Why no women's hockey at M?
While watching olympic women's hockey, my wife asked me why Michigan doesn't have a women's hockey team. I did not have an answer. All of the olympians came from Minnesota, BC, North Dakota, etc. (i.e. traditional hockey powers). I'm skeptical it's money because we know the athletic department prints money and they could find a donor if needed. It would be a Title IX bonus, allowing an additional men's program if needed?
But the large majority of schools outside of those lose money even on football. Men's basketball is often the only sport that turns a profit, if any do. Even at major schools every varsoty sport but football and men's basketball loses money, with some exceptions for hockey and a few for women's basketball.
Fan interest and expenses are important considerations for adding or keeping varsity sports. Generating profits is not.
Title 9 always plays a role in these decisions.
Title IX would give us a reason to have a team (to balance out the men's team's scholarships).
It's most likely that we are concerned about the cost.
Title 9 would mandate that UM also added a men's sport that is likely a non-revenue sport as well. So yes, title 9 factors in quite notably, and there is nothing gender insensitive about that statement.
I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case. You don't have to have a perfect 50/50 scholarship match. There are a few different criteria that can be met to prove you are providing equal athletic opportunity.
Plz delete.
Well that settles it. WD for AD. I'm in.
Wolverine Devotee for Michigan AD? {checks to verify that WD is not actually Dave Brandon} Seconded.
It is weird that they don't have a team. They have the facilities, the culture at Michigan around hockey is healthy, and there should be a good amount of local talent to jump-start a decent program.
I assume, like always, it's about money. But I'd like to know why.
I'm not sure if UM really does "have the facilities." Many schools with two varsity hockey programs have mutiple sheets of ice. Yost only has one, and its historic status and location next to other buildings means it can't easily be expanded to add a second practice rink. Sure, the teams could share - but that would cut down on community access to the rink, broomball, etc.
I agree that a women's program be added if the Athletic Department wanted to make it happen. But some sacrifices would need to be made to provide two teams with proper facility access.
What about a Koala hockey team?
Only if they all wear aviators.
U-M Dearborn just added a D1 women's team starting next season.
Yost doesn't even have room for a visitor's locker room for men's hockey, let alone 2 more locker rooms (home & away) for women.
At some point, Michigan is going to need to have a long conversation about Yost ice Arena. They have renovated it so much that it's starting to look like a person who has had too many plastic surgeries. The visitor's locker room situation, plus the sterile seating with huge gaps between the fans and the glass, plus the luxury seating that's half-empty even on the biggest days, plus the ice in the southwest corner that never quite manages to freeze until halfway through each period...it's a mess. Which is sad, because it was a great place to watch hockey.
At some point in the next 5-25 years, Michigan is going to have to bite the bullet, beg an alum for $50 million to $100 million dollars, and build a new hockey rink with a less historic name attached to it.
I'm sure that once that happens, Michigan will get a women's hockey team.
Jarring to see you say this so frankly, but it probably needs to be said. Sometimes I worry that Michigan is going to get left behind in hockey because the facilities will no longer be competitive.
I wonder what an arena project would look like; we're talking a minimum $100 million expense right now. But there's nowhere left to go for Yost, and as it stands the only seats readily available to new fans that aren't students are the marginal ones in the north endzone that nobody wanted last Friday. I feel like the fanbase is somewhat capped by this; when I had an opportunity to buy season tickets 15 years ago I certainly balked when I saw where they'd be located.
That's a club team--just like Michigan has. Pay-to-play ("the cost passed on to the player is very minimal").
The OP is talking about varsity hockey, with scholarships for some and no added expenses for all.
I don't think we can discount the halo effect from the US Women's hockey team. It must have had some impact on yourng girls watching.
Plus there's room to do creative marketing at women's games. I was at a Colgate-Syracuse women's hockey game with a Tuesday noon start time. What could have been an attendance disaster was mitigated by bringing in no fewer than 10 elementary schools. Those kids can scream.
What's a good pair of jeans under $100? I need slim fit.
These look about your size:
could tuision be cheaper if we got rid of the stuff that didn't make money?
At this point, you're trolling. Mind sharing with the class what's got you so butthurt?
one ply
NO OFFENSE, NONE TAKEN.
but when I started school in fall of 1971, the men's varsity hockey team played at the Colliseum on Hill Street across the side street from Fingerle Lumber.
Now that was a dump. Seats on only one side of the arena.
Best college hockey arena I have ever seen is Ingalls Rink at Yale designed by Eero Saarinen and nicknamed The Whale. Roof is made of wood.
Why would we need a very large oceanic bird related to the shearwaters, with long narrow wings?
NM. Not the right hill to die on at this point.
As mentioned, it's to even out Football's 85.
When we chose Water Polo over Hockey for a women's program (I believe this is when we added men's soccer?) it was the same time Ohio State was adding a program, which for them was Women's Ice Hockey. They really wanted us to add hockey simultaneously to form a rivalry, but we chose otherwise.
