Big Ten Conference may add hockey by 2013

I was doing a little research this weekend on the possibility of the Big Ten Conference adding hockey to its list of athletics. I didn't publish my little thought on my blog because I thought 'nah, it will never happen.'. Well, checked out USCHO.com today and to my surprise there was this article stating that the Big Ten Conference is in fact looking to add hockey to its list.

For those of you who do not know why this has come up, it is because Terry Pegula, new owner of the Buffalo Sabres, made a $88 million donation to Penn State University to build a new arena and put a men's and women's division 1 hockey team on campus (Penn State has a club hockey team on campus, but not a varsity team). Penn State is part of the Big Ten Conference that also includes Northwestern University, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, Purdue University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, and the University of Wisconsin. Yes I know, the Big Ten actually has 11 members, hence the new design for the conference logo that has a '11' in it.

Notice that with the addition of ice hockey at Penn State that 6 of the Big Ten schools will be sponsoring division 1 hockey. While this news could be great for college hockey as it could mean more lucrative television contracts for the schools and more nationally televised college hockey games, it is a loss for the conferences that those schools are already a part of.

The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is arguably the toughest college hockey conferences to play in and would lose Wisconsin and Minnesota, bringing their total members to 10. The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) would lose three of its staple franchises; Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State; bringing its member count to 8.

But what about the other Big Ten schools?  All the schools have club ice hockey teams but will/can they move them up to NCAA Division 1 status? Let's take a look at these schools and what facilities they can use or will need.

Purdue University
Located in West Lafayette, Indiana there is no major hockey arena in this town. The school would have to build a new arena or renovate the 14,000 capacity basketball stadium, Mackey Arena, to include a ice making plant.

University of Iowa
Located in Iowa City, Iowa, the Hawkeyes have the option of playing in Cedar Rapids arena that seats 3500 but it is a 35-45 minute drive away from campus. The other option is adding an ice plant to the Carver-Hawkeye Arena that seats around 15,000 for basketball games, but the school just completed a multi-million dollar renovation so that seems unlikely. Best option, new arena.

Indiana University
Located in Bloomington, Indiana, the only decent sized facility is the basketball stadium, Assembly Hall. However, the university has been approved to demolish Assembly Hall and build a new arena. The school has been thinking of adding a ice making plant in the new stadium and have been studying other arenas for ideas. One arena they looked was Wisconsin's Kohl Center that is home to both the ice hockey and basketball teams.

University of Illinois
Located in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, the university already has a ice hockey rink on campus. However, the rink is far too small to house a varsity hockey team. The next option is to renovate the basketball stadium or build a new rink on campus.


Northwestern University
Located in Evanston, Illinois (just outside of Chicago) the university has the possibility of using the 16,000 seat AllState Arena (home to the AHL Chicago Wolves) that is about a 45 minute drive from campus. Or the UIC Pavilion that is located in downtown Chicago and once was home to UIC's NCAA ice hockey team.Of course the best option for location would be to just build a new arena or renovate the basketball arena to include an ice plant. 


So, no school is a definite candidate to start a NCAA Division 1 ice hockey program. Indiana is probably the front runner with the school researching possibilities for their new campus arena, but of course most of these schools would need a large investment from a private investor like Mr.Pegula to start a varsity program.

There is a lot of debate on how the Big Ten adding hockey could hurt the smaller schools and how the conference is just money hungry. The positive side of this is it could boost the exposure of college hockey in the US and Canada. I for one, hope that college hockey expands out west into California, Oregon, and Washington state. But for now,  the next step is getting EA Sports to start making a NCAA Hockey game!