Inexcusable: CCHA Votes Down Alabama-Huntsville

Today saw news that should make college hockey fans across America and parts elsewhere really upset:

CCHA Denies Alabama-Huntsville for Conference Admission

The CCHA has denied Alabama-Huntsville’s application for admission, putting the program’s future in even more jeopardy.

The Chargers are members of the CHA, which is set to disband after the 2009-10 season. The three other members have found other conferences, and UAH targeted the CCHA.

But the CCHA Council, a body made up of athletic administrators and faculty athletic representatives, on Tuesday voted by acclamation to deny UAH’s application for membership.

Well isn't that nice.

The CHA is disbanding because the other three members of the conference have found more convenient homes for the 2010-2011 season. Bemidji State, an enjoyed program of this blog, is moving to the WCHA with soon-to-be former CCHA patron Nebraska-Omaha. Robert Morris University and Niagara University of the lame-duck CHA will move along to the alive-yet-weak Atlantic Hockey Association.

This situation left Alabama-Huntsville on the outside looking in. Given that they're the only college hockey program located in the deep south, their program is one that has always raised eyebrows with casual observers of college hockey.

Hell, even long time college fans weren't always aware of the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers - that is until 2007 when the bottom-seeded Chargers took top seeded Notre Dame to double-overtime in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before ultimately falling to the Fighting Irish 3-2 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Coincidentally enough, it was the same Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids that saw soon-to-be former CHA mates Bemidji State upset Notre Dame and Cornell just this past year in the NCAA Tournament earning them their first Frozen Four appearance as well as the acceptance of the WCHA to join their "exclusive" club of teams.

Fate is one cruel bitch.

"Et tu... All of you?!"

What's fun about this announcement is that the CCHA decided to vote by acclimation so that no one school has to take the heat from the rest of the college hockey loving world for basically sending Alabama-Huntsville's hockey program out to pasture.

Yes, that's right, their hockey program is in a very bad spot right now. Other conferences that could have had UAH join up with them have already filled their ranks. That's not to say that the WCHA was even a possible destination for the Chargers, but at least they were one of the conferences looking to expand.

Atlantic Hockey and the CCHA were it as far as geographic common sense and flexibility go. Atlantic Hockey made their move by bringing aboard the two logical CHA squads in Robert Morris (Pittsburgh, PA) and Niagara (near Buffalo, NY). Both the ECAC and Hockey East are much too far out of the way in the northeast and are set with their number of teams.

UAH is now looking at life, once again, as an independent team. They spent their first year back in Division I hockey as an independent in 1998-1999 but then joined the CHA after that. Previous to that, they were a Division II team for six seasons and a damn good one winning two Division II championships, thus making their jump back to Division I (after spending five years there from 1987-1992 as independents) one that made a world of sense.

Now? Limbo awaits the Chargers. Life as an independent team in Division I hockey is one that doesn't lend itself well to any kind of success, be it on the ice or financially. Having no conference affiliation means there's no conference tournament to play in and win a berth to the NCAA Tournament.

Having life as an independent should, ideally, mean that scheduling gets to be easier as you can pick and choose from any of the other 58 D-I schools. Problem with that is, everyone else is playing in a conference and subject to their own conference schedule dominating their weekly lives and having to live by the scraps of open dates the schedule allows to make games with other schools.

D-I football is perhaps the best high profile way we can look at how UAH may have to handle their new lives, should they choose to keep it up. In the past, there had always been a rather large handful of teams amongst the Independent ranks in college football.

Now there are three: Notre Dame, Army and Navy. What these three teams have in common is playing against each other as well as a hearty mix of cream puffs and menacing world beaters. Hell, even Army football gets a game against VMI each year so they're guaranteed to not go winless.

Obviously Notre Dame sticks out here as the "shining example" of how to be a successful independent program. Then again, Notre Dame football is a beast unto itself having NBC carrying all their home games and a ridiculous legacy that is eternally fellated whether the team is any good or not.

Alabama-Huntsville hockey won't exactly have any of these luxuries. There is no lucrative television contract to give the school money nor are there well-placed media pundits out there to proclaim the wonder and glory of Chargers hockey. It's just how it is but the future is certainly very bleak for the sole Division I hockey program in the deep south.

For what it's worth, the 2012 Frozen Four being held in Tampa, Florida is set to be hosted by none other than the University of Alabama, Huntsville. Given that this location has already been beset by bad press, most of which centered around the owners of the Tampa Bay Lightning bailing out of a college hockey tournament set to be hosted in Tampa last year, Alabama-Huntsville having their program potentially folding before the Frozen Four even arrives in Florida would be a tremendous black eye on college hockey.

