College Hockey Expansion

[SiouxVolley]

On 7/12/2019 at 8:20 AM, ArchyAlum11 said:

Pretty sure for hockey the rule is schools can either play up or down, but if they play down they cannot offer scholarships for hockey and have to abide by funding restrictions.

A DIII no longer can provide scholarships for any sport unless they are grandfathered under NCAA rules and they also can’t have DII’s or DIII’s in their conference, just like the Pioneer League teams, which were kicked out of the DIII championship.  The old Midwest hockey league was mostly DIII’s in Wisconsin.  Union and RIT can play DI hockey because they don’t offer scholarships, just financial aid.

[bale31]

Well, this certainly isn't good. Hockey in Alaska may not happen this year, let alone in 2 years.

 

https://www.webcenter11.com/content/news/University-of-Alaska-Considers-Declaring-Financial-Exigency-512618201.html

[Rebel_Sioux]

20 hours ago, bale31 said:

Well, this certainly isn't good. Hockey in Alaska may not happen this year, let alone in 2 years.

 

https://www.webcenter11.com/content/news/University-of-Alaska-Considers-Declaring-Financial-Exigency-512618201.html

Certainly hard to see both hockey teams surviving when they are talking about closing entire schools down. Not sure what AK politics look like but I suspect there will be some hot seats in 2020.

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

Crookston is very close to jumping back into college hockey for the 2020-21 season. 

The plan, schools general fund will pay for hockey the first few years. No fund raising at this point, that will start some time down the road after hockey is officially announced - head coach hiring process will start soon.

[ArchyAlum11]

11 hours ago, BarnWinterSportsEngelstad said:

Crookston is very close to jumping back into college hockey for the 2020-21 season. 

The plan, schools general fund will pay for hockey the first few years. No fund raising at this point, that will start some time down the road after hockey is officially announced - head coach hiring process will start soon.

Would be great if that is the case, but is that just the rumor mill or do you have a source?

[SiouxVolley]

13 hours ago, BarnWinterSportsEngelstad said:

Crookston is very close to jumping back into college hockey for the 2020-21 season. 

The plan, schools general fund will pay for hockey the first few years. No fund raising at this point, that will start some time down the road after hockey is officially announced - head coach hiring process will start soon.

If it happens, UMC should schedule on opposite weekends that UND does.  Imagine that Grand Forks and surrounding areas could provide a good number of spectators to see former WCHA teams.  UND home weekends would probably result in very low attendance.

[ArchyAlum11]

On 7/12/2019 at 9:56 PM, SiouxVolley said:

A DIII no longer can provide scholarships for any sport unless they are grandfathered under NCAA rules and they also can’t have DII’s or DIII’s in their conference, just like the Pioneer League teams, which were kicked out of the DIII championship.  The old Midwest hockey league was mostly DIII’s in Wisconsin.  Union and RIT can play DI hockey because they don’t offer scholarships, just financial aid.

I suppose I should have been more specific, I was talking about DII schools. As I understand it D2 schools can either play up to division I or down to DIII, the main difference is that if they play down to DIII they cannot offer any athletic scholarships for that sport.

[dmksioux]

56 minutes ago, SiouxVolley said:

If it happens, UMC should schedule on opposite weekends that UND does.  Imagine that Grand Forks and surrounding areas could provide a good number of spectators to see former WCHA teams.  UND home weekends would probably result in very low attendance.

I can't imagine they'd be starting up DI hockey.  I would guess it would be club hockey, wouldn't it?

[fightingsioux4life]

18 minutes ago, dmksioux said:

I can't imagine they'd be starting up DI hockey.  I would guess it would be club hockey, wouldn't it?

If it was club hockey, then the school wouldn't be spending money on it.

[northernraider]

Crookston would be the 3rd smallest D1 Hockey School (Canisius & St. Lawrence are smaller), certainly the smallest public school. Where is the money coming from to start a program? I can't think any alumni that would that deep of pockets. They are already terrible in all other sports, why would hockey be any different?  The only item in their favor is an area to suit their needs. 

 

Just seems an interesting move to me

[SiouxVolley]

1 hour ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

I suppose I should have been more specific, I was talking about DII schools. As I understand it D2 schools can either play up to division I or down to DIII, the main difference is that if they play down to DIII they cannot offer any athletic scholarships for that sport.

DII and Di’s are no longer allowed to play DIII.  DI Dayton used to win the DIII nat championships in football, but DIII put a stop to it.

[SiouxVolley]

4 hours ago, northernraider said:

Crookston would be the 3rd smallest D1 Hockey School (Canisius & St. Lawrence are smaller), certainly the smallest public school. Where is the money coming from to start a program? I can't think any alumni that would that deep of pockets. They are already terrible in all other sports, why would hockey be any different?  The only item in their favor is an area to suit their needs. 

 

Just seems an interesting move to me

Lake Superior St only has 3000 +, but it doesn’t have football.  UM Crookston must be getting favors from the UM system to afford it, as they will probably have to add WIH too.

[dmksioux]

3 hours ago, fightingsioux4life said:

If it was club hockey, then the school wouldn't be spending money on it.

I'll admit that I haven't followed this story very closely or know the rules about DII's playing up or down.  Either way, I just can't imagine UM-C playing at a DI level.  But I definitely could be wrong on that.  Crazy to think about though.  

Personally I'd rather see more of the big schools move to add hockey.  The general sports fan won't care about UM-C adding it.  Not that many would notice a DI school adding it, but at least there is name recognition if a DI school were to add it.  

[AlphaMikeFoxtrot]

There's no way they go from no hockey to NCAA D1 in such a short timeframe. It has to be club with the goal of going NCAA eventually.  It is likely in the same vein as Jamestown and Mary adding ACHA.

