Szuma, Spencer Hyman leave Hockey Team; BTHC Expansion
(Note that this is SPENCER Hyman, brother of alternate captain Zach Hyman.)
A few bits of information via the Yost Post. Mike Szuma and Spencer Hyman will not be with the team this fall:
Mike Szuma... Has met with Coach Berenson and has decided to not return to the program this year. Szuma will stay enrolled at Michigan and work on completing his studies.
All credit due to Jeff Weinstein, Michigan's hockey SID, for the info that Spencer will be playing at the University of Toronto this season.
Solid landing spot for Spencer in my opinion. Both were well buried on the defensive line chart so this isn't terribly surprising. Good luck to them both.
Additionally, someone met Brian Wiseman this summer and he had this to say on B1G expansion:
I was lucky enough to meet and have dinner with Brian Wiseman, Beilein, Hoke, and Brandon in June. A great highlight for my son and I was all the time Brian spent with us. We talked B1G hockey expansion. He stated that Northwestern and Nebraska have both inquired about membership. He also believes Illinois will make the move.
Very surprising to me that Northwestern inquired. Given that 'inquired' could mean they were curious without any serious intent to join. They would've been about at the bottom of my list of Big Ten teams likely to pick up DI hockey. Illinois and Nebraska are not surprising to me at all. I expect them to be the next two teams on board.
Northwestern owns TONS of land in Evanston, but I really wonder where they'd put in an arena near campus. Or, more importantly, how they'd manage to drum up enthusiasm for a new sport on a campus that barely attracts attention for what they already have. Interesting thought, but I doubt it's plausible.
more the merrier!!!
And I've heard it before so I want to get out in front of it now; that's not a statement on race rather a statement on the athletes.
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 can just barely envision a scenario where Northwestern finally moves out of their high school gym and builds a multi-purpose arena that could hold both basketball and hockey...but their fan support is so meh I would be surprised if they could raise the collosal amount of money needed for that
Well it is hard to have fan support for a team that has never made the NCAA tournament...
I already love going up there for football and basketball games. Make it happen!
I agree, I'm closer to NW and Illinois. Would love to see some U-M Hockey in those places.
This definitely falls into the "believe it when I see it" category.
There is exactly one major FBS-level athletic department to have added and kept a varsity hockey team in the last 30 years--Penn State. And they did it because somebody gave them $100 million to do it. Unless somebody does the same thing for Illinois, Nebraska or Northwestern, the Big Ten will remain at 6 teams for years to come.
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?
Awful lot of Northwestern Alumni license plates in the parking lots for Team Illionis and Chicago Young Americans practices (two of the big local AAA hockey clubs). I agree that it isn't all that likely, but getting interest from the level of donor that buys club seats and gets a little extra access wouldn't be surprising at all.
Nebraska is closest as they have an arena ready to go, they could get off the ground with significantly less money than most. Illinois, Northwestern, and just about anyone else would be needing tons of money to build an arena
Hyman left quite a while ago. That's why Porikos was added to the roster.
I thought Mike Szuma could have played an important role with the team last season, but the word around Yost was that there was a concussion keeping him out.
Illinois actually did have Hockey once.
Their only coach was......Vic Heyliger. He went 13-6 against Michigan.
Then obviously, he came here and became the legend.
They have a rather strong club team now i believe
They have a pretty nice website for a club hockey team. For anyone wanting to find out more about them, check out this link:
http://northwesternhockey.pointstreaksites.com/view/northwesternhockey
I'm not as dubious as Bando is about them adding Hockey. They already have a club team in place. Yes, it's expensive to give out scholarships and whatnot, but they are centrally located so travel costs aren't going to be that bad, and I know several folks from Chicago that are huge hockey fans. Would they have to give scholarships to the whole team, or could they phase this in over time?
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?
Currently, they are looking for an assistant coach, to be paid a stipened {sic} determined at the end of the season.
Yeah, I understand it's a huge investment. I'd just rather look at the glass as 1/100 full instead of 99/100 empty.
