What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

U of Illinois AD & NHL joint press conference

Rumor has it this project is still on the books. It's a done deal or close. LOL. I didn't get enough information why it's taking so long. LOL. We will see here.
 
Basically nothing yet other than they’re still talking. At this point I’m happy he’s saying that instead of they’re giving up.

Whitman weighs in on football struggles, facility upgrades, hockey and more

https://www.news-gazette.com/sports...cle_0fac2bb2-3363-54f7-bee0-fbba1044f636.html

“We have restarted some of those conversations. This was an idea that obviously was very much front of mind for us for a number of years. When the pandemic hit, that conversation moved very quickly to the back burner when we left it until just recently when we re-opened some of those discussions with all of the different stakeholders,” Whitman said. “We just want to get a sense of the room in how their worlds have changed as our world has changed, and is there still an appetite to undertake this project? That’s an ongoing conversation now.”

Whitman didn’t offer a timeline on when any decisions about the future of hockey at Illinois would take place.

“It was a pretty complex conversation before,” he said. “I would say it certainly hasn’t gotten any simpler in light of the pandemic.”
 
It is worth reiterating that the arena that is the centerpiece of this deal isn’t just for Illinois and there are other stakeholders involved.

So it isn’t very surprising that the pandemic has been a bigger hurdle here than, say, an Augustana scenario where just one or two big donors can make it happen out of nothingness.

The Sicatoka said:
Trev Alberts, former Nebraska LB, former AD at UN-Omaha, named new AD at Nebraska-Lincoln.

Let the speculation commence.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/...letic-director
Click to expand...

Cutting football and wrestling at UNO was all part of his long con to get Nebraska on the ice in the ol’ Lancers barn…
 
March of 2020: “We were two weeks away from announcing that we were going to add varsity hockey and move forward with the downtown facility and then COVID hit,” Illinois Associate Director of Athletics Kent Brown said.

March of 2022: Josh Whitman announced those efforts were put back into motion but there is still a ways to go... Since the process is in the beginning stages, a timeline for decision making or next steps is also a work in progress.

Sooo... the program is ready to go, but they're just in the beginning stages of planning. Yep, that kind of talk is absolutely how administrators keep their jobs and politicians get elected - big promises with no firm commitment to actually DO anything.

Meanwhile, LIU is finishing their second season in D-I.
 
JohnsonsJerseys said:
March of 2020: “We were two weeks away from announcing that we were going to add varsity hockey and move forward with the downtown facility and then COVID hit,” Illinois Associate Director of Athletics Kent Brown said.

March of 2022: Josh Whitman announced those efforts were put back into motion but there is still a ways to go... Since the process is in the beginning stages, a timeline for decision making or next steps is also a work in progress.

Sooo... the program is ready to go, but they're just in the beginning stages of planning. Yep, that kind of talk is absolutely how administrators keep their jobs and politicians get elected - big promises with no firm commitment to actually DO anything.

Meanwhile, LIU is finishing their second season in D-I.
Click to expand...

And remember how all of us ripped and laughed on LIU for moving so fast...
 
J.D. said:
So many people on here ready to celebrate now that one interested school couldn't make it work financially (probably because of the pandemic).
Click to expand...

Celebrating and laughing hysterically aren't the same thing. Lindenwood, Long Island, Augustana, and St Thomas are moving forward while a University the size of Illinois "can't come up with the funding." It's actually quite comical when you really think about it. Would we rather see them add the sport? Only if they're going to support it.
 
I think the TIL stuff is window dressing to the real reason it’s not happening: They only ever had the funds to endow the program, and the funds to do the arena never materialized in full before the pandemic happened (and dried up afterwards) because there were too many moving parts and not enough investors to overcome it.

Why they never adjusted the arena proposal to suit the funds they had, and why they didn’t just go with the ASU model of dealing with the arena later… who’s to say.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top