For now though, UAH hangs on while the CCHA will have to take their much-deserved lumps for leaving a program out in the cold with little to no explanation:

“The league completed its due diligence of the application for membership submitted by the University of Alabama in Huntsville with careful consideration and discussion of various issues,” CCHA commissioner Tom Anastos said in a news release. “At this time we have chosen to maintain our membership at its current level.

“The CCHA will remain focused on maintaining and strengthening our existing members to ensure the conference’s continued success and long-term viability.”

There's a lot of buzzwords in there but what this boils down to for the CCHA is that they're playing wait-and-see, which in this case, amounts to a game of chicken where they're not risking a damn thing for themselves.

At stake here instantly is the future of Alabama-Huntsville hockey but there are some other things that come into play here. Whether it's the imminent failure of another of its member teams in Bowling Green or the rise of a program out of the club ranks with a huge name to lend further credibility to both the CCHA and college hockey will remain to be seen.

If the CCHA has the ability to see the future and those situations do arise, I am sure they can also handle the responsibility of having the blood of potentially two (or maybe more) programs on their hands while allowing college hockey to become an even less-relevant niche sport on the collegiate landscape.

A year from now we could be just laughing at all of this as an incredible overreaction when the CCHA votes to allow UAH to join up with them after Bowling Green and other struggling CCHA members all find ways to prove their commitments to college hockey for the future and its all fun and games.

Then again, a year from now we could be looking at this vote to exclude UAH from the CCHAs reindeer games as the first domino to fall in what could prove to be a herd-thinning situation in college hockey.

RPI Plans To Take More Money From Fans

One of the collegiate guilty pleasures you're going to have to get better accustomed to if you're a follower here is my fandom of the ECAC's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI, if you're nasty). The majority of my college hockey watching takes place at Houston Field House and I can virtually always be found there taking in an RPI game during hockey season.

So if you want to get into stalking me, enjoy beautiful Troy, NY.

So if you're curious as to why this latest bit of information from RPI found its way onto my radar, well, there you go. It reads like the standard "season is approaching, get ready to buy tickets" type of news, but this year there's a new spin.

The general public price remains as it has been in recent years for 14 home games, while four games feature premium pricing. The majority of contests will cost $10 for adults and $7 for children & seniors, while the four premium-priced games are $13 for adults and $10 for children & seniors.

The games with premium pricing are those against Cornell University on December 4, Union College on December 9, Clarkson University on February 6 and Princeton University on February 20.

That's right, premium ticketing comes to ECAC Athletics. At long last fans can feel like they're part of the big time as they'll pay up more for tickets to the games they REALLY want to be at.

Great.

What do you think of this Dr. Horse?

Hmm... No sir, I don't like it.

OK so I'm having some fun here because being dreadfully serious is dreadfully boring and this isn't a topic that deserves to be lambasted, but it is a bit troubling for the future.

Premium ticketing for certain games is something that's not new to sports fans in general (many NHL teams already do this including the Sabres) and, let's face it, the cost for RPI games isn't outrageous by any means. A weekend homestand will run you $20, there's no price for parking and you'll get a good night out of hockey in, at the least, a semi-festive college environment.

What's a bit disturbing about this is, of course, the timing. RPI appears to be a team headed in the right direction.

After a poor regular season, the Engineers found their way in the playoffs upsetting and sweeping sixth seeded Dartmouth in the ECAC tournament first round and then taking ECAC Tournament finalists Cornell to three games in the quarterfinals before losing.

This year, the Engineers bring in two 2009 NHL Draft Picks with forwards Brandon Pirri (2nd round 59th overall to Chicago) and Jerry D'Amigo (6th round 158th overall to Toronto) as well as other forwards C.J. Lee and Marty O'Grady to join an already very young team. RPI has struggled and head coach Seth Appert has, for all intents and purposes, rebuilt the program in the last three years at the helm.

Whether the progress continues to bring success hinges a lot upon what this new crop of players can do immediately and with that the folks at RPI have apparently decided that folks will pony up no matter what, especially for certain games. The games they've got picked out are the traditional big ticket games each year taking advantage of the opponent or the situation.

Puckman wants to see you in Troy... And make you pay for it.

In the case with the game against Cornell, RPI is looking to capitalize upon the swarm of visitors that descend upon Troy from Ithaca each year and looking to make a few more bucks off of the fans from Cornell... Well really, paying more to come to Troy will really stick in their collective craws and that's just fun to make them upset.

