Illinois exploring adding Men's Hockey
Today's Chicago Tribune has an article on the possibility of starting up a men's hockey team at the University of Illinois.
LINK: Ice Hockey would 'flourish' at University of Illinois, study shows
The opening sentence really says it all:
A study on the feasibility of using an NCAA men’s ice hockey team at the University of Illinois reached a clear conclusion: Go for it.
And more:
“The strong consensus of everyone involved in college hockey is that NCAA men’s hockey will flourish at the University of Illinois,” Mike Snee, executive director of College Hockey Inc., said in a statement the university released. “From the number of native Illinois players currently playing college hockey to the continued growth of youth hockey players in the state, there are many reasons to be confident that the Fighting Illini could quickly become a top national program and sustain it every year.”
Personally, I doubt how quickly Illinois could become a "top national program." Having said that, I like the idea of adding an 8th team to the Big 10. And I am pretty irritated at the NCAA tournament always being out East, except for the rare occasions it is in Minnnesota or Colorado. Michigan has been shafted, period. But man, having the NCAA tourney choose sites in the Big 10 footprint at Big 10 rinks (YOST!) would be awesome. Or, having the tourney use the home ice of the Red Wings or the Blackhawks would also be great. You can fill the stands in Detroit or Chicago, especially if Michigan, ND, MSU, Wisconsin, OSU and eventually Illinois are playing.
I was curious about one stat in the article: it claimed that Illinois had the 6th largest size youth hockey leagues, comparing states. In googling this, Illinois came in 8th, not 6th. But Michigan was a solid 2nd, and the quote was very positive:
As far as top level NHL players go, Michigan may rank as the best state in the country. Along with the great traditions at Michigan State and the University of Michigan, the Detroit Red Wings are quite possibly the most popular hockey team in America.
EDIT: Of course, Minnesota is number 1 in terms of youth hockey participation. It almost goes without saying. And I suppose if you included Canada, they would have far, far greater youth participation in hockey than all states.
"....flourish....", much like their football team. Study probably done by consultant that designs hockey rinks. THEY would flourish with another contract to build a rink.
Go ahead, someone else for us to beat up!
Best play of all time!
If anyone ever asks you to define centrifugal force, show them this play.
This has been talked about for YEARS now. File this in the believe it when you see it bin.
UNLV is getting a team before them.
End of important comments... You can stop reading at this point.
Illinois is perpetually rumored to be adding hockey and rumors often come and go for college hockey expansion without coming to fruition. These are the rumors I can think of that have been coming up just since Penn State moved up:
Minnesota-Moorhead, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Simon Fraser, Rhode Island, Rutgers, California schools, UNLV, and Syracuse
The hurdle is always funding and it will always be funding. Best candidates to me still remain Nebraska and Iowa just because they have arenas in town
I said it right after ASU added hockey: 5 schools that currently have Division I Men's Hockey will drop it before we see 5 schools that don't currently have men's hockey add it.
It's been 3 years, and the scoreboard still reads 0-0. I see no reason not to stand by my prediction.
Schools are adding it every few years. What I worry about is if a TV bubble burst has a devastating effect on hockey. Hockey is expeeeensive. If the TV money starts to shrink, does hockey get the axe first at some schools? Probably
that's a grim assessment but I think its correct. It's hard to believe that with all the money in college sports these days that budgets are so tight and its so hard to add programs (some of that is Title IX, yadda yadda but there are other factors too).
I'm not really a big hockey guy but I would like to see regional sports expand at the D-1 level and I would like to see the NCAA make more of an effort to help sports grow. It gives more kids the opportunity to play and expands the appeal of the sport. I would like to see more volleyball, wrestling and lacrosse teams in areas where those sports aren't already popular. I always get a little bummed when I hear a school dropped a program. they should bring back the NCAA Associates program which allows schools to field teams with quasi-varsity status that fully compete at the D-1 level.
But at the same time hockey seems like an incredibly expensive undertaking though (Penn State has a hockey facility that cost $90 milliion?!!?! I know its from a donation but still...). It requires an arena that needs constant maintenance, tons of expensive pads and equipment and a lot of travel. I'm a big lacrosse guy and everytime I see stories about hockey I think to myself that if you want to add a team , you could probably add a lacrosse program for half the cost (Michigan decided to do it in a not-so-cheap way of course).
because Bando told me it will never happen. J/K
The key factor, mentioned but kind of hand-waved in the article, is an arena. They suggest an arena in downtown Champaign, and say that such an arena could be used for many different sports and events.
But the key issue is that, as far as I can tell, no plans for any such arena currently exist.
It gives me no pleasure to say this, because I think more B1G teams adding hockey would be great for the sport. I hope this happens. But the arena is THE hurdle. This is, at best, still a long way off.
FWIW they're probably looking at Penn State's reasonably quick rise as a barometer of what Illinois could do in hockey, and it's not unreasonable to think that the right coach could do the same thing in Illinois.
You mentioned Penn State. Here is the relevant quote about that:
Penn State was the most recent Division I school to add hockey after a $102 million donation in 2012 from Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula paid for a $90 million hockey arena and created an endowment for scholarship funds.
That's great and all, but somehow, I don't see Rocky Wirtz (Blackhawks owner) chipping in a cool $100 or so mil in order to make this happen at U of I. Maybe it could happen, but as WD said, I'll believe it when I see it.
