NCAA Question

[oggy_3 0]

Alright so i know a kid who is currently playing ACHA Divison 2 hockey for Utah Valley State. My one question is how good of hockey is this? Like i have two guys on my team rite now who are in grade 9 and 10 who have verbals to D1 schools and these guys are amazing players. I also know a guy who is 4 years older who will graduate from Colby College which is D3 and he is 5 times a better hockey player then the guy play D2. But this guy playing for Utah Valley is not a very good player, the highest he played was midget AA even those he never tryed out for high school he would have been the 6th D. Any information would be nice to get a hold of.

[B Neal 0]

ACHA is "club" hockey. It is basically a league for kids who want to continue hockey after HS but aren't focusing on it. Its not complete shit, but Its not even close to the level of D3 hockey. Yes, there are some teams, such as Penn State, that actually recruit some kids, but basically its a way for kids to continue playing hockey. I have a few friends from my HS team who play UVM club now and they are good players jsut not D3 or D1 caliber

[AndTheySayChiCity 0]

i know ACHA has some new programs.. currently really fast growing.

University of Illinois went 47-0 in ACHA D1 this past season. yes, you read that right.. 47-0.

my school, De Paul University plays in ACHA D2 and they went 27-16-1 overall this year and last year went 22-8-1 overall (winning one game by the score of 27-4..not kidding. no clue why they let the score get up that high..and another by the score of 15-1.. beating University of Michigan Flint both times and a 12-3 route of Northern Illinois).\

i'm sure the hockey is competetive but there's a couple teams that probably belong in higher divisions if they're beating other teams by scoring 27 goals.. lol

[Trooper 8]

UVS is a club team in the west conference of DII. That conf is top heavy and really not very good top to bottom. Are you asking about that specific team? ACHA in general (it's all over the board, from really good players to ankle benders)?

Colby is NCAA DIII so there is no comparison with UVS. The top club programs are better than the bottom NCAA DIII teams and have higher budgets, but that's where the comparison ends.

[shooter27 116]

The top club programs are better than the bottom NCAA DIII teams and have higher budgets, but that's where the comparison ends.

This comment has been proven numerous times to be false. All but the dregs of DIII are better than any club team. The most recent incident I can think of was about a year ago. URI (the defending club champions) played in a holiday tourney against Amherst and Utica (two very average to below average DIII teams). For the weekend URI lost both games by a total score of 15-3 and was outshot something like 90-35 IIRC. I don't know if any DIII teams played against any club teams this year, but I remember there was a lot of talk of people using the URI participation in that tournament as a measuring stick for club hockey. After the tourney a lot of the comparison talk between club and DIII died down considerably.

Edit: You may be right about the budgets, I'm talking more about the level of play.

[Chadd 916]

Didn't Penn State beat a couple DIII teams a few years ago?

[shooter27 116]

I can say with a pretty high degree of certain that they have not in the past 6-7 years, not really sure about before that.

[LkptTiger 1]

Didn't Penn State beat a couple DIII teams a few years ago?

I THINK they actually beat RMU - Division I. They might have run some D-III teams, as well, but I think the RMU game was the one that got the attention. I could be wrong, though.

[Chadd 916]

Didn't Penn State beat a couple DIII teams a few years ago?

I THINK they actually beat RMU - Division I. They might have run some D-III teams, as well, but I think the RMU game was the one that got the attention. I could be wrong, though.

That might be the game I was thinking of.

http://www.uscho.com/box/?date=20051008&am...rm&gender=m

I can say with a pretty high degree of certain that they have not in the past 6-7 years, not really sure about before that.

They might not have beaten a D3 team but they obviously beat a D1 team. For what it's worth PSU had 13 freshmen on the roster for that game.

[shooter27 116]

Looks like they did in the first game of the 05-06 season.

http://www.uscho.com/schedules/team.php/ro...6/gender,m.html

I was out of college by then so I guess thats why I hadn't heard of it, I stand corrected on that point. But I would still assert that my earlier post holds true well over 95% of the time.

[epstud74 24]

Didn't Penn State beat a couple DIII teams a few years ago?

I THINK they actually beat RMU - Division I. They might have run some D-III teams, as well, but I think the RMU game was the one that got the attention. I could be wrong, though.

That might be the game I was thinking of.

http://www.uscho.com/box/?date=20051008&am...rm&gender=m

I can say with a pretty high degree of certain that they have not in the past 6-7 years, not really sure about before that.

They might not have beaten a D3 team but they obviously beat a D1 team. For what it's worth PSU had 13 freshmen on the roster for that game.

Have they played any since? I'm not sure any club team could beat a legit NCAA level hockey team at any level.

[bobovski 1]

I haven't seen an NCAA game since I was a lot younger, but I go to Illinois games all the time. I'd be really interested to know, if anyone else does, how the past three years' Illini stack up against NCAA caliber talent.

[epstud74 24]

They wouldnt win a game against any legit Div I or Div II teams.

Most of the top Div I teams also have NHL draft picks on their rosters.

I've seen a lot of kids who didnt make their varsity HS team play club level hockey.

[Trooper 8]

Everything said above is true. 95% of NCAA teams would wipe the floor with even the top club teams, that is why I said only the bottom of DIII.

