UGA Ice Dogs Moving To New Permanent Facility in Athens GA

[AintLifeGrand]

http://www.redandblack.com/sports/i...cle_f14abb6a-925d-11e3-b32d-0017a43b2370.html

The City of Athens GA has committed to furnish a 2500 person Ice Rink for the city of Athens/ UGA Ice Dogs hockey team. With a permanent facility in place, could this be a step in the direction of them developing a d1 program?

I am aware that they will have to add an additional women's sport and generate millions of dollars to ever make the jump, but this team will draw good crowds with a rink feet away from the greatest strip of college bars in America.

Click to read more...

 

[worstfaceoffmanever]

It's a step in the direction of developing a high-quality ACHA program, but not NCAA.

For an NCAA team, you don't just need a good-sized arena (and the Classic Center is borderline). A program needs strong ancillary facilities. They need a permanent sheet to practice on; good locker rooms on-site; high-end electronics and telecommunications setups for media and game operations; and where are the concession stands in that convention center? Then, on top of that, what conference do they play in? With no CHA or CCHA anymore, their options are pretty limited unless they can convince a few other schools to go in with them.

Georgia has one of the better setups in all of club hockey with this move, but playing in the Classic Center in NCAA Division I without major sport-centric upgrades would make them the laughingstock of the sport. Remember, it took $100M from Terry Pegula to move the men's and women's programs at Penn State to NCAA D-I, and the arena was $88M of that. One thing the SEC will not do at this point is launch half-baked sports programs that can't compete. They need a wealthy donor to kick cash the program's way, and I suspect they would need other SEC schools to move up with them in an effort to create an automatic bid for those schools right out of the gate.

I will say that if schools like UGA or UK or Arizona (which has an outstanding club program) find the money and inclination to go NCAA, it will be a massive game-changer and probably the end of college hockey as we know it, but that thought has been bandied about for years and nothing has come of it yet.

 

[Colton2233]

It's a step in the direction of developing a high-quality ACHA program, but not NCAA.

For an NCAA team, you don't just need a good-sized arena (and the Classic Center is borderline). A program needs strong ancillary facilities. They need a permanent sheet to practice on; good locker rooms on-site; high-end electronics and telecommunications setups for media and game operations; and where are the concession stands in that convention center? Then, on top of that, what conference do they play in? With no CHA or CCHA anymore, their options are pretty limited unless they can convince a few other schools to go in with them.

Georgia has one of the better setups in all of club hockey with this move, but playing in the Classic Center in NCAA Division I without major sport-centric upgrades would make them the laughingstock of the sport. Remember, it took $100M from Terry Pegula to move the men's and women's programs at Penn State to NCAA D-I, and the arena was $88M of that. One thing the SEC will not do at this point is launch half-baked sports programs that can't compete. They need a wealthy donor to kick cash the program's way, and I suspect they would need other SEC schools to move up with them in an effort to create an automatic bid for those schools right out of the gate.

I will say that if schools like UGA or UK or Arizona (which has an outstanding club program) find the money and inclination to go NCAA, it will be a massive game-changer and probably the end of college hockey as we know it, but that thought has been bandied about for years and nothing has come of it yet.

Just wondering what you mean by this? Would it be good or bad?

 

[Slowe]

It would be big (and good in my opinion) mostly because college hockey so rarely expands. To get a premier university to sign up would be a big win. Many people like college hockey because it has a lot of smaller schools that can compete with larger schools. More bigger schools joining may tip those scales though.

Not a massive game changer though. It'll be a while before something happens that changes hockey as much as the creation of the big ten hockey league did. Arizona would arguably be the bigger deal out of schools mentioned. Mostly because college hockey is so condensed in the northeast and Midwest. If a school out west signed up it might help tip other western schools knowing they would have at least some nearby competition. But one school won't exactly open the flood gates.

 

[ean]

I didnt take away anything from this article that says they are close to being an NCAA team.

 

[Slowe]

No, definitely not. But it's still fun to anticipate the popularity boost hockey should see. 2,000 students cheering for you in an on campus rink? You have to think it will boost the prestige of the players and sport. That's good enough for now.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Highlights from the inaugural game at the Classic Center.

This is going to be a great UGA tradition.