Much is the same with the fans coming from Schenectady from Union College. Making those folks pay a few bucks more for the pleasure of visiting Troy makes me laugh because they hate to do it.

RPI's games against Clarkson and Princeton in February actually are premium tickets as far as RPI fans are concerned.

RPI and Clarkson are big time rivals in the ECAC, at least they are from RPI's standpoint. Clarkson tends to have more rivalry-like hate for the likes of St. Lawrence and Cornell. In this case, RPI has chosen their game against Clarkson to be Alumni night and they'll be honoring the 1985 National Championship as it'll be the 25th Anniversary of RPIs last national title and hey, you don't need a good excuse to bring Adam Oates and Daren Puppa back to town now do you?

Putting this event the same night as their game with Clarkson is a really nice coincidence though.

The game with Princeton is a convenient double-whammy as Princeton, traditionally, brings very few fans on the road which will not help them as this game is RPIs annual Big Red Freakout as well as senior night.

As that link explaining the Big Red Freakout says, fans can thank RPI for the NCAA rule banning noisemakers at games as the gift given out to fans in 1987 were horns and well... Wild, rambunctious and boozed up college kids with horns at a hockey game? I can't see how that ever turned out badly.

RPIs record in the Big Red Freakout is something quite remarkable (18-9-5 since 1978) and they'll be looking to get off a three-year winless streak in 2010 as well as avenging their Freakout loss to Princeton two years ago that saw the Engineers lose 4-0 in a game that wasn't even as close as that score indicates.

Four premium ticket games, two of which are actually premium games that will very likely be sellouts. It's a shrewd financially-driven decision by RPI to do this and, let's face it they're going to get the money they're looking for here. It is a choice that I worry will be taken advantage of in future seasons and leading to ticket prices going up.

After all, RPI does have a nice new athletic facility to show off and try to make money off of (not that it has anything to do with the hockey program) but since RPI has made headlines locally for cutting jobs and talking about financial hardships making a few bucks off their only Division I men's athletic program should be no surprise.

That's a whole 'nother rant entirely however.

I wanted to really tear ass about this more, but I can understand why RPI is doing premium ticket pricing for these games, I just hope that this isn't a harbinger of doom for the future.

Sure, college hockey ticket prices are a bit higher in the midwest (Denver University's single game tickets range between $17-$35 for example), but the demand out there is much higher as well so it makes sense. If RPI starts winning again, the long lost dormant RPI fans will come back and the students will be out in force if for no other reason than to be seen at the games.

As it is, the exhibition game with Prince Edward Island on October 3rd is a date most RPI fans cannot wait for just so they can finally get a look at guys like Pirri and D'Amigo on the ice in cherry, white and black.

I'm sure the coaching staff is hoping that the new class is able to inspire more goals and victories and make the fans want to come to Troy on the weekends once again.

How (Not) To Prepare For A Game 7

A lot of you may be stressing the hell out today because your team is playing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight.

Others of you may have hitched a ride with a team for the Finals after having yours bumped off along the way either before or during the playoffs. It's OK, I'm not here to rat you out or tell the others in your fanbase that you may have given up the team colors in favor of the "prettier" horse that came along.

That's not my job to rat you out and besides, you've got to live with yourself anyhow. Enjoy the anguish of living a lie should that be your course of action.

What I'm here to do is try to share with you what it is to live in the hell of having the next game be your last, when you're that close to taking home the prize that your team is dying to reach. I'm here to tell you that if you want to live life as a hockey fan in a brilliant kind of tortured hell there's one thing you have to do:

Become a college hockey fan.

I'm not joking and hell, if you want examples of that already, take a look at the stories from my Back To School tour of excellence back in March and April.

OK so you don't want to check it out, fine. Here's what the teams in tonight's final have to look forward to (click to enlarge):

Thrill of Victory:




Agony of Defeat:



Those are shots from the conclusion of this year's National Championship game that saw Boston University defeat Miami University in overtime. Yeah, ouch.

Pretty simple, I know, but seeing it is another thing entirely and let's face it, Penguins fans have tasted defeat in the Finals once, just last year. Detroit fans, at least the more modern variety, got a piece of it back in 1995 at the hands of Jacques Lemaire's ruiners of 1990s hockey, the New Jersey Devils.

I can tell you first hand, however, that living and dying by your team is mentally and physically exhausting and having a hand in it with the college team of your upbringing or graduation can make even the most even-keeled of folks become raving lunatics.

