NCAA Hockey Expansion Thread
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JMCx4
The Proof, The Facts, and The Hope for HUTCH
Additional Reading Assignments ... 
Thread: University of St. Thomas Approved for D1 Hockey
Thread: Alaska-Anchorage kills its hockey team (includes Alaska-Fairbanks chat ... you've seen one, you've seen 'em both)
Thread: Alabama Huntsville Cuts Hockey
And for Extra Credit: HIgh Point U to build an arena and start DI hockey
Thread: University of St. Thomas Approved for D1 Hockey
Thread: Alaska-Anchorage kills its hockey team (includes Alaska-Fairbanks chat ... you've seen one, you've seen 'em both)
Thread: Alabama Huntsville Cuts Hockey
And for Extra Credit: HIgh Point U to build an arena and start DI hockey
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mk80
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Putting my respone to these posts from the old High Point U thread here:
Centene Community Ice Center:
I don't think LIU is one because the Collegiate Consulting company that has done the LU, Oakland, and Illinois studies would have announced it, and especially since they've been known to jump the gun and announce study results before the schools themselves the lack of announcement for LIU is telling. I think LIU just on their own decided to make the move, probably when they added women's.
I think their current arena situation was mostly the reason for denial on their application. But with the ground breaking on their new 5k seat arena that might change the future outlook for them. But also there's the fact that ASU is also not concerned with remaining independent.
The arena size likely wouldn't hold back an NCHC application for LU, I'll include a picture for reference below of Centene from some of the NHL All Star Game festivities last year. But I think more so the NCHC may not want to welcome in a brand new program like we would be, especially since Lindenwood doesn't exactly bring the name recognition of a school like ASU. As I said in the High Point thread, I think overall the CCHA checks off the most boxes, and the athletics admin, and coaching staff have the most connections to schools in that conference.
Centene Community Ice Center:
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JMCx4
The Proof, The Facts, and The Hope for HUTCH
I always chuckle when I see photos from the 2020 ASG weekend @ Centene. That's more fans than both of the LU hockey programs draw in a season - combined. Self-identifying "hockey fans" around St. Louis are overwhelmingly exclusive followers of the NHL, and IMO they will stay that way despite the presence of an NCAA Division I men's hockey team. So if LU wants to build & sustain a repeat fan base, I hope they can learn some marketing strategies from college programs in metro areas with established NHL allegiances. But I also reckon full arenas aren't a prerequisite for major college hockey conference membership, as long as generous local sponsorships are part of the dowry.... The arena size likely wouldn't hold back an NCHC application for LU, I'll include a picture for reference below of Centene from some of the NHL All Star Game festivities last year. ...
Centene Community Ice Center:
mk80
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Well those pictures do provide the best viewing of the entire seating bowl of the arena, and they come up first on a google image search
.As for attendance, I think there is a market the university can tap into, as you said the university would have to put in the work on their side as well, but I think there is a market for the D1 college hockey product in this area. A lot of people I've talked to around the STL rinks since LU moved into Centene have ended with people saying they would love to bring their families/buy season tickets to games, and that especially picked up with the Blues Stanley Cup win. I think hockey fans in St. Louis want a quality hockey product, and that's definitely something LU can provide especially with a competitive team as well. I think they can at minimum pull an average of 1500, and with the right marketing and advertising have no trouble filling the full 2500.
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CrazyEddie20
Registered User
It's not so much sponsorship and attendance to get a program started as it is alumni financial support. Look at what it took for Penn State to get a program started: an $102 million donation from the Pegulas. Penn State already had a rink, albeit a small one, already had something of a hockey culture there around the club, and had been rumored to be starting a Division I program for 20 years before that announcement. In the end, it took a lot more money than any sponsorship or advance ticket sales could possibly generate. Yes, some $88 million of that did go to building the arena. The other $16 million endowed the men's and women's hockey program - essentially, interest on that money goes to fund the program on an annual basis.
Without a serious endowment, you need a combination of strong ticket sales, alumni support, and sponsorship along with a lean budget to operate a Division I program that doesn't hemorrhage money - think of the kind of programs in the bottom half of Atlantic Hockey. And that kind of program would be nowhere near competitive in the NCHC, nor would it generate a profit sufficient to help support non-revenue athletics, which is often a prerequisite to adding another program.
