millions USA hockey women were fighting for the "future" girls in hockey could be a moot point if there is no future. Our dollars need to go to the youth, teens and collages because girls/womens hockey has no income at the ticket level, sponsorship level, tv level or any other source. No entity is going to lose money for long, it's just not the way the world works. I could not be prouder of the USA women for fighting for their equality and to watch them stand together was not only just but pretty fricken ballsy and a great day for women. I will warn the girls community, when one pockets full and the other is empty, those eating out of the empty pocket will soon starve.

On a side note, the visiting men's team at UND will have the nicest locker rooms in the world!

 

[BuckyPete]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I wonder how many of the scholarship players who can't find their way onto a team for next year might stay the year at NoDak under schollie, red shirt, and find their way onto a team with some space in the following year's class? They could probably get a year of grad school paid for that way.

That's trying to polish a turd, I know, but it's something.

The other option for some would be to transfer to a school with an open 2018-2019 scholarship and basically take a pay-you-own-way/walk-on/redshirt year in order to get in the door for the following years. Certainly not ideal, but an option.

 

[EastFan1]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I bet they could pull off a D1 program for 250K annually and possibly pull in a bunch of full pay out of state kids who want to be on the same sheet of ice as Minnesota and Ohio State.

I would love to see this budget! Equipment, sticks, equipment manager, facility personnel, strength coach, academic advisors, athletic department coordinator, employee benefits, ice time, food, hotel and travel budget for away games, recruiting expenses.

Give it a shot.

 

[D2D]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I don't think they could have handled this any worse.

UND commit flies into Grand Forks from Boston, finds out hockey program is getting cut
http://www.grandforksherald.com/spo...s-boston-finds-out-hockey-program-getting-cut

 

[GTOWN]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

I don't think they could have handled this any worse.

UND commit flies into Grand Forks from Boston, finds out hockey program is getting cut
http://www.grandforksherald.com/spo...s-boston-finds-out-hockey-program-getting-cut

I wonder if the school chose to cut hockey because it is so high profile that they expected a backlash. They can then turn around and say: find sponsors that will support the program and we'll bring it back......

 

[Arafel]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

Of course a Trumpster would drag politics into a sad situation that was handled poorly.

And if you are so concerned about finances, how about FLYING A FREAKING RECRUIT INTO GRAND FORKS FROM BOSTON

 

[KTDC]

Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey

a sad situation

MOURNING. Dressed in black today.