GRAND FORKS – The 2022 NCAA men’s hockey tournament has been the final straw for the regional championships at a neutral venue.
It all started with a game between Minnesota State and Harvard in Albany, New York. The crowd was thin enough to count by hand, in a hall that could seat more than 10,000 people. The limited crowds due to a pandemic were larger.
On the road, Minnesota faced West Michigan and the NCAA Frozen Four in Worcester, Massachusetts. This game drew the smaller crowd to watch the Gophers all season.
In most sports, big games have full stadiums and the most productive atmospheres. In school hockey, they have the worst.
This challenge has been going on for more than a decade, with regions ranging from St. John’s to St. John’s, Paul, Cincinnati, South Bend, Toledo, Grand Rapids and more.
Yet each year, when the topic comes up at the American Hockey Coaches Association meetings in Naples, Florida, a portion of coaches and directors argue that it is acceptable, even necessary, and excuse what is happening.
Hear:
“We just want to select bigger sites. “
“It wasn’t bad in (insert year here), so it’s fine. “
However, even the “good” years are not so good. Attendance has been so low that if a region takes 70% of the seats and gives some semblance of atmosphere, it is celebrated.
There’s also a big lesson that school hockey never learns: the next regional crisis is just around the corner. This is still the case.
I started writing articles on this topic ten years ago. Proponents of regional independent sites have cited average years as evidence that the formula is working and improving. But the mistakes came back.
Ten years later, they still haven’t updated it. It’s time to try something new.
The NCAA has blocked regional championships at impartial venues until 2026. It has opened an application portal for 2027 and 2028. The application portal closes next month, and if the NCAA men’s ice hockey committee doesn’t make any adjustments this spring, it will grant them. in early fall and we’ll be stuck in unbiased sites for another two years.
The solution is complicated.
It’s about getting the regionals into the higher seed buildings.
Here’s how it would work: All 16 groups would be selected. The 8 most sensible would be the hosts of the first weekend: No. 1 vs. No. 16, No. 2 vs. No. 15, No. 3 vs. No. 14 and soon.
The next weekend, the quarterfinals would be played with the higher seeds hosting again.
Then, it would go to a pre-determined NCAA Frozen Four site, the lone part of the men’s hockey tournament that has been successful.
Some have proposed the No. 1 seed hosting a four-team regional. But that doesn’t solve the problem. If the No. 1 seed gets upset in the first round, you’re going to have a regional final in an empty building again. Imagine UConn playing Arizona State in St. Cloud.
The concept of playing regionals at home is radical.
Everyone in school sports, with the exception of men’s basketball, plays it.
Women’s hockey, women’s basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, lacrosse, soccer and FCS football all start their tournaments at home sites and eventually move to a pre-determined championship site.
Even FBS football will kick off its school football playoffs at its national headquarters when it expands to a 12-team tournament next season.
So what’s stopping men’s hockey from doing the same?
Based on conversations with a dozen college hockey executives, some administrators and athletic trainers, it’s unlikely their teams will ever be in the top eight in pairs and have the capacity to host games.
Therefore, they would rather play in an empty arena in the middle of the school hockey desert than in a crowded arena on campus. This gives your teams the most productive chance to progress.
This is smart for gamers. It’s bad for the fans. It’s terrible for television.
This is a short-sighted attitude that makes no sense.
In the 10 years since high school hockey realigned in 2013-14, the 3 meetings with the lowest winning percentage are Atlantic Hockey, the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (formerly Western Collegiate Hockey Association), and the ECAC.
These leagues combined to form five NCAA Frozen Four groups at the time.
Four of the Frozen Four teams would have been in the top four and would have hosted (Quinnipiac 2023 and 2016, Union 2014 and MSU-Mankato 2022). Fifth was Minnesota State-Mankato 2021, which would have hosted the first round but not the quarterfinals.
Atlantic Hockey did not have a Frozen Four team at the time.
Neutral regions don’t leave progress behind, and that shouldn’t be the vital thing in building a tournament either.
The debate wants to focus on what it is for the players, the fans and the game as a whole. The answer is clear.
The number one reason to move to residential sites is to create the gaming experience.