For me, my roots are based in Division III college hockey, graduating from Oswego State in 2002. Working games from the press box while in college doesn't allow you to fully give into your fandom, after all, there's no cheerleading in the press box.

In 2003, Oswego State reached the Frozen Four for Division III and you better believe I was there with friends to witness this in Northfield, Vermont. Oswego was the newcomer to the party in dealing with local favorites Norwich and Middlebury (both in Vermont) as well as St. Norbert's College from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Oswego drew Middlebury in the semifinals and trounced them "surprisingly" 6-0 and met the hosts from Norwich in the Finals.

There's no more nervewracking of a setting than being there in person, on hostile ground no-less, hoping to see your team win the big prize. That afternoon we would leave Kreitzberg Arena to the sounds of the place going bonkers as the Cadets would beat the Lakers 2-1. A long, humbled and quiet car ride would follow as we headed back to the Albany area.

Four years later, Oswego would be back in the NCAA tournament and would open up at home against Norwich and exact a revenge of sorts for the 2003 loss beating the Cadets 3-0, this time on Oswego's home ice. A date in the Frozen Four was set again, this time in Superior, Wisconsin.

There would be no road trip, there would be only reliance on the Internet broadcast of the semifinals against St. Norbert's and then praying they win that so I could watch them on CSTV in the Finals.

This is where I leave things off to our media successors at Oswego State campus TV WTOP-10 to show you how this played out. I can tell you this right now, every time I watch this my adrenaline races and I break out into a cold sweat.


(ed. note: YouTube is being a bit buggy lately so be patient and come on back again to see the video.)

Full disclosure:

After Garren Reisweber scored that OVERTIME GAME-WINNING GOAL, I leapt out of the chair, did a lap around the house, then ran outside leaping into the snowbanks via backflip.

I've never done a backflip before, and I've never dared try one since but it's true, adrenaline can make you do super-human things.

That said, your team is on the road looking for their first championship and the road to get there goes through overtime in the semifinals and in the finals, it's a wonder myself or any other Oswego State hockey alum survived.

But I did and I'm alive to pass this on to those of you who will be locked down into Game 7 tonight to let you know that win or lose, you're still going to be there to fight again.

Neither Detroit nor Pittsburgh are going anywhere bad after this season. Folks want to write the Red Wings off and say that their demise is imminent.

It's not.

Pittsburgh has already proven that they'll be able to stick around by making it back again this year, especially after dropping their dead-weight of an albatross named Michel Therrien.

If your team loses, yeah it's going to sting like a son of a bitch and it's going to eat you up for a while. You probably won't want to look at anything hockey for some time after that and you can't be blamed for it.

But if you come back from it and you hunger for more and you develop that war wound with your team, and believe me losing in a game where it's all or nothing is a cannon blast to the midsection in the Civil War, the reward is worth the wait.

Game 7 wins and losses weed out who belongs and who doesn't and if for some sick psychotic reason you want to give yourself a better chance at experiencing this sensation of living on the brink with a team you know and love and adore... Sign up for college hockey. Pick a team and go along for the ride.

If you went to college that has a team, even better, you're already in the family. All you have to do then is start caring about them. Don't have a team yet? Snoop around, adopt one, adopt a local team if you've got one. Remember though, you're adopting them not to half-ass your attention to them you want to accept them into your life because you're a maniacal hockey fan and you seek more and you have wanton disregard for your sanity.

Detroit fans I probably don't have to tell about college hockey given that Michigan alone has University of Michigan, Michigan State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Western Michigan, Ferris State, and Lake Superior State all contained within their borders.

Joe Louis Arena plays host to the annual Great Lakes Invitational pitting Michigan, MSU and Michigan Tech against a fourth team to be named later. RPI joins them this upcoming season. Yes, consider that foreshadowing for what may come in December.

For Pittsburgh fans and those of you actually in the Iron City or close by, you've got a couple of teams within reach of you: Robert Morris University and Mercyhurst College. Robert Morris plays in Pittsburgh itself while Mercyhurst is located to the north in Erie. There is a bonus to becoming a Mercyhurst supporter though:



Mercyhurst Lakers goalie Matt Lundin shows off Whalers-colored glory.

Your team wears the colors of the Hartford Whalers. I can see no other reason than that to want to become a fan of Mercyhurst. If you're into the women's college hockey scene, Mercyhurst's squad is one of the better ones in the country. Double your pleasure Pennsylvania.

