Thursday, January 13, 2011

College hockey showcases hopes to spark interest in South

College hockey showcases hopes to spark interest in South

By Alex Hubbard

With few exceptions, college hockey is barely on the sports radar in the South. It is most often relegated to cable channels in the triple digits. Newspaper coverage is virtually nonexistent.

College hockey, however, will make history this weekend in Nashville as the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Merrimack College in Massachusetts are set to play a pair of regular-season games at the Bridgestone Arena. The games will mark the first NCAA Division I college hockey contests to be played in Tennessee.

Penn State, a Big Ten Conference participant and an institution with significant credibility, recently announced that it would become the 59th school to sponsor Division I hockey, making it one of the few schools of note outside the big hockey states of Michigan, Minnesota and Massachusetts. Beyond that, obvious development is something greater.

Spurred by the growth of NHL in cities like Nashville, Dallas and Los Angeles, youth hockey is also growing at a rapid pace. Players from California, Texas and Florida now appear on the rosters of many colleges and Canadian junior teams ? even a few NHL teams. However, this is a trend that is not without opposition.

Paul Kelly is a lawyer, well known in hockey circles for his past work as the head of the National Hockey League Players Association. He is now the executive director of College Hockey, Inc., an organization designed to promote college hockey through recruitment and promotion. He points to California as the state where hockey has grown, largely due to the influence of the NHL.

“Because there are three NHL teams in the state of California, and no college teams by the way, but three NHL teams, they have begun to develop some real talent,” Kelly said. “Part of it is families and kids following the sport. Part of it is NHL players retire, they like living in the areas, they remain behind, they have their own kids, they get involved in coaching, and suddenly you see some talented kids start coming out of there.”

It’s a pattern beginning to repeat itself all over the country, yet the difficulty for college hockey is the lack of progress in expansion of the college games relative to that of the NHL.

Chris Luongo, Alabama-Huntsville’s head hockey coach, has seen his recruiting paths change throughout the years, but he believes there is much room for growth in NCAA hockey.

“There’s these areas of the country that have these NHL teams present with no college teams around,” Luongo said. “What we see in those areas is a lot of good players coming up that aren’t exposed to college hockey.”

Luongo points mainly to the three Canadian junior leagues that have used the lack of local college appeal to land some of the South’s best hockey talent. While The Canadian Junior Hockey League offers a chance to complete a high school education and offers a popular route to the professional ranks, it disqualifies players from playing NCAA hockey any time after the player participates in a single junior game.

Kelly said that four or five schools, in addition to Penn State, are actively weighing the viability of a Division One hockey program, but the economics remain the largest obstacle.

“Funding is very tight,” Kelly said. “Unless there’s a benefactor who can donate money to help get a program started, or unless they have a rink already in existence or unless they are fairly well convinced that they can bring in enough in terms of ticket sales to cover their costs, no one wants to start an athletic program that’s going to cost them money.”

Alabama-Huntsville has stood as college hockey’s exception for more than 30 years, using its position as a center of scientific research to bring in players from all around the world, even before the NHL put roots down in the region.

Though no other area teams participate in NCAA hockey, club level hockey is present at almost every Southeastern Conference, including Vanderbilt and Tennessee. Should these areas decide to adopt a hockey program, Coach Luongo believes he knows the secret to bringing the skilled players in.

“It’s kind of neat to put a light jacket on in the middle of January – it’s not something that’s possible to do in many places up North,” Luongo said. “We certainly sell that aspect of the weather.”

UAH and Merrimack will play Friday, Jan. 14 at 7:05 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 15 at 1:05 p.m.