kij
Registered User
- Jan 31, 2016
- 269
- 130
Was that already announced somewhere that they will be utilizing Syosset? Please provide a link otherwise this is purely speculation.I don't know what parent would want to send their kid to LIU if they don't have their own rink. Part of the mystique of playing D1 college hockey is the whole college experience itself. That includes having a nice rink and locker room on campus, and the student body comes to watch you play.
Playing in Syosset is a joke, and although Northwell health is an awesome rink to play at, it is still small in comparison to real D1 rinks. Also sitting in LIE traffic to go to practice or games from campus will get tiresome over the course of the season.
I just dont understand why they are rushing headfirst into this. Seems like making a club team or d3 team first would be the move while they build their coaching staff and recruit players. Also gives them time to find funding for a nice rink to be built on campus.
As far as a club team coming out first, that would be better than jumping the gun into D1; but they would struggle to build a program abiding by ACHA rules if they intend to make a quick transition to D1, wanting to play by NCAA rules to get prepared. To top it off, the program would then be forced to say goodbye to many players that helped build the program when they are not good enough for D1.
Honestly, Long Island is such a saturated hockey market as it is that they will severely struggle to draw a crowd anyway, making it even worse is that the student body is split amongst 2 separate campuses and I feel for any player on the Brooklyn campus trying to commute back and forth to Long Island. As far as putting another rink up, it is illogical to do so. Nassau and Suffolk Counties combine to have 17 permanent sheets of ice by my count, not including the Nassau Coliseum or anywhere that has temporary or half sheets (Syosset has a 2/3s rink in addition to their full sheet, Northwell Health puts up an outdoor sheet in the winters that is used for youth). Those counties combine to have roughly 3 million residents. If LIU were to put up their own rink, which campus and where would they do it? Where would even more funding come from when they can barely afford to pay a coach the proper salary?