I know that this post offers in no way any kind of comfort or solace for those looking to find a way to get through tonight's game and I'm only serving to be more of an enabler of further stress, hair loss, anxiety and short fuses but I just want you all to be able to join me in that club.

Some say "misery loves company" but in this case it's more like the asylum seeks more patients.

You're hockey fans after all, be proud of your insanity.

On The Road Again - ManchVegas Bound

In a late spur-of-the-moment decision, I'm taking this act on the road one more time before we make the big honkin' road trip to D.C. for the Frozen Four.

This weekend?


Bienvenue? French? Maybe this explains UNH's fortunes...

That's right, we're going to live free or die in Manchester, New Hampshire with the Northeast Regional.

Live Free or Die is New Hampshire's state motto, but it sounds like something Tupac would say.

I know, I know... I'm just sayin'.

Manchester offers up the most intriguing set of teams amongst the four regions and should offer up the best games as well. Bruce Ciskie at FanHouse offers up his quick take on what to look for out of the Northeast, and if you know anything about college hockey, you know that these four teams offer up a ton of college hockey history.



Meet Rhett. He's a bad-ass dog.

I know that mystique and aura are just crappy terms for nostalgia, but this regional offers it up in spades. With Boston University you've got oodles of history and Beanpot Tournament Trophies galore. You've also got them as the #1 overall seed in the tournament and champions of the Hockey East Conference. They're kind of good. They're kind of really, really good.


No, they're not the Blackhawks.

Then there's the University of North Dakota. They were in the Frozen Four last season and were summarily trounced by eventual champions Boston College in the National Semifinals. This year, they come stumbling into the NCAA tournament after slipping up badly in the WCHA Final Five, bowing out there in the semifinals. They were the regular season WCHA champions and took home the MacNaughton Cup.

North Dakota fans are oddly confident heading into the NCAA Tournament, it seems, since some of the fans are already looking ahead to a potential Regional Final matchup with BU.

Why look ahead though? Perhaps it's because perennial Hockey East worryworts from the University of New Hampshire are their opening round opponents.


Oh, bother.

New Hampshire has everything going for them. They've made the tournament and get the guaranteed semi-home game in Manchester. How does this happen, you ask? The NCAA wants to try and guarantee some attendance, so they'll place local teams in Regional sites - almost opposite to how this works with the NCAA Basketball tournament with respect to Regionals.

New Hampshire also comes into this weekend stumbling having lost to Boston College in the Hockey East quarterfinals, many New Hampshire fans are just waiting for the floor to fall out on them once again.

What are UNH fans like? Think of Red Sox fans before 2004 but without the bad attitudes. They're the Eeyores of college hockey fandom, and I say that with as much care as I can muster. UNH fans are tremendous fans, some of the best all-around in college hockey, they're just down on hockey life.

UNH's matchup with UND, if you believe the fans of each side, is shaping up to be a battle between teams looking for their lives to just be ended in the least painful way possible. Then again, fans operate in extremes. I expect this game to be one of the best of the tournament between two highly-skilled and pedigreed programs.

Rounding out the foursome in Manchester is THE Ohio State University. The Buckeyes are probably best known school of these four, but as is the case with college hockey more often than not, the more well known you are the worse you are at it. While BU is the top seed in the tournament, Ohio State is not the worst team in the field (that distinction belongs to Bemidji State University) which affords OSU more of a chance to win, especially since OSU plays in the CCHA with two other #1 seeds (Michigan and Notre Dame).


Yeah, well how does the band spell it on ice?

Does OSU have a chance? Sure they do, the NCAA Hockey tournament is a bit more susceptible to huge upsets than most other NCAA Tournaments. Ohio State has wins this year against three of the tournaments top seeds from the aforementioned Michigan and Notre Dame as well as Denver University. They've got that going for them, which is nice.

The downside? BU is a monster this season. They've been better than everyone else all year long and they're battle tested after making their way through the Hockey East Tournament. Ohio State may scare them for a bit but I don't really consider them to be much of a threat.

Stranger things have happened, however.

ESPN 2 will be carrying these games and the two premiere hockey gurus the World Wide Leader has to offer will be in the house with John Buccigross and Barry Melrose handling duties for this one. The Regional Final on Sunday will be carried on ESPNU.

I'll have updates periodically posted on my Twitter page, so if you're not following me yet, get off your ass and do it already.

BGSU Update & What The Hell Is A Lord Jeff?