College hockey is played all season in front of passionate home crowds and unique environments. Raucous student sections and bands give college hockey a style of atmosphere not even the NHL, American Hockey League or any junior league can replicate.
But we almost never see school hockey at its best.
Once the games are more important, they are removed from school hockey cities. Student sections are removed. Too often, they are played in front of half-empty buildings, some of which don’t even play hockey in the normal way. The atmospheres are bland. They don’t feel like they’re playing a great game.
“Obviously, the strength of college sports is the atmospheres,” said ESPN’s John Buccigross, a supporter of home-site regionals. “In some cases, it’s what separates it from pro sports. Sometimes, the intensity is the same, but college fans tend to be younger, which is obviously more boisterous, engaged and energetic.”
Local regional championships would electrify environments no matter where they are held.
Over the past decade, 28 other groups are reported to have hosted an NCAA tournament, virtually a part of all boys’ school hockey. Quinnipiac, Denver and Minnesota would have hosted the maximum (six). UND, Minnesota, St. Cloud, and Michigan are said to have hosted five.
Other groups that have reportedly played playoff games on campus include Ferris State, Cornell, Clarkson, Union, UMass, Boston College, Penn State, UMass Lowell, and more. It’s a wide diversity of systems with other profiles, but all of them have generated incredible atmospheres.
Incidentally, this 2022 Minnesota-Western Michigan game for the Frozen Four would have been played at Lawson Ice Arena in Kalamazoo, one of the busiest venues for school hockey.
“Our goal must be to achieve 100 percent full slots at all venues,” said UND Sports Director Bill Chaves. “At the end of the day, I’m concerned that the environment that we’re seeing the normal season in is not likely to be replicated in regionals. “
Denver coach David Carle is a big fan of local regional championships. He says it’s not about which setup helps his team the most.
“We and Boston College have won more than anyone else with the existing style,” Carle said. “It doesn’t stem from the attitude that it would be more productive for Denver. The existing style works for us. We’ve proven it. It’s about what’s most productive for everyone and how our game moves to the next step.
“I’m a young coach. I intend to do this for a long time. I want to see our game grow. I think we want to think outside the box, have awkward conversations, and brainstorm how to get the most out of productive play and not get attached to the prestige quo. “
Regional detractors of residential land will argue that NCAA games on residential land are too wonderful an advantage.
But the home-site set up has much more fairness than the current neutral-site setup, where teams can become pseudo-hosts by placing financial bids.
Last season, if UND scored a goal against St. John’s. Cloud State in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, and beat Colorado College the next night, a number one team (probably Quinnipiac) would have come to Fargo to play North Dakota. Would that have been fair? You are welcome.
Similar things have happened.
Miami’s two best teams of the last 15 years earned No. 1 seeds in 2011 and 2015.
In 2011, the RedHawks were sent to Manchester, New Hampshire to play in the first round of New Hampshire. In 2015, Miami was sent to Providence to play in Providence’s first round. The RedHawks lost both.
In 2019, the state of Minnesota won the most sensible spot, but was sent to Providence to face Providence in the first round. The Mavericks lost.
There’s little equity in that.
In the regional house setup, they would have to earn their place, and that would be dictated through the pairs classification, an objective formula known to everyone before the season begins.
“The Pairwise is a very well-calculated mathematical equation,” Carle said. “It punishes you for wasting at home, it rewards you for winning away from home, it rewards you for going on tour, it rewards you for betting on a tough schedule. . . We have before us this wonderful formula that we all know and trust: “Let that decide, so we’re all on the same playing field, let the AU or North Dakota buy a regional. “
Local regional competitions would also generate more interest in the normal season.
Not only would it highlight who is in the top 16 of the pairs rankings, but there would also be a race for the top 8 (first-round hosts) and the top 4 (guaranteed quarterfinal hosts). .
“Now enthusiasts come to regular season games knowing that if we win tonight, we’ll finish in the top 8 and have a game in the NCAA,” Carle said. “We love watching the playoff races. ” We love watching the races at home. Why would we deprive ourselves of the drama and intensity that can come with it and the excitement it adds to the fans?”
The ideal regional set-up for amateurs.
It requires travel on short notice. For fans in the West, it often means an airplane flight.