[SiouxVolley]

1 hour ago, dmksioux said:

I'll admit that I haven't followed this story very closely or know the rules about DII's playing up or down.  Either way, I just can't imagine UM-C playing at a DI level.  But I definitely could be wrong on that.  Crazy to think about though.  

Personally I'd rather see more of the big schools move to add hockey.  The general sports fan won't care about UM-C adding it.  Not that many would notice a DI school adding it, but at least there is name recognition if a DI school were to add it.  

Adding DI hockey would raise the awareness even in Minnesota that UMC exists.  The UM system knows they have an enrollment problem right now and hockey would help.  Don’t think the NSIC would allow it, but dropping football could provide enough funding for DI hockey.

The state of Minnesota paid for the new rink and the state hasn’t seen a return on its investment yet, like Bemidji has.

[SiouxVolley]

The Crookston Sports Center only has seating for 1200.  Don’t know if it can be expanded.

http://www.crookstonsportscenter.com/

A rink of 3000 is generally thought of as being at breakeven at DI.

Maybe UMC is going DIII to replace St Thomas or going to Minn-Morris’s league with hockey in the MIAC?

Minn-Crookston hasn’t done anything competing at the DII level.  Morris went down too, and think they were a better performing school.

The MIAC needs a sixth hockey team after expelling UST.

 

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

21 hours ago, dmksioux said:

I can't imagine they'd be starting up DI hockey.  I would guess it would be club hockey, wouldn't it?

Not Div I hockey at this time. 
UM Crookston already has club hockey.
https://www.facebook.com/umcclubhockey/

 

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

Mary Holz-Clause, Ph.D., began her tenure as chancellor of the University of Minnesota Crookston on June 30, 2017. She is behind this recommendation and is forming the local hockey committee.  She would be willing to hire a hockey coach/s this fall, when/if to field a team/s would be on the committee's table. 

 

 

This post is from another SS thread back in May.
The Committee recently agreed to hire a coach.

[Millsy]

So, I was busy with some home improvements over the weekend, but figured I should update on the Alaska situation based on accounts from USCHO.

The Alaska Legislature was unable to override the Governor's veto. The 22 Republicans and the Governor stayed in Wasilla during the whole time and avoided the debate and vote. The 38 Legislators that did meet in Juneau couldn't really do much as they did not have the 45 votes needed to override the veto. The 38 contemplated the idea of going to Wasilla to force a vote, but it was felt if a vote happened anywhere other than Juneau, which the Constitution dictated, it would have ended up in court and probably would have invalidated any override. Part of the Governor's plan all along???? Hmmm.....

On Monday, the University of Alaska Board of Regents met to discuss how to handle cutting $135 million out of the budget (again, 41%). Athletics was not brought up until the very end, and it sounds like it will be a target of cuts, just not sure how much (it was noted that athletics loses $14.5 million a year in the UA System, not sure if that is true). There is talk of closing campus and closing programs. Another area that was brought up was getting rid of redundancy of majors, which makes sense. If a major in education is offered at more than one campus, then that major would be shuttered at all campuses but one. How much that would save, it wasn't clear. The Board gave themselves until July 30th to come up with a plan and then will meet again.

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

11 hours ago, Millsy said:

So, I was busy with some home improvements over the weekend, but figured I should update on the Alaska situation based on accounts from USCHO.

The Alaska Legislature was unable to override the Governor's veto. The 22 Republicans and the Governor stayed in Wasilla during the whole time and avoided the debate and vote. The 38 Legislators that did meet in Juneau couldn't really do much as they did not have the 45 votes needed to override the veto. The 38 contemplated the idea of going to Wasilla to force a vote, but it was felt if a vote happened anywhere other than Juneau, which the Constitution dictated, it would have ended up in court and probably would have invalidated any override. Part of the Governor's plan all along???? Hmmm.....

On Monday, the University of Alaska Board of Regents met to discuss how to handle cutting $135 million out of the budget (again, 41%). Athletics was not brought up until the very end, and it sounds like it will be a target of cuts, just not sure how much (it was noted that athletics loses $14.5 million a year in the UA System, not sure if that is true). There is talk of closing campus and closing programs. Another area that was brought up was getting rid of redundancy of majors, which makes sense. If a major in education is offered at more than one campus, then that major would be shuttered at all campuses but one. How much that would save, it wasn't clear. The Board gave themselves until July 30th to come up with a plan and then will meet again.

One could look at this as Div I hockey is offered at two U's, that one hockey program is done, if not both?

[ArchyAlum11]

6 hours ago, BarnWinterSportsEngelstad said:

One could look at this as Div I hockey is offered at two U's, that one hockey program is done, if not both?

I don't think either program will come out of this alive unfortunately,  If you did save hockey at one campus then I would say save Fairbanks, but I think you will see athletics totally eliminated. 

[Frozen4sioux]

2 hours ago, ArchyAlum11 said:

I don't think either program will come out of this alive unfortunately,  If you did save hockey at one campus then I would say save Fairbanks, but I think you will see athletics totally eliminated. 

If I was an athlete at one of those schools, Id be long long gone, unfourtunetly they have to wait for an official decree before they can transfer without losing eligibility.

[Millsy]

The Alaska Board of Regents just held their intermediate meeting, voted 10-1 to start Financial Exigency process. It is hard to imagine that athletics will survive this year when a large number of academic programs and tenured professors are going to get the axe......

[Kab]

It’s best if those two drop hockey and we expand in the big10 or 12 and the pac 10/12

 

 

[SiouxFan100]

45 minutes ago, Millsy said:

The Alaska Board of Regents just held their intermediate meeting, voted 10-1 to start Financial Exigency process. It is hard to imagine that athletics will survive this year when a large number of academic programs and tenured professors are going to get the axe......

You wonder how did it get to this point?