I just wanted to add a couple of things to the Bowling Green Hockey story here so you the faithful few can help the cause as best as one can do on the Internet.

First off, you can do your part to stay apprised on new information and fun ways to try and reach out to the BGSU administration by checking out the Facebook group "Save BGSU Hockey!" and joining up with them. If you're not on Facebook, where the hell have you been?

One thing that's been mentioned in the discussion over there is how, on top of funding for improvements to the hockey team's facilities being cut and the building of the Sebo Center for the football program there's also another massive project underway at Bowling Green that was just announced in December.

The university has unveiled the design of the Stroh Center, the new campus basketball arena. I'm not going to point out the obvious here about their new facility sharing the name of a legendary brewery but I will at least show you this that by doing so, you'll further upset the hockey gods:


Stroh's: Good enough for Mario, yet not good enough for BGSU Hockey

The cost of the Stroh Center is slated to clock in at around $36 million dollars. I guess it would be unreasonable to ask that this be a multi-purpose arena.

Wait? It is?

The 131,000 square-foot building will also house the Champions Court practice facility, a BGSU team store, the BGSU Hall of Fame, the University’s main ticket office, athletic offices for men’s basketball, women’s basketball and women’s volleyball, conference and video rooms and sports medicine areas.

Oh, I see. BGSU Hall of Fame? I guess that won't have any mention of hockey there, right? You know, once they make the program a distant memory and all, right? I can see the entry for Rob Blake now...


What's this "hockey" you speak of?

That seems fitting. I'm sure this will be placed right next to the NCAA Championship trophy that'll be covered in dust and buried in the back of the display case behind all the MAC basketball participation trophies.

I guess my point here is that if you're in charge of a university's spending and you're contemplating cutting off programs, ones that at one time were powerful National Championship programs, because of budget concerns... Why build a new arena with that money?

Oh I get it that the Stroh family gave them an $8 million gift to erect something in their name and they're very generous for that, but that's still $28 million coming from elsewhere, $22 million of which is coming from each BGSU student in the form of a $60 student fee.

Real nice, right? I guess asking for fiscal responsibility or accountability or even common sense is asking for the world. Amazing.

I have a feeling we'll be revisiting this story more in the future.

As for actual hockey that's going to be played...

Gross Misconduct is hitting the road for more Back To School action - this time I'll be heading to Amherst, Massachusetts for the NCAA Division III Quarterfinals between the Hobart Statesmen and the Amherst Lord Jeffs.

Wait, the what now? Lord Jeffs?!

Yes, it's true - Division III hockey is made all the more entertaining by the incredible nicknames many of the teams have. In Amherst's case, a ridiculous team nickname is made much less intimidating and impressive when you look at a picture of the man responsible for the name.


Lord Jeffrey Amherst: Supermodel

Be afraid everyone! It's the dandy fops!

With that said, Lord Amherst was a real son of a bitch to deal with during the French and Indian Wars and might be one of the most sadistic people around as he's credited with being the first military man to incorporate germ warfare into his strategy.

I'm not joking. Quoth Lord Amherst:

Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.

Yes, but you see, Native American nicknames are a big problem in college sports.

Right.

Aside from that, I don't think I'll be accepting any free gifts the college might hand out, my paranoia level is sky high after reading this. Then again, after reading all that information about Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the Hobart nickname of Statesmen seems even more cartoonish than their logo:


Ooooh... Scary!

Hobart would be better off posting a picture of the least favorite Congressman or Senator at the time to scare people, but they apparently want to avoid rioting. I can't really fault them for that.

Amherst earned their way to the quarterfinals by defeating Babson College 4-1 and Hobart advanced after taking out Nichols College 3-0. The winner of this game advances to Division III Frozen Four in Lake Placid to face the winner of the Plattsburgh State-Neumann College game, so to say it's kind of a big deal is an understatement.

Cancelling Falcons Crest

I've been jumping back into my collegiate hockey roots here a bit because, frankly, this point of the NHL season bores me while also making me furious. I know that the playoff races are crazy and "anything can shake loose" and all that. I get it, that's great, that's fine. Whatever.

It bores me because you have mediocre teams stepping up their play when they've been sleepwalking all season long and you've got teams that have been legitimately great all year dogging it because they're equal parts injured or bored and have coasted along waiting for the playoffs to begin. It happens every season and it's frustrating to try and cover. I made my calls on who was missing the playoffs before the season was even starting and somehow it's looking like I'm going to be, at worst, 60% correct.

Suck on that Dwayne Klessel.

