Szuma, Spencer Hyman leave Hockey Team; BTHC Expansion

Its really more a statement on wealth than anything else as hockey is an expensive ass sport plus skating isn't really a big pastime in most low income areas in the country.  Having interacted with athletes at michigan on a pretty regular basis I think the not having admissions issues stems mostly from the wealth of the families, and less the intelligence of the average hockey player.

edit: and thats not saying hockey players are dumb, though some of them are, its that they generally fell in line with most of the other sports including football and basketball, some engaged kids that could have hacked it at michigan regardless, some kids that were smart enough but don't really try and take the easy classes and some kids that really should have been kicked out but got enough direction from the ad tutoring to stay academically eligible even when it was pretty shady.

They do love to jump on hockey bandwagons over here, at least.  And they love chanting "Detroit sucks".  

Chicago hockey is the little brother of Detroit hockey.  

I agree, I'm closer to NW and Illinois. Would love to see some U-M Hockey in those places.

And when you look at an Athletic Department like Northwestern, which fields a surprisingly low number of varsity programs as it is (they don't even have a track program), why would they take on what is arguably the most expensive sport to both get off the ground and maintain? 

They have a rather strong club team now i believe

It takes a lot more than a nice website to have a varsity team. They play at what is essentially a community center with an ice rink; they'd have to build their own facility. Scholarships are a huge cost (especially at a school as expensive as NU), as are full-time coaches, equipment, facilities, marketing, merchandising, administration, etc. Club teams take on almost all of those costs themselves (or through donors). NU hasn't shown the commitment to do the same for lesser sports that cost infinitely less. I'm not sure it's in the cards, even if they've shown token interest.

Sure, there are a lot of hockey fans in Chicago. Yet you'd need a hockey fan with the kind of seed money PSU received to get it off the ground. And it's not like Chicago hasn't had college hockey before--anybody remember the UIC Flames?

Club hockey has absolutely nothing to do with varsity hockey.  This was a source of confusion before Penn State, and has unfortunately been even more confusing to people since Penn State created a varsity team.  Club hockey teams never, ever "go varsity."  Penn State created a new varsity program that was forced to share the club team's arena for one season while they finished the new arena (with luxury boxes and other modern amenities).

Sure Northwestern might be able to sell out a hockey arena (although it should be noted they can't sell out a basketball arena or a football stadium).  That doesn't mean the AD is about to add 36 scholarships--18 men and 18 women--for a team that doesn't even have an on-campus arena, and the AD isn't likely to create a hockey team that they don't fully fund with scholarships.  Why create a new team if you're not going to try to compete from the start?

Here is Northwestern club hockey's home arena:

http://cityofevanston.org/parks-recreation/robert-crown-center/

That's a municipal rink in Evanston.  No school is going to make that place the basis of a $1 million a year expenditure on scholarships alone if they have to share a rink with the adult rec broomball league.

My beer league also uses a pointstreak site  :) 

Just as with NU, it would take a major donor ponying up a pile of startup cash, fan interest to keep maintanence donations going once the program launches, and a commitment from the Athletic Department to sustain a facility-intensive, cash-drain sport when there may not be immediate success or following. It's a tall order. 

The fact of the matter is college hockey is and always will be a niche sport. Despite the NCAA's best intentions with all these harebrained schemes to put the Frozen Four and tournament sites in non-traditional locations, the startup costs and uphill battles with fanbases make college hockey expansion a pretty hefty undertaking. Hell, read John Bacon's Blue Ice and look at what happened to college hockey in the mid-twentieth century--damn near everyone axed their programs because it was too expensive. Michigan didn't, of course, but Wisconsin did. It takes the right geographical location, financial commitment, and institutional support to do it.

For my money, we're probably looking at a six-team conference for the duration.