Local regional championships would bring the biggest games to the campuses of teams that are having seasons and whose fans will be eager to see them play at home again. This would also allow students to attend.
“I, our fans, deserve to see some hockey in the playoffs,” Carle said. “That’s where you build your next generation of enthusiasts.
“I think the net benefit is many markets will grow and expand if their fans are at a game for the NCAA tournament and have a great time. They’re going to be much more likely to buy season tickets. That’s more revenue. That’s more fans. That’s more eyeballs. That’s more advertisements. That’s what I mean by growing the game.”
The other way to attract enthusiasts to the game is through television.
Earlier this month, ESPN recently signed a new eight-year deal to retain the broadcast rights to NCAA tournaments, adding men’s hockey, the 2031-32 season.
The NCAA tournament is broadcast nationally in Canada.
What do casual enthusiasts watching the national school hockey tournament feel when they see empty seats?How do Canada’s young players, recruited through Canada’s school hockey systems and primary youth systems, feel about their exposure to NCAA play?
By 2027, it’s conceivable that Canadian elementary school youth players will be eligible to play school hockey and that the wars between the NCAA and CHL will become even more heated. Does the NCAA need to get involved in those battles that feature mediocre vibes on Canadian television?
“How can we make school hockey applicable to as many people as possible?”NCHC Commissioner Heather Weems asked. Where do we go to achieve maximum impact?Where do we get the most interest?”
NCAA men’s hockey regional championships may be captivating on TV, but in the current setup, that’s not the case.
“I’ve been in Eastern Washington for 11 years,” Chaves said. “Before that, I went to three hockey schools. Hockey wasn’t very popular in Eastern Washington, but it watched NCAA games. If you see a stadium that isn’t crowded or doesn’t have the environment you know, it’s a university. Hockey I did, I think that’s a problem. “
Buccigross is confident that ESPN can take care of the regions at home. This is the case with all other sports.
“We can take a truck wherever we want,” Buccigross said. “I’ve played at UConn, Princeton. . . We can play in those places. “
There are five successful NCAA tournaments. Division I men’s hockey is one of them.
But regional headquarters would hurt the bottom line. That would make the tournament even more profitable, according to a former committee member.
Michael Cross, Penn State’s former associate athletic director, who served on the committee from September 2019 to January 2023, studied the monetary forecasts for the house’s other regional championship models and brought his knowledge to the group.
In a style where the top eight host a first round and the top four host the quarterfinals, he estimates profits would grow between $1. 2 million and $2. 1 million per year.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that betting on regionals at home, on campus, would be particularly damaging,” said Cross, now a Southern Conference commissioner. “The gains that are left on the table are real. “
Cross said his study was not an initiative of the committee. He did it all on his own.
“This was put forward on the genuine belief of what should happen with the sport,” he said.
In the end, the first division men’s ice hockey committee wants at least four of its six members to agree to the change.
But the Committee acts according to the will of the majority of the coaches.
Therefore, it would probably be wise for coaches, sports administrators, and convention commissioners to meet in Naples next April.
If the Division-I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee approves the change, it would then move to another NCAA committee that handles championships.
Some believe there is a chance for change now.
“Early on, the coaches did not want it,” one athletic director told the Herald. “There have been some challenges at some regionals and that’s created a situation where some coaches are now thinking it would be better to play in front of a full house and an enthusiastic crowd, even if it’s for the other team. I think there’s been a more positive movement in that direction than there was originally.”
One of the reasons many this time will be different is that 4 of the six college hockey meetings are now playing their playoffs entirely at home.
Many members of Atlantic Hockey and the CCHA are believed to be hesitant to travel to local regional championships for the NCAA tournament. But the two leagues that will now play in the NCAA tournament are based on local regional championships, so arguments that the home playoffs games are unfair and don’t hold water.
The leagues that are using home sites for conference tournaments have seen terrific results.
Minnesota’s 3M Arena in Mariucci has been packed for the last two games of the Big Ten name. Mankato and Houghton, Michigan, saw the same thing when the WCHA or CCHA name games.
Experiencing that might lend them to believe the NCAA tournament should follow suit.
Hopefully. It’s time to try something different.