EDIT: Meanwhile, they've found enough budget to send their lacross team to Italy for a 10 day tour: http://www.nusports.com/sports/w-lacros/spec-rel/080414aac.html. Partial scholarships are given in hockey. Head coaches aren't paid like their football and basketball counterparts. Hell, my high school had a hockey team. The NCAA needs to stop making things so expensive to add. Yes, under title 9, they'd probably have to add a women's team as well. I'd rather we try to expand opportunities than find excuses to limit them. Their football stadium doesn't compare to ours or the other 12 (well, maybe Rutgers') in the B1G, why must their hockey rink?
Uh... NU Women's Lacrosse has won 7 of the past 9 NCAA Women's Lacrosse championships. It's pretty much their most successful athletics program ever.
As for the rest of your post, I don't think you really understand how the economics of major conference varsity athletics works. This isn't about handing out a stipend to a club assistant coach anymore.
folks neg you on sight. Get a sense of humor already.
No shit, I understand they aren't going to pay a varsity coach a stipend. I thought it was humorous that the club team is offering an assistant coaching position and all they could offer was a to be determined stipend at the end of the season.
By the way, I received 3 A+ and an A in University of Michigan Economics courses, so I think I understand a little bit about economics.
Well, Wolverine Devotee negs me on sight because he needs to grow up. Nothing more than that.
As for your econ grades, that must look really nice on your transcript. Doesn't change the fact the content of your posts show you woefully misunderstand what it takes to turn a club program playing in a public rink into a varsity program competing against some of the best-funded and historically-successful college hockey programs in America. Alton outlines it quite nicely below, actually.
Do I need to put a stupid /s tag on my sarcasm to make it easy for you to understand when I'm being facetious? I despise the personal attacks on this site and for you to question my intelligence when you don't even know me is ridiculous. Sure, judge my intellect based on an attempt at humor concerning the Northwestern Hockey team. That's reasonable. /s
Anyway, here are the economics:
Limit of 18 scholarships, $60K for full cost of attendance, that's about $1M annually.
Michigan has three coaches who make about $400K combined. Let's add 100% for benefits, and divide by 4/3 because Northwestern is not going to pay their first coach Red Berenson money. That's around $600K.
Equipment comes to, I'm guessing, $50K. And you've got travel and insurance and renting rink time. It's Chicago, I'm sure they can find a reasonable area to play a few hockey games. Do they need to build a Yost/Munn to compete with Michigan/MSU? Not if football and basketball are any guide.
Michigan State reports they spend ~$3M on hockey and bring in $2.3M, for a net loss of $700K.
http://college-sports.findthebest.com/l/7021/Michigan-State-University-…
Should they kill their program?
Meanwhile, Pat Fitzgerald is making $2.2M a year to coach football. This gets back to Brian's whole issue about Universities raking in money on football and basketball and handing it over to the coaches, instead of taking care of the student-athletes. In 2010, the football team made $7M and the basketball team made $6M, while the rest of their teams lost $11M. Should they kill the rest of their teams because they all lose money? It's not just about money, Bando, otherwise, Marching Bands WOULD NOT EXIST. And we would be worse off as a result.
see: http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/28743/pay-for-play-northwestern
So I can see why they wouldn't want to add a team that is going to cost them $1M, but that's not because hockey is so expensive. It's because they would have to add an equivalent number of female slots that bring in no revenue. There are many expensive sports (the university lost >$10M on women's athletics), but the university values those as some sort of community building activity. Perhaps there is even some intangible benefit to having a hockey team, such as free advertising for the university.
Their total budget is $2B, I hardly think that an extra $1M expense is going to matter.
And, hilariously enough, no one gives a shit about the Hawks until it's a sure thing they're going to be a Cup contender. You don't see a stitch of Hawks gear on anybody in this city until the playoffs start. Then, all of the sudden, it's like everyone was issued a Toews shirsey with their apartment lease.
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 :)
Option 6 $10,000.00 Your add and logo on the front page of the Northwestern Men’s Ice Hockey team website and on the Schedule poster that will be put up all around the Evanston and Chicago campus, a company sign at Robert Crown Ice Rink in Evanston, ad on front or back page of the sponsor book and logo on teams home and away jerseys.
Anyone interested in organizing a kickstarter so we can put the MGoBlog logo on the NU hockey jerseys?
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.
I agree with everything, except I think that Nebraska definitely joins in the next 10 years. They're most of the way there already.
Everyone else needs a hundred million dollar check