With that said, it's not all sunshine and rainbows in the college game. It's conference playoff time in Division I and NCAA Tournament time in Division III, and that's the greatest time of the year to be a college hockey fan - but there's dire talk coming out of Ohio.

College Hockey News broke a story discussing the financial muck and mire the Bowling Green University program is in:

Bowling Green school president Dr. Carol Cartwright was rumored to have made a recommendation that cutting hockey be one of the options. University trustee Michael Marsh denied that was the case, and said that decisions on alleviating a large budget shortfall would come from the athletic director Greg Christopher.

If you've been following college hockey for any amount of time, this story line isn't anything new. Last season, Wayne State University ended their program thanks to budget cutbacks in higher education in the state of Michigan. It's an all too familiar story and with college hockey not being one of the cheapest sports to maintain, especially if you don't own your own facility, it's one that hurts schools that haven't been successful at all.

That's not the case with Bowling Green.

Bowling Green University boasts a pretty impressive list of players who have come out of there. Take a look at the names on this list:

Rob Blake: Former L.A. King and current San Jose Sharks defenseman.

Ken Morrow: Former Islanders defenseman and member of the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" Olympic gold medal winners in the Lake Placid games.

George McPhee: A Hobey Baker Award winner and former NHL'er now currently the general manager of the Washington Capitals.

Dan Bylsma: Former NHL journeyman and now head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Kevin Bieksa: Current Vancouver Canucks defenseman.

The list of other former players at BGSU includes 80s and 90s hockey "That Guys" like Garry Galley, Todd Rierden, Nelson Emerson, Brian Holzinger, Mike Liut, Paul Ysebaert, and Greg de Vries.

A couple of the other names familiar with Bowling Green hockey come from their 1984 National Championship team.

Oh, did I forget to mention that BGSU won a title? Yeah, these kinds of things can get forgotten about apparently.

A few of the players on that team have moved on to become great coaches in college hockey, among them RIT's Wayne Wilson, Ohio State's John Markell, Clarkson's George Roll and current Bowling Green head coach Scott Paluch.

Roll in particular had a lot to say about this news with Bowling Green. More from the CHN story:

I don't know the specifics. I do know I have a lot of pride from that program, it was the best years or my life, and I hate to see the program being treated this way.

I don't think the program has been supported like it needs to, just from things I've heard. Being there this year (with Clarkson), the rink clearly needs work. There's a lot of talk amongst alumni in the last couple days. We're doing what we can.

This is what it boils down to for programs in positions like this: Donations from the alumni.

What's worse is that BGSU had planned to do improvements to the home rink but eventually cut the budget down for such things so much they bagged it entirely - money likely reallocated and spent on the football program and to make improvements to Doyt Perry Stadium - including the brand new Sebo Center which attaches to the stadium and is meant to be an all-purpose athletic facility.

What's sadder still is that it took donations from NHL players Rob Blake and Nelson Emerson to even get improvements to the team's locker room handled. Don't get me wrong here, money in college is always better spent on education but given how much students fork over to attend there, monies ponied up from state taxpayers or extremely wealthy donors that enjoy seeing their name carved in stone - it probably wouldn't hurt to see a few things kept up to code, at the least.


Shouldn't a former championship program deserve a better fate than this?

What happens next? Will a big donor or two come forth and help, and (pardon the phrasing it can't be helped here) bail out the program and get it set on the correct course? Will there be a farewell tour next season for the Falcons where they, essentially, play a lame duck season knowing full-well that they're done after the year (similar to what happened to Wayne State)?

It's tough to say, but if I'm going to lean any way on this: I have to think the axe is going to fall and Division I hockey gets a team lighter. Why? Simple. The president of Bowling Green State University has overseen this type of thing before.

Dr. Carol Cartwright is an esteemed woman in academia and someone who is highly regarded at being one of the best in the country at running a university. She's also the woman with the blood of the Kent State Golden Flashes hockey program on her hands.

In 1991, Cartwright was named president of Kent State and in 1994, the program called it quits. Cartwright was just named president of Bowling Green State in January and sees a failing and faltering program that is draining money and not making any of it back. Frankly, in her position you can see why she would make a recommendation to cut the program.

The Falcons suffer greatly in attendance, playing to a 40.9% (2,044 out of 5,000) full arena on average, a mark only better than a few schools: American International, Sacred Heart, Bentley, Alabama-Huntsville, and Ohio State.