You'll see women's teams get added to balance out football opportunities at schools like Lindenwood long before you see men's teams added.
The reality is that while lots of schools have alumni, fans and boosters that want hockey, they don't have alumni, fans and boosters who have the means to turn their pie-in-the-sky ideas into reality like Penn State did.
It depends on which schools you're talking about, the Big Five absolutely have the funds to start a hockey programme if they wanted to. Though, the desire has to be there like how hockey would work for Bama, but wouldn't work for Purdue even with Indiana having much more hockey culture than Alabama has.
As for the Pegula's donation, I think it's by far the easiest and quickest way of starting a D1 programme. However, I wouldn't say it's the only one; LIU proves you don't need deep pockets to move to D1 even though we can all agree that their arena situation is a bit tricky, but that's with them starting very early than a lot of the recommendations were on this board. Once they eventually get an arena, then they should be a top calibre programme for the New York City region (which didn't really have one).
mk80
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As far as Lindenwood is concerned with financing the team, all I will say is donations and endowment are not a concern. The school definitely has the necessary monetary requirements to finance a move such as this, and saved a significant portion of startup costs having Centene fall into their laps in 2019.
CrazyEddie20
Registered User
Do they, though? They have enough of an endowment to cover coaching salaries, equipment, and 18 scholarships?
Since LU is a football school, how are they going to balance opportunities and scholarships for Title IX purposes?
CrazyEddie20
Registered User
No, they don't just "have the funds." Universities, in general, do have a lot of money in the endowment. They don't dip into the endowment to start hockey programs. Endowment money is invested for the continued operations of the university in furtherance of its' academic mission. Capital expenses, like new buildings, generally are paid for by large one-off donations from benefactors and alumni. Annual operating costs are covered by tuition, student fees, and interest on the endowment. A university isn't going to borrow against its endowment or real estate or whathaveyou to build a building for a single athletic program unless it would be a HUGE revenue and PR boon for the university, and hockey, despite what passionate fans with pie-in-the-sky ideas think, is not going to be a revenue or PR boon. It's a niche sport and would be, at best, a very modest boost to revenue.
Now, notice the relationships between athletic revenue and expenses at Division I Schools in this table: College Finances - USA TODAY
Most schools don't turn a profit. Those schools that do turn a profit turn a very modest profit, and that money is sunk right back into the athletic program to keep up with other schools in terms of facilities. Most schools spend every penny that comes in and a whole pile more from alumni donations to cover their losses on athletics.
So, please, tell me again how schools "have the funds?"
I will grant you that they have an alumni base they could tap into if they wanted to try to raise the funds, but that is also going to draw donations away from football, basketball, and athletics in general.
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JMCx4
The Proof, The Facts, and The Hope for HUTCH
CrazyEddie20
Registered User
JMCx4
The Proof, The Facts, and The Hope for HUTCH
Make them hash brownies, and they'll meet their fund-raising goal in no time.
I'd love to contribute, but I've cut out junk food almost entirely in the past year. Effing pandemic.
JMCx4
The Proof, The Facts, and The Hope for HUTCH
Just because you aren't eating junk food, doesn't mean you can't purchase then donate the goodies to those of us with no will power.
Don't get me wrong that a lot of universities don't have the funds to go out and build brand new hockey arenas and scholarships to pay for the entire team. But I also consider it absolutely asinine to think that are not schools out there who built a multi-service sports facility or a 100K throwball stadium just somehow "don't have funds" as you're implying. Especially when certain throwball coaches are getting multiple millions in contracts from the school. Now I am not talking about every university in America, because schools like Union College or Colorado College clearly do not have any funds whatsoever (though CC is building a brand new on campus rink). However, to think that ASU doesn't have the funds to build an arena is also asinine; they're an effin' huge school. Californian schools, Florida, Stanford, Texas, Duke, Virginia, and more of the known Big Five universities absolutely have the funds to start hockey programmes if they truly wanted to. Again if you can build a brand new basketball stadium, you also have the money to make a rink and sponsor scholarships. Hockey was also the third most revenue generated sport after basketball and throwball, so with hockey all you need to do is break even and during your good years the school will get a profit (like how Penn State has done).