I'm pretty sure that the "downtown Champaign" idea is directly related to the scarcity of funds available to build something on campus. Maaaaybe Champaign thinks it's in their financial interest to build or help build something in town that can be used for multiple types of events. That sort of model has kinda-sorta worked in places like Duluth, though circumstances are rather different. I'm not sure what they're expecting to flock to the arena besides Illinois hockey, though.
A developer has a proposal to build a combination hotel-arena in downtown Champaign. The arena would seat approx. 5,000 and could host wrestling and volleyball as well. The location is next to the Bus and Rail terminal making it convenient to campus. Illinois has a pretty good club program. The problem is that the existing campus ice arena is small and completely surrounded by academic buildings with no parking. As an Urbana resident I would love the opportunity to see Michigan play here. The real challenge is for the Illinois Athletic Dept. to find donors to pony up for the expense of a new varsity team and another women's team.
The biggest obstacle, by some margin, is the arena, so if that proposal goes through that would be a huge deal.
They should explore adding a football program.
A basketball program might work in Illinois.
This would allow them to finish in the top 10 in a B1G men's sport.
Nobody in the Midwest put in a bid to host a regional.
Penn State is listed as the host for the "Midwest Regional" in Allentown, PA.
https://www.ncaa.com/championships/icehockey-men/d1/road-to-the-championship
He knows. Few people in college hockey are more plugged in than WCHBlog.
The regionals are guaranteed money-losers anywhere that isn't within a short drive of Grand Forks at this point. To the post you're responding to, they've actually held regionals in NHL arenas on occasion, and they have ranged from bad (the X, which sold ok but was a shadow of "lesser" tournaments even a week earlier) to embarrassing (St. Louis!).
Theoretically ideal locations like Grand Rapids just aren't ideal enough to draw fans. Again, the four-regional system simply does not put the volume of local teams into a single location out west to draw enough fans to break even. Grand Rapids can hope for, at best, one local team to bring a couple thousand people. Throw in a few hundred travelers and locals and you have, maybe, 3000 people in an arena built for much larger.
I wonder if the lack of midwest arenas will ever be a driver to getting us back to home sites. Midwest cities have stopped bidding. I wonder if the Big Ten and parts of the NCHC & WCHA ever get annoyed enough with never ever having regionals in their footprint that they make a stink of it and it starts pushing everything in the right direction. That or the NCAA finally running out of regional bidders / realizing you basically have home regionals for Massachusetts and North Dakota/Minnesota teams every year
Who decides who to bid? There is always a "host" school so I thought they had at least some role in putting together a bid. If Michigan wanted to host, could they go to GR or Toledo or Detroit and say "hey we want to do this and we want your stadium, let's work it out?"
I believe (though I'm not positive) that the facility absorbs the cost. Generally, it's an arena that is willing to host finding a school to do the job.
Anyway, no arenas are dumb enough to host anymore. A lot of schools would bid to host if they could host on campus, but the NCAA (usually) doesn't approve of that. They want "neutral" sites that aren't so neutral that a bunch of local fans can't show up.
This is at least in part due to Michigan basically being unbeatable at Yost in the NCAA tournament.
The 2018 Finals are in St Paul, Minn, but the regionals are in Mass, Conn, (eastern) Penna and So Dak. The midwest regional should be in the midwest. Any one of CHI, PIT or CBUS would be excellent choice.
Grand Rapids, Toledo, Ft Wayne, and St Louis have all tried it once and it was a miserable failure and now there are no bidders in the midwest. Too spread out. The regionals that work are
- anywhere in the Dakotas as long as NoDak makes it
- Minneapolis
- miscellaneous cities in New England because the teams are so dense there
Everything in the midwest has been an empty arena.
Why not pick up the Pavilion and move it down state for big brother? They had a program from '66 til '96, in the CCHA at the end.
UIC Trivia:
- Dustin Hoffman's office in Stranger Than Fiction was in a UIC building
- Once was considered one of the best examples of Brutalist architecture in the US (take that, MSU) Most of the dark, damp covered walkways held up by concrete "trees" have since been removed.
- Chicago Cubs' most successful ball field (back to back World Series) was located on what is now UIC campus land
finally aour true rival might add hockey
The beginnings of PAC 12 hockey.... Arizona State and Oregon.
Now if only that loser Bill Gates would have went to college.....
... but he didn't stay long enough to graduate.
RIP UIC Flames.
0% chance of happening.
I Can't imagine Pat Ryan spending too much more time in Evanston without wanting to see a hockey game at the Ryan Ice Centre
With the help of the NHL and the NHLPA, the University of Illinois commissioned a study on college hockey, and after almost a year of research, the firm reported "it would be cool to have hockey, but it's probably too expensive."
I think I could have told them that, and I would have charged them less than a dollar for the report.
The people involved in the study probably could have pooled their pocket money and funded the damn arena.
I was hoping to sell the same service and get enough money to get a meal at Applebee's, and you've gone and underbid me.
Some notes on the difficulty of starting up new hockey programs:
A college hockey startup without an arena is basically an expansion sports franchise. A new arena of adequate quality is likely to cost $100 million.
Duluth, with an established and nationally competitive hockey program, was able to build a new $90 million arena 8 years ago using $38 million in state funds, $22 million raised by city tax increase, $10 million from the university, and $8 million from the convention center to which it is attached.
That's for an established program with reliable revenue, a dedicated fanbase, and prized status as the "only game in town" for not only the local 100,000 + community but also the entirety of northeastern Minnesota.
Champaign-Urbana is a larger community than that, but it's not like Illinois doesn't already have sports to attend. Most of these other options have crowded markets as well, and in Nebraska's case, an established program an hour up the road, too.