The first three schools listed there play to less than an average of 500 fans per game in venues that hold less than 2,000 people. Compare that to Alabama-Huntsville who is in a similar situation to Bowling Green meanwhile Ohio State draws nearly 4,200 per game inside the cavernous Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center on the OSU campus, a facility they share with the basketball team.

If folks aren't going to the games, you're not making ticket revenue, people aren't buying team gear - all of that. Then again, who wants to go to an arena that hasn't seen improvements made to it since the school last won a National Championship.

You get back what you put into things and in the case with the Bowling Green hockey program, it appears not much other than basic maintenance and budgeting has been put into it and it's shown in the standings. They haven't made an NCAA Tournament appearance since 1990, and they haven't been above .500 since the 1996-1997 season under coach Buddy Powers.

The school is then in the position of deciding whether or not to reward mediocrity and apparently opted not to while ignoring the fact that having sub-par facilities go a long way towards making a program more successful and bringing in better recruits and putting a winner on the ice that folks want to come watch.

In the financial "chicken or egg" way of thinking, the school administrators simply understand that neither the chicken nor the eggs are making any money and that's all that matters. If the eggs weren't rotten or the chickens were more palatable, then maybe BGSU doesn't have to worry.

Maybe.

The administrators don't have the time nor the patience to worry and they need financial results fast and a good way to score a few hundred thousand dollars is to cut off a program that's not getting it done.

At other schools where this has happened, a lack of success can be blamed but ultimately it's not athletics people are plunking their money down for at those schools (namely Fairfield and Iona College most recently). Sure, they've got football teams too but hockey doesn't carry the zest for any of the big money alums from places like that - there's no history for hockey and unless you're hamstrung by Title IX concerns and money worries, football will always stick around.

BGSU has history and a damn good one at that. This isn't going to be a quiet dismissal the way Fairfield, Iona, Wayne State, Findlay, Kent State and Illinois-Chicago were before.

This one will be loud and it will be felt across the hockey landscape and a lot of the blame can rest on the shoulders of the administration that turned their backs on it for so long.

Bowling Green has been given nothing and now there may be nothing to get back. Maybe this can all be averted but with an announcement like this sneaking out at the end of the season, I can't help but figure that bad news for hockey at Bowling Green is coming sooner than not.

"Why don't you call me some time when you have no class?"

What, you don't know where that quote comes from? That's too bad, because it's part of a theme I've got cooked up here for the next month and a half here.

That's right, Gross Misconduct is going Back To School.


Legends don't get PhotoShopped.

Starting tonight, the next month and a half will be loaded with college hockey action and given that I'm located in a nice region to get a healthy dose of a lot of games up close and personal and since Gross Misconduct will be in Washington, D.C. for the Frozen Four I figured we're taking things up another notch.

I'm delivering the Triple Lindy right in your face and I'm going to make it that much easier to tag along for the ride, and there's no way that Billy Zabka can stop it either.


Triple Lindy in your face, Zabka!

The warm-up act this weekend - we're geeking out.

Hardcore.

Gross Misconduct will be firmly entrenched in Troy where the natives of R.P.I. are restless and struggling mightily while the rival they hate the most (Clarkson College) is coming into town along with their potentially NCAA-bound travel partners (St. Lawrence University) from the northern reaches of Potsdam, New York.

Thanks to the beauty of the Interweb, you can come along for the ride.

Sure, I'll be there in attendance at the game and snapping photos of anyone egregious and God help anyone committing jersey fouls because I'll make you famous here... but, if you're at home or have a rad high-tech phone to follow along with such things, you can do so with me thanks to Twitter.

No, I still can't wrap my head around it but I do know that I can fire questions at fake Mike Milbury and fake John Tortorella and it amuses me greatly. It also lets me post updates thanks to my phone and text messages and, yeah, all this freaking technology and it blows my mind.

We'll be giving it a run for the money tonight and tomorrow night from Troy, Tweeting (there's GOT to be a better way to phrase this) updates from the game and just so long as I'm not taken into custody or told to knock it the hell off... we'll keep at it and keep it fun cause that's how I like to do it.

So mark it off, get your computers set to follow along either right here (there's a Twitter box on the side of the page, it's neat and handy) or go to my Twitter page (feel free to follow me if you're a Twit too) while either watching the game on Time Warner 3 (if you're in the Capital District of New York) or on the radio, WRPI will be handling duties for both games this weekend and those guys rock.

7 p.m. starts for both games - and don't do it just for me or just for yourself...

Do it for Burt Young.


"What'd I tell you? My name is Lou, not fuckin' Paulie."