There are situations though, not every university can have a hockey team because there isn't any interest in hockey there. Stanford is a perfect example of this, they have the funds, but will they ever truly get a team? I highly doubt it, same with Purdue over Alabama as that one example I issued in another post. You need to have interest, but I think there are a lot of schools out there that would have the same impact that Penn State as gotten for the programme (Liberty, Kentucky, Minot, and some of the more big Northern schools that currently don't have one). Other situation which has killed hockey's potential for the NCAA is that none of these basketball/multi-service sport stadiums were equipped for hockey when they were being constructed in the 1980s and 90s. That's what happened with Arizona State and how their new arena will feature multiple sports besides just hockey. I guarantee you that you'd have closer to one hundred schools with a hockey programme than we have now if they actually constructed their basketball stadium to be adjusted to hockey and vice versa.
CrazyEddie20
Registered User
Again, read what I wrote above and try to understand it - schools may "have the money," in terms of dollar amounts in the bank, but it isn't going to go towards anything that doesn't further the academic mission and continued operation of the university towards that end. Schools don't exist to run athletic programs - they shouldn't, at least, though you could certainly argue that some do.
As to your second graf, even if every basketball building built in the last 30 years had an ice plant, most, if not all, of those schools would be looking to build a practice rink of some sort. Why? Because basketball BRINGS IN REVENUE. Way more so than hockey ever will, save for a few places like the University of Minnesota. At every Power 5 school, basketball is the big dog and will almost always dictate the terms of who gets to use the big building first. If basketball wants to practice in there, they will and hockey will have to go looking for ice somewhere else. The idea that 40 more schools would have hockey if they had just included an ice plant in the basketball building is preposterous. Come back with the list of 40 buildings you think could have been built to include hockey and we'll talk.
JMCx4
The Proof, The Facts, and The Hope for HUTCH
It's always a sign of a good day on HFBoards when the word "preposterus" is used in a post. 
CrazyEddie20
Registered User
It's always a sign of a good day on HFBoards when the word "preposterus" is used in a post.
Given how rarely the expansionists' ideas are seated in reality, it could be used a lot more frequently than it is.
JMCx4
The Proof, The Facts, and The Hope for HUTCH
Ehhhhh, I am not sure what you're arguing about here except systematics? I already agree with majority of you said, but I don't think you're getting is if these universities decided to install an ice plant with ability to play other sports when they were building basketball stadiums, there would be more hockey programmes at big schools. Is that hard to understand? You're typing like the university only makes sport programmes that should bring in revenue, yet why invest in women's sports which is always the lowest on the revenue poll? I understand the need to because of Title IX, but I am talking way before those laws were implemented by the NCAA. Nobody is going to go watch Women's lacrosse, yet the university created it and wasted scholarship funds on it even if 300 people show up to watch it compared to 14,000 for a men's basketball game or 100k for a Corn Huskers throwball match.
Absolutely, the university looks at opportunities to make more funds for the school itself, but they also make programmes which constantly lose the money for the university like a lot of women sports (sadly). Hockey isn't that, the revenue stream shows that they can make a profit in a lot of cases and break even in majority. The biggest problem is what you noted and that's the lack of ice rinks, but as I said before that if a school needs a new basketball stadium, why not invest some extra for an ice plant? Especially if that school already has the funds to make a 90 million dollar brand new multi-sports arena and create a hockey programme? Hell, ASU's new arena is 110 million, if you're already spending 90, what is honestly the difference between that and 110 million? The answer is nothing.
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CrazyEddie20
Registered User
I'm not saying this to be a jerk, but you don't live in the US, do you?
Just because a school puts in an ice plant doesn't make it any more likely to have a hockey program. That's just reality - and if more schools "just put in an ice plant" that doesn't mean that they'd then have a hockey program. It would certainly help them on their way, but there are plenty of schools that have ice rinks that don't play hockey.
Title IX isn't an NCAA rule - it's a federal law passed in 1972. Before Title IX, there were very, very few women's sports programs at American colleges, and the ones that did exist were grossly underfunded compared to men's programs.