Which men's team would you want to add if we had an opening by adding a women's team? Does Title IX say it has to be equal or it just has to have as many or more women's scholarships?
I think Michigan could be competitive in Men's Rowing.... beyond that? Men's volleyball? Water Polo? What are the strongest men's club teams currently?
Men's Rowing would need several new women's teams to offset its required scholarship count if it became a varsity team. Which means it will remain a club indefinitely.
It probably doesn't help that it's not a B1G sport. The only varsity sport that's not B1G sport that we have is water polo and the only reason that we have that is because Bill Martin gave in to a Regent who wanted water polo.
The AD has priorities and the #1 priority is football. Sure, we could probably come up with $1M or so to upgrade a club team to varsity status, but then we'd have to cut back on the football side of things, and what would the team do without fourth member of the facilities staff, Biff Bunten?
And to answer folks saying no one is going to go the games, who cares? The Big 10 network is seriously in need of some more programming options. Would you rather watch, The Journey, for a 10th time or catch a women's hockey game? I know what I'd rather watch.
http://mgoblue.com/sports/2017/6/28/sports-m-footbl-coaches.aspx
In addition to the head coach and 10 assistants, we have (and yes, I pasted the whole list to show how ridiculous this is):
Recruiting & Personnel
Sean Magee - Director of Player Personnel and Administration
Matt Dudek - Director of Recruiting
Cooper Petagna - Recruiting Coordinator
Aaron Bills - Graphic Designer
Ty Rogers - Multimedia Coordinator
Chris Bryant - Director of High School Relations
Joe Schwartzmiller - Recruiting Intern
Connor Anderson - Recruiting Intern
Operations & Performance
Mark Taurisani - Director of Operations
Fergus Connolly - Director of Performance Science
Scott Goldschmidt - Assistant Director of Operations
Kelly King - Operations Administrative Manager
Michelle Guidry-Pan - Schembechler Hall Administrative Assistant
Tony Jones - Operations Intern
Analysts
Kevin Lempa - Senior Defensive Analyst
Tyler Brown - Special Teams Analyst
Devin Bush - Defensive Analyst
Elijah Sandweiss - Defensive Analyst
Football Administration
Al Ades - Analytics Coordinator
Jon Falk - Assistant to Coach Harbaugh
Jack Harbaugh - Senior Advisor to Coach Harbaugh
J.T. Rogan - Director of Internal Communications and Operations for Coach Harbaugh
Football Interns
Chad Antonelli - Football Intern
Jordan Kovacs - Football Intern
Alfonso Smith - Football Intern
Todd Storm - Football Intern
Strength & Conditioning
Ben Herbert - Director of Strength & Conditioning
Medicine/Athletic Training
Dave Granito - Papadopoulos Family Director of Athletic Training (Football)
Phil Johnson - Football Athletic Trainer
Jason Williams - Football Athletic Trainer
Pierre Nesbit - Football Athletic Trainer
Griffin Haddad - Football Athletic Training Graduate Assistant
Video Staff
Phil Bromley - Video Coordinator
Kevin Undeen - Video Assistant
Equipment Staff
Gary Hazelitt - Director of Equipment and Internal Operations
Sonny Anderson - Assistant Equipment Manager
Schembechler Hall
Kris Barnes - Director of Facilities
Biff Bunten - Facilities
Rob Woodruff - Facilities
Jeff Pipkin - Facilities
Academics
Steve Connelly - Director of Academic Services
Claiborne Green - Coordinator of Football Academic Services
Communications
Dave Ablauf - Associate AD/Football Communications
Chad Shepard - Assistant Director, Communications
I agree and Im 100% for a womens team.
Certainly wouldn't be the first time.
If we're not going to pay the players, the other options for spending the football revenues include expanding options for non-revenue athletes and paying for 45 support personnel. That's 1 support person for every 2 players. You don't find that ridiculous?
Iowa lists 29 football staffers including coaches. 55 vs. 29. BTW, they ended up with the same 8-5 record as Michigan. Sure would be nice if the 26 additional staffers did something to improve the bottom line. The football program is bloated and inefficient. I can admit that. Can you?
https://hawkeyesports.com/coaches.aspx?path=football
And here we have a straw man hot take. Football staffing has nothing to do with why there's no women's hockey team.
Well, the point is that's not really how it works. There's no one at 1000SSS looking at the budget saying "well, football needs fifteen quality control specialists now, so cancel the women's hockey planning."
In a perfect world without finances, you can have all the sports you want. But in a world with department budgets and, well, reality, extremely expensive sports like women's hockey are a hard sell to get off the ground when there really isn't fan interest, nor the money to do it. Michigan shouldn't be, and isn't in the business of adding sports merely because it would be cool to have Sport X, Y, or Z.
to free up the resources for women's hockey. There's no men's rowing, so it'd be a step toward equality.