Penn State hockey goes Div. 1

[Chadd 916]

The profitability of college hockey is an issue as well. These programs are all going to need to have 18 scholarships to compete and you're going to have to fund 18 schollies on the women's side for either hockey or some other sport. That doesn't come cheap. The logistics of having a suitable rink available comes into play as well. Most don't. And if you're talking about building one, you're talking about needing a big-time donor like this "gas-bag" (I made a joke) Pegula at PSU.

This whole thing makes for interesting conversation, that's for sure

Penn State Football pays for the entire athletic department budget, with money left over. If they can get the basketball or hockey teams to do well, they will do just fine financially.

[shooter27 116]

Probably a dumb question............What is the CHA?

The CHA was College Hockey America, it was a conference of second tier programs that all went D1 in the late '90s. It was disband after this past season. The teams in at the end were Bemidji St., UAH, Niagra and Robert Morris. Army, Findlay, and Wayne St. were also part of the conference at one time or another.

[bostonjuniorblackhawks 1]

The CHA was College Hockey America, it was a conference of second tier programs that all went D1 in the late '90s. It was disband after this past season. The teams in at the end were Bemidji St., UAH, Niagra and Robert Morris. Army, Findlay, and Wayne St. were also part of the conference at one time or another.

thanks for filling me in

[gerbe3:16 19]

Penn State Football pays for the entire athletic department budget, with money left over. If they can get the basketball or hockey teams to do well, they will do just fine financially.

Yea, this won't be a problem for Penn State but it could be a problem for a lot of other programs. It's an interesting dynamic when we start talking about these Big Ten schools that are untapped for hockey because these huge state schools have smaller tuition so paying for the scholarships isn't as taxing as it would be on a smaller, private institution. A lot of them are on huge areas of land with a place to build on so the possibility of building a rink on campus (which is essential) is there. BUT, with this economy you won't see much state funding go to help that cause. But on the flip side, being that large state school with tons of alumni increases the risk of some billionaire having some money to pay for a hockey rink and get it done without state funding.

Travel expenses won't be pretty for these Paul Kelly pipedream PAC10 schools either.

[RichardsIsTheMan 0]

Psu is going to be dominate in five years after they start. That's the dream college for a lot of kids from pitt and philly, and both are stacked in talent.

I completely agree. They're going to have a huge draw and great interest. They have so many students up there and having an arena on campus is going to be greatly successful for them. They will be a great team in a few years.

[Chadd 916]

I completely agree. They're going to have a huge draw and great interest. They have so many students up there and having an arena on campus is going to be greatly successful for them.

It helps that there isn't a lot of stuff going on there for most of the winter.

[GoBucky 0]

I completely agree. They're going to have a huge draw and great interest. They have so many students up there and having an arena on campus is going to be greatly successful for them. They will be a great team in a few years.

"A few years" is being pretty optimistic. IMO, PSU is going to have a tough time competing with programs like North Dakota, St Cloud, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Boston College and Boston University when it comes to recruiting.

I mean, unless you are from Pennsylvania; whats going to make you want to go to PSU instead of going with the above mentioned programs? If PSU is only going to have players from in-state, they arent going to be winning any NCAA championships any time soon, IMO.

[shooter27 116]

"A few years" is being pretty optimistic. IMO, PSU is going to have a tough time competing with programs like North Dakota, St Cloud, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Boston College and Boston University when it comes to recruiting.

I mean, unless you are from Pennsylvania; whats going to make you want to go to PSU instead of going with the above mentioned programs? If PSU is only going to have players from in-state, they arent going to be winning any NCAA championships any time soon, IMO.

As for PSU dominating, that won't happen any time soon...Yes, they have some great talent available from the Philly and Pittsburgh areas, but if you looked around the NCAA and took all the top kids from those areas and formed one team, that team would be very competitive but far from dominant. As Minnesota proved you can't put together a dominant team recruiting from just one area. Minnesota historically only recruited Minnesota kids, but then they went through a rough down patch in the late '90s. It wasn't until they started bringing in a few kids from outside the state (and in some cases outside the country)that they were able to come back to national prominence. PSU will put together a competitive program, but I highly doubt they're going into this thinking they'll only recruit kids from PA, which means they're going to have to battle many of the established programs for talent.

[GoBucky 0]

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. I mean, if Im a great highschool hockey player with my pick of any hockey program in the country, unless Im from Pennsylvania, I fail to see why Id choose PSU over some of the exisiting great hockey programs in the country.

Im glad that people are excited about PSU going D-1, but IMO those people are going to get a reality check. Take RIT for example. They pretty much owned D-III for a long time but have struggled to find anything close to the same level of success in D-I.

[lampliter87 8]

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. I mean, if Im a great highschool hockey player I go play juniors for a couple years, see where I stand, and hopefully havemy pick of any hockey program in the country, unless Im from Pennsylvania, I fail to see why Id choose PSU over some of the exisiting great hockey programs in the country.

Im glad that people are excited about PSU going D-1, but IMO those people are going to get a reality check. Take RIT for example. They pretty much owned D-III for a long time but have struggled to find anything close to the same level of success in D-I.

Except RIT did surprisingly well this year in the NCAA tournament.

[shooter27 116]

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. I mean, if Im a great highschool hockey player with my pick of any hockey program in the country, unless Im from Pennsylvania, I fail to see why Id choose PSU over some of the exisiting great hockey programs in the country.

Im glad that people are excited about PSU going D-1, but IMO those people are going to get a reality check. Take RIT for example. They pretty much owned D-III for a long time but have struggled to find anything close to the same level of success in D-I.

Making the jump from d1 to d3 is a difficult one. RIT made the transition with with same coach they had at d3 and initially had many of the same players, which is why they had such problems early on. They've definitely gotten better lately, but I think they biggest issue they have is the fact that they play in a second tier conference. When they played in d3 they pretty much got all the top d3 calibre recruits they wanted and they got quite a few recruits that were borderline d3/d1 guys, they're not getting the same calibre of recruit in d1. Let's face it, no top high school or junior player is going to play in Atlantic Hockey if they have the chance to be play at a top program in Hockey East, the CCHA, or the WCHA. RIT is never going to be able to reprise their success from d3 unless they get themselves invited into a more prominent conferece, even the ECAC would at least give them a chance with some of the better recruits that would never look at them now.

Clearly as this past year showed, they certainly will have the occasional chance to make some noise on the national stage, but they won't be a consistently top tier team till they get into a top tier conference.