Tell a women's lacrosse player that the scholarship she receives is "wasted money." Please. Go ahead.
Again, college athletics don't exist to put money into university coffers. They're a zero sum game. The ones that make money pay for the ones that don't and any profit is sunk back into the program to keep it competitive with peer schools.
When a school has $90M to build a new building, there's been a years-long planning, budgeting, and bidding process. Why not put in an ice plant? Because $20M isn't "nothing," it's literally a 22.2% increase in budget and $20M that needs to come from somewhere.
Can you make your argument with actual facts and without insulting women and American football? Please and thank you.
mk80
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Again we’ve come to a point in discussion where suffice to say there are schools across the country that could, should, or would add hockey. But various reasons prevent them from doing so, it’s one reason why the ACHA has seen a lot of growth over the years.
@CrazyEddie20 to respond to your earlier comment: Lindenwood definitely has the financial ability to add NCAA DI hockey through a combination of their endowment and expected donations. They are not a school that spends money on anything without it being accounted for. They wouldn’t be in the conversation unless they were prepared for the increased costs of a DI program. And I’m confident they’ll see a return on their investment, division I hockey would easily be the 2nd most or even most profitable sport in terms of revenue on campus
@CrazyEddie20 to respond to your earlier comment: Lindenwood definitely has the financial ability to add NCAA DI hockey through a combination of their endowment and expected donations. They are not a school that spends money on anything without it being accounted for. They wouldn’t be in the conversation unless they were prepared for the increased costs of a DI program. And I’m confident they’ll see a return on their investment, division I hockey would easily be the 2nd most or even most profitable sport in terms of revenue on campus
CrazyEddie20
Registered User
I could see them adding an NCAA men's program if and when they figure out how to balance the Title IX implications, which is the biggest non-financial hurdle (and really, it is also financial in a lot of ways...) to adding men's hockey.
To get back to the idiotic argument that "if you just build add an ice plant, which costs nothing, there will be more college hockey teams," there have been 122 college basketball/public multi-use arenas built since 1990 that host Division I men's basketball. Thirteen of them have an ice plant. Three of those 13 schools (UMass-Amherst, UMass-Lowell, Fairfield) have or had Division I men's hockey. Three of those schools play NCAA hoops in an NBA/NHL building (Georgetown, Seton Hall, NC State), where lease terms would be onerous for a college hockey team and the school would also have to come up with a practice facility on or near campus.
Two of those schools (University of South Carolina, Fresno State) built on-campus arenas with ice plants that they leased to professional hockey teams. South Carolina even had a second building (Carolina Coliseum) that had a sheet of ice (where the Inferno played) after building the Colonial Life Center. Neither school has even hinted at ever starting an NCAA hockey program.
Evansville plays hoops in a public facility that has hosted the ECHL and SPHL. No talk of a hockey program there.
Fairfield dropped down to club hockey - they aren't coming back.
The KFC Yum! Center in Louisville can make ice, and I've never heard anything about pro hockey coming back there, much less the Cardinals starting a program.
When Penn State was courting the Pegula's checkbook, everyone knew, especially because their idiot broadcaster would yelp to anyone who would listen about it.
None of these schools have even made a peep about hockey.
To say that there'd be "40 more programs if there were just more ice plants" is an idea that is wholly unsupported by facts.
Barclay Donaldson
Registered User
No one has ever just thrown in an ice plant just because then they can add hockey. Not only is it extremely expensive, but upkeeping that ice is another monumental expense. Especially when other sports are being played on top of it. Not only that, but simply building an ice plant in a basketball arena doesn't suddenly make it capable to host hockey. Barclay's Center in New York and Climate Pledge Arena/Key Arena in Seatle are proof of that.
The answer to "why not spend a little more" is "because the school doesn't have that money." Schools like Minnesota-Moorhead and URI didn't add hockey because they were $5 million short of their goal, yet you are saying "throw in an extra $20 million just for an ice plant."
I highly suggest you read the case study released of the financial requirements to start a University of Illinois NCAA team. Not everyone has Daddy Pegula to throw +$100 million. In fact, Penn State is the only one. Arizona State has had to fundraise for a long time to get where they are.
Hopefully this cures your delusions. Get the Covid vaccine next.
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