Re: Serious Ideas to Improve College Hockey
I have to admit that I am concerned most with the systematic reduction in teams that we've seen. Hockey is a high-cost sport relative to other programs and has several innate challenges in rising as a collegiate sport. But I do not believe the answer is cutting programs. That being said, these suggestions are more variations on a theme that I think would expand the sport's footprint and would help obtain better media deals that would allow schools to add programs and help with costs.
1. Refuse to allow viable college hockey programs to die. These aren't "franchises" that are losing money. You don't make the sport more relevant by cutting viable teams that would help college hockey expand its geographic base. So, yes, CCHA should accept UAH.
2. Invite Canadian college hockey schools as a group to join the NCAA. (But I wonder if this might hurt recruiting among US schools).
3. Stop being afraid of conference shuffling. If college hockey is going to grow, then conference shuffling is 100% inevitable. At some point, you have to realize that some traditions need to be broken (and will be broken, just as when the Michigan schools split from the WCHA.) It happens year-to-year in football to accommodate growth, and once in a generation, there is a complete reworking to accommodate this growth. And it works. If college football went the way of college hockey, football wouldn't be played anywhere there wasn't a BCS school.
4. Encourage growth of women's hockey. Schools would get twice the bang for their buck. It gives more girls an opportunity to play. And most importantly, it helps with Title IX requirements.
5. Continue to send the Frozen Four outside of the region. DC was a great choice. California should be on the list. I would have rather had the Frozen Four in Atlanta or Nashville, but Tampa still works despite its possible issues.
6. Encourage schools to partner with NHL teams. A double-dip of college hockey and NHL might prove irresistable for some NHL squads that still suffer attendance problems.
7. Reduce the number of conference games. For instance, Michigan will play 9 of 37 games OOC this season (well, they'll probably play fewer with only 11 teams). That's under 25%. Add in conference tournament games, and it gets a little absurd. Football is at 33%. Basketball is between 40-55% (depending on non-conference tournaments). Considering the attendance issues that some schools are having, it's certainly not doing them any enormous benefit, and since most OOC are going to be in-region anyway, the travel costs would not be enormous. In fact, it might give smaller schools some leverage in enticing big schools to visit because the big schools would need to fill their schedule.
8. Stop talking about the Big Ten hockey conference. If and when it happens, it's not something you can plan for now, and if it does, more schools will be needed to fill the void because we'll be looking at 4 conferences with 6-10 teams that will be looking to expand anyway. (see #1 and #3)
9. Single-elimination conference tournaments. Seeing Bemidji State in the Frozen Four was a thrill. Cinderella should be alive and well, even in the big conferences.
10. Support begins at home. Get your friends and classmates to come to games. Take your kids, your nephews, and your nieces to games. Grab 'em while they're young (like I was), and you can turn an Alabama boy into a lifetime college hockey fan.