Penn State beat RMU, but that was RMU's first or second year in existence, and the game was reffed to give PSU a decided advantage. RMU took care of business the next year and beat them 6-0ish I think.

Amherst and Utica were well above .500 and Rhode Island's goalie graduated, he was the reason they won the DI title the year before. He was in Capitals camp this year, ended up playing two games for Reading in the ECHL, don't know where he is now.

There are a few teams well below those mentioned.

The difference is, does a kid that isn't going anywhere after college hockey want to play at a small crappy school with an underfunded NCAA DIII program or do they want to go to a good school with a big budget club team? Some choose the latter and that's primarily where the top ACHA DI programs get their players.

[warrior37 0]

prime examples of schools with big ACHA budgets, Lindenwood, Illinois, Oklahoma, Ohio, Penn State, and Grand Valley in Mich. My brother is in the same boat, either go to a shitty under funded D3 team and pay $30K a year, or pay $15K and play for a well funded team.

[epstud74 24]

I dont know any shitty, underfunded DIII teams around here..Most of the DIII schools around here are quite wealthy and at $30K a year tuition, I would hope they'd be well-funded.

[shooter27 116]

There are plenty of highly wealthy D3 schools that don't necessarily use that wealth to make sure there sports programs are adequately funded. I can certainly give several concrete examples, but I don't want to call the school's out publicly so PM me if you're really interested.

[forbs02 20]

I dont know any shitty, underfunded DIII teams around here..Most of the DIII schools around here are quite wealthy and at $30K a year tuition, I would hope they'd be well-funded.

There are lots of underfunded DIII hockey programs in MN. Many of the teams in the MIAC get very little.

[epstud74 24]

Seriously? Well maybe compared to the U of MN, but how are they underfunded? Just curious..

[flyguy1697 0]

I committed to PSU a couple months back and there were quite a few things that helped me make my decision. I was give two NCAA D1 offers that would not go into effect until the 2010 season at the earliest. This was not something that I wanted to do because I do not think my body would be able withstand 1 or 2 more years of junior hockey before playing another 4 at college. I was also given 3 DIII offers but have no desire to go to a school, in 15 degree weather with 3000 people total to play hockey. I am going to PSU because it is good hockey. PSU opens their season each year playing DIII teams and each year they fair well and have won quite a few times. PSU has an awesome football team, campus and a huge student body. I will have more fun, get a better education and play on a hockey team that is very competitive. There are USHL, D1 transfers and mostly Junior A hockey players that make up the roster. There are some ACHA teams that are very good but at the same time some schools that are simply not.

[forbs02 20]

Seriously? Well maybe compared to the U of MN, but how are they underfunded? Just curious..

I played DIII (granted it was the women's program and it was a few years ago) and we received 6 wooden sticks. They supplied us with a set of gear that we wore all 4 years- this was halfway through that they implemented this, the first two years we wore old gear from the men's program. The men's team was given 2 shafts and 12 wood blades for the year with the same arrangement for equipment. Skates are not included. If they wanted/needed anything else it was coming out of pocket. I know there are other schools in the area that are given next to nothing. The budgets at a number of these private schools do not put much into their athletic programs. I worked at a program my first year out of college that bought only ice time for the team. It wouldn't even buy them tape. This was a MIAC school that had a looooot of money. It varies from school to school for sure, but athletics at a lot of places are not high on the institution's priority list.

[shooter27 116]

Seriously? Well maybe compared to the U of MN, but how are they underfunded? Just curious..

I played DIII at one of the extremely "elite" schools in the Northeast. One of those schools with 1500 kids and multi-billion dollar endowments and our team was not funded very well at all. That wasn't limited to the hockey team though, it was athletics as a whole.

[greatsave31 0]

I committed to PSU a couple months back and there were quite a few things that helped me make my decision. I was give two NCAA D1 offers that would not go into effect until the 2010 season at the earliest. This was not something that I wanted to do because I do not think my body would be able withstand 1 or 2 more years of junior hockey before playing another 4 at college. I was also given 3 DIII offers but have no desire to go to a school, in 15 degree weather with 3000 people total to play hockey. I am going to PSU because it is good hockey. PSU opens their season each year playing DIII teams and each year they fair well and have won quite a few times. PSU has an awesome football team, campus and a huge student body. I will have more fun, get a better education and play on a hockey team that is very competitive. There are USHL, D1 transfers and mostly Junior A hockey players that make up the roster. There are some ACHA teams that are very good but at the same time some schools that are simply not.

I just finished my last year at Niagara University playing for the ACHA team the entire time and we have been able to play against PSU twice in my time here, first game we lost 3-2 ( game winning goal scored with 1:23 left in the game. The last game we lost 6-0, I was injured for the season and our freshman goaltender played well but not well enough... Anyway

Depending on the conference you play in and the type of pull your coach has, you may be able to play against some top ACHA programs to be able to turn some heads. I was able to earn some pro tryout offers as well as some pro contract offers... (mostly CHL and ECHL non NHL affiliate teams) but it just goes to show... if your are lucky enough to get into a school with a good program you'd be able to continue hockey and not go straight to beer leagues. A lot of guys on my team, myself included, have played junior and in my case I was injured in my last year of junior and any schools that gave me offers took them back after my injury.