AIC dropping down to D-2

[Corso]

AIC will drop hockey back to Division II at the end of this season (#491)

American International’s leaders informed members of its hockey team today that the program will return to Division II at the end of the 2024-25 season, ending a 27-year run as a Division I program.

www.collegehockeyinsider.com

So much for the belief that expanding the player pool with CHL players would keep the small schools in the game.

Costs are exploding and many schools are under serious financial strain.

Click to read more...

 

[MiamiHockeyII]

Jeff Marek stated this week his belief that NCAA Div I will expand and become the main development path to the NHL. I believe that opinion is asinine, and that contraction will occur before expansion. Here's why:

1) Costs.
a) Tuition, Room and Board at AIC is ~ $60k USD. A hockey roster of 25 brings the academic costs alone to $1.5M. A public university (e.g., Michigan Tech) may be moderately lower for in-State athletes, and a private university (e.g., Clarkson) moderately higher. Unless you have an established endowment to cover those costs, like Michigan, that's prohibitive. $1.5M annually requires an endowment gift of ~$40M
b) Arena. Conservatively, it's $100M to build a new one. Mullet (ASU) cost $134M, the new OHL arena in Brantford is $140M.
c) Coaching / Travel. Easily $1M unless you can bus everywhere. Endowment of ~$25M

To fund a new program, from scratch, you're looking at an up front cost of nearly $200M, with ZERO chance of profit to the individual donors. It's entirely an ego project.

2) NHL Draft.
With the CHL Eligibility rules, every top NA prospect is going to the CHL, and zero top Draft Picks will come from the NCAA. All the top players will miss the NCAA entirely, and it will become a slow-burn development league with an education upside. The cachet of watching Eichel and Celebrini will be gone.
Moreover, NHL teams will avoid drafting players they think are going to the NCAA because they will no longer have those players' rights for 4 years.

3) Revenues.
NCAA teams have a capped game schedule. Their revenues are restricted as a result. Entrepreneurs who want to invest in hockey will start a CHL franchise with 70+ games, bigger crowds, and no tuition overhead.

4) Title IX. Per-player, ice hockey is more expensive than any sport other than Football. Universities that want to cut will eliminate DI hockey and fund female sports instead to meet their Title IX requirements.

 

[Barclay Donaldson]

Not a shocker. I am about 20 minutes from AIC and can say this: the school itself is on life support, employees are jumping ship, and everyone seems to think it has two years left before the ship sinks.

They already have lost a number of coaches, including the head coach of their moderately successful football program. If things were really okay, you wouldn't have a mass exodus.

The hockey program was obviously their largest non-football expenditure, with a budget apparently set for $1.7M.

With the school churning through ADs and interim presidents at the rate of one per year, they're not going to have a school much longer. They are a five minute drive from two other small private schools which are struggling in Springfield College and Western New England.

Almost In College costs north of $50k per year. Academics are below average. Campus is in the middle of an area which makes Baghdad look nice. I'm surprised the school has lasted as long as it has, let alone the men's program.