Potential changes coming to college hockey?
Per the linked article:
"The possibilities on the table could significantly change college athletics. They include:
1. No scholarship limits (the Division-I limit currently is 18).
2. No limits on the number of full-time coaches on staff (it's currently three).
3. Unlimited player transfers without having to sit out a year (players currently can transfer once without having to sit out)."
Yes please
note how none of these changes are "stop having tourney games in stupid empty arenas"
it's in there.
the text was greyed out in OPs link ... so I opened the yahoo sports version and saw at the end it said
There was some talk about changing NCAA regionals from neutral sites to home sites. A few coaches spoke in favor of moving them to campus venues, though nothing is imminent. NCAA regionals are locked in through 2026
So ... at least a little progress.
The hold up always seems to be that a majority of D1 schools will never be 1 seeds so they continue to vote for plinko because it benefits them (others obviously have arena availability concerns too).
these ideas are so batshit, my only hope is that the bigger schools are proposing crazy ass shit so when they throw 'home ice NCAA tourney games" the smaller schools think, 'yeah, thats actually reasonable.'
They feel like 'big school' proposals for sure. 'Alright small schools. What if we just had unlimited spending, unlimited coaches, and unlimited poaching of your best players?......oh, well what if we gave up on all that and just did home site regionals instead?"
It is at the very end, but then also notes the sad reality that we are stuck with what we have through 2026.
Certainly feels like something that should be undone sooner rather than... that.
yay, only 5 more years of empty arenas when they could make it cool (and profitable) as hell immediately.
April 27th, 2022 at 11:53 AM ^
Exactly, if these arena are mostly empty, you would think both sides (arenas and the teams/NCAA would be able to negotiate an early end to the arrangement.
I know any of this presumes the NCAA wants to do a smart thing and play the Tourney in front of actual people but one can dream.
Those proposals are an absolute non-starter for your D2 and D3 schools playing D1 hockey i.e. a majority of D1 programs. Not even sure why these were proposed because they seem DOA - unless the whole point is to anchor to something absurd and get the small schools to budge and move toward the middle
April 27th, 2022 at 10:29 AM ^
Can't find it again, but the write-up I saw stated that the "unlimited"-type things weren't actually proposals, but potential fallout from the Alston case. I have no idea how true that is, but it makes a lot more sense, especially as an alarmist, sky-is-falling reaction to uncertainty, than these being real proposals.
How can you have no scholarship limits when schools have Title IX to consider?
That’s a separate rule entirely.
This simply means the sport itself won’t restrict how many scholarships you can have. FBS Football for example caps at 85. Title IX has nothing to do with that. Title IX is a separate compliance issue and it would be up to each individual school to make sure they’re compliant.
Basically you can have as many scholarships as you want in hockey (under this proposal) and you’d have to adjust your other sports to remain compliant with Title IX. Something significantly easier for the larger schools to do.
Correct. Also seems like a proposal that the likes of Bowling Green and Ferris State will freak out about.
I’d wager most schools would be against it as an actual proposal, it’s merely there as a bargaining chip.
A school like Michigan has the ability to add a women’s sport to counter the additional mens scholarships to remain Title IX compliant. Even among the other FBS schools that sponsor D1 hockey, not many have the same funding ability. I’d say Michigan, OSU, Penn State and Notre Dame are probably the only ones who could really do that. Wisconsin, Minny and MSU might be a bit strapped for cash if they attempted a move like that. I certainly don’t see BC, UMass, UConn or the MAC schools that have hockey having the financing flexibility to do so. And definitely not the D2 or D3 schools.
The flip side of that is that I also think the schools who could “afford” to do so are aware of what a bad move it is financially and have no interest in actually doing so. But it’s a decent scare tactic to get some concessions from smaller schools
Can referees call penalties in the Frozen Four next year?
Cool - now get rid of neutral site tournament games
Not a fan of unlimited transfers.
April 26th, 2022 at 10:05 PM ^
Fix it so the entire freaking season doesn't come down to one game. A three or five game series should be possible throughout the playoffs.
There is some important context that needs to be pointed out regarding this. While the article was written about the happenings at a Hockey Coaches Association convention, the three items listed in the OP are not rule changes that were proposed or discussed by the coaches. Nor are they hockey specific rules changes. They are items brought up by a NCAA representative who spoke at the convention.
[NCAA rep] Dana gave the coaches, who had assembled in Naples Grande Beach Resort, an idea of what legislative changes could potentially be coming in the wake of last summer's Supreme Court ruling in the Alston case
Essentially this is someone from the NCAA saying "hey, we got our ass handed to us in the Supreme Court trying to defend our current system so you guys may want to prepare yourself for some changes" I think it is pretty interesting that someone from the NCAA is on record saying this, as they usually try and avoid any talk that they may need to make changes. However, it probably remains to be seen if this is an indication the NCAA is actually seriously considering changes or just trying to scare people.
April 27th, 2022 at 10:33 AM ^
In my experience, college hockey people tend to be pretty realistic about changes like this. In CFB and MBB, there's enough media attention that the talking points and "narrative" matter, but hockey just doesn't have enough clout or attention, so they mostly talk openly and realistically about these changes that are generally driven by CFB and MBB politics.
April 27th, 2022 at 11:39 AM ^
The removal of the scholarship limit at the NCAA level for all sports would be a pretty seismic shift for a lot of sports, so I'd be surprised if that happened without significant discussion. The coaching limits being removed would be less surprising, and the unlimited transfers feels somewhat inevitable at this point.