recent announcement<\/strong><\/a> that men\u2019s hockey is coming to campus this fall carried one guarantee amid its exciting surprise and confusion.<\/p>\nThe annual realignment conversation, a hot stove into which conversation normally flurried, immediately ignited with a thunderbolt flash. An offseason staple once again began breathing a rapid heartbeat and generated hundreds of speculative permutations, all of which centered around the Sharks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to play this season as an independent,\u201d LIU athletics director Dr. William Martinov said of the team\u2019s first year. \u201cWe\u2019ll get some games. We don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be a full, 34-game maximum schedule, but as we build a schedule and add conference membership, we\u2019re thinking a conference will help us with those games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding an appropriate conference is a difficult and puzzling piece of the Sharks\u2019 announcement because it\u2019s seemingly the most ambiguous area of college hockey. Their intention to play hockey this fall means the team won\u2019t play a full schedule, a fact willingly embraced as part of a phase-in process over a couple of seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can play 20 games with the right coach and staff, it\u2019ll give our (student-athletes) the right experience and that\u2019s fantastic,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019ll set us up for the second year or third year when we can gain more confidence. We\u2019ll be a more mature team every year, and we can start scheduling schools that may or may not be in our (future) conference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Figuring out the timeline is complicated but it becomes more complex in its deeper reaches.<\/p>\n
LIU is in the Northeast Conference for the majority of its non-hockey sports, a league it shared with Merrimack, Robert Morris and Sacred Heart. All three sponsor Division I hockey in either Hockey East or Atlantic Hockey, both of which have 11 teams. An odd number is itself a scheduling hurdle for both leagues, so there\u2019s been a reasonable passing mention for both conferences to at least look at the Sharks from a sky-high, 50,000-foot view.<\/p>\n
Both leagues denied contact with the Sharks. Hockey East noted it had calls with men\u2019s and women\u2019s coaches and administrators where LIU was not discussed, a sentiment shared by the third eastern conference, ECAC; commissioner Steve Hagwell commented that his league had not discussed nor received contact from representatives from LIU.<\/p>\n
For Atlantic Hockey, a natural tie exists because there\u2019s a relationship between LIU and the league front office. The Sharks\u2019 women\u2019s program joined the New England Women\u2019s Hockey Alliance last season, and the league\u2019s commissioner, Bob DeGregorio, is the commissioner of both Atlantic Hockey and its spiritual women\u2019s counterpart, College Hockey America.<\/p>\n
Despite that connection, Atlantic Hockey also confirmed it has not received any inquiry about membership.<\/p>\n
LIU did confirm that it notified the Northeast Conference about its intent to start men\u2019s hockey. When emailed, the NEC responded through Ron Ratner, the senior associate commissioner for public relations, new media, and television. He commented that commissioner Noreen Morris did not have anything to share about hockey at this point, but he said that the conference would be discussing hockey during its spring meetings over the next month.<\/p>\n
It means the Sharks\u2019 future is still unclear to the college hockey universe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had contact,\u201d Martinov said of his school\u2019s aspirations. \u201cOnce the announcement was made, it was clear that if we hadn\u2019t talked to them before, we were talking to other folks. We\u2019re in the process of working on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It points LIU into a period of Division I independence, which was expected by the late announcement. Currently, only one team — Arizona State — plays a fully independent schedule, though Alaska, Alaska Anchorage and Alabama Huntsville are likely heading into that group after the rest of the WCHA breaks away to form the new CCHA after the 2020-21 season.<\/p>\n
The Sun Devils just finished their fourth season of independent scheduling and provide a window into at least an example of the potential challenges for LIU. They spent one year prior to that as a transition team with an abbreviated Division I schedule after moving away from club roots dating back to the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought we needed a conference when we joined Division I,\u201d ASU coach Greg Powers said. “But if I could go back in time, I\u2019d say that I wanted to take a few years to get our house in order playing an independent schedule. That would\u2019ve enabled us to get the landscape down for Division I college hockey before crossing that (league) bridge when it became appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arizona State is incredibly unique for a number of reasons. With respect to scheduling, the team drew top-flight teams right off the jump and played Wisconsin and UMass Lowell during its hybrid season. In its second year, it hosted Harvard and Michigan, and the steady growth of desert hockey eventually led Boston University and Penn State to play out west, and Michigan State, Boston College, and Denver all traveled over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest compliment to the body of college hockey is that teams were so welcoming and willing to play us,\u201d Powers said. \u201cThey helped us fill out a schedule, and teams have been more than willing to come to Arizona to give us home games. We\u2019ve had big-time programs out here like Boston University, Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, UMass Lowell and Denver. The body of hockey was incredibly welcoming in that regard, and it really helped us launch our program.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tough to analyze LIU through that Arizona State lens, just as it\u2019s difficult to understand the Sharks through anyone else\u2019s viewpoint. Robert Morris, for example, found itself joining College Hockey America when Findlay created an immediate opening in the league, and Penn State\u2019s arrival coincided with the creation of the Big Ten. Both schools intended to play an independent schedule, though RMU scrapped its intention almost immediately by joining the CHA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were planning to be independent,\u201d RMU head coach Derek Schooley said. \u201cThen the CHA needed a sixth school when Findlay dropped its program. We joined that league straight off the bat, and it gave us 20 of our 30-plus games in the first year. Whether it had been the CHA or, at the time, the MAAC, we felt it was important to join a conference based on proximity to other schools. The CHA had Niagara and Wayne State, and the MAAC had Mercyhurst and Canisius. Being able to guarantee close-proximity games against those schools was important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe conference was a given (for Penn State),\u201d Nittany Lions coach Guy Gadowsky said. \u201cWhen there\u2019s (enough) teams sponsoring a sport, the Big Ten has a league. That was very part of the expectation or a given. I know the plan was to have Penn State play two independent years to get ready to compete, but (the Big Ten formation) got moved up by a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a complex and difficult conversation built on competing viewpoints and unique outlooks or expectations. RMU played less than a handful of non-conference games at home but lived in a world with two more conferences than currently exists. One of those leagues — the CHA — provided the program with a backstop of home games.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur location was good,\u201d Schooley said. \u201cWe played in RPI\u2019s tournament in Albany that first year and played at Miami. Bentley came to play us because we were willing to play there the next year. We had a home-and-home with Canisius.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penn State played a hybrid schedule but moved home games around its native state. It capitalized on the Nittany Lion brand and an explosion of support that invigorated its fan base. Instead of playing in State College, the team moved to Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia with additional games in Pittsburgh. It played at RMU before scheduling the Colonials in the Three Rivers Classic, and the third-place game gave Penn State a third game in the Steel City, against Ohio State.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t difficult for us to get non-conference games because of the excitement around the program,\u201d Gadowsky said. \u201cThe administration did a good job of planning our games around the state. They did a really good job of taking our product around the state because our old arena couldn\u2019t accommodate enough alumni or supporters. So it was a great idea that was very well received.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s very different from the travel tax placed on Arizona State. The Sun Devils frequently leave the desert even though the home-road ratio steadily shrank over time. This past season witnessed three of five weekends on the road against Minnesota State, Air Force and Alaska to start the year, and trips later in the year went to Brown, Clarkson and Atlantic Hockey\u2019s Holy Cross and Bentley.<\/p>\n
That came a year after Arizona State earned an NCAA tournament berth with only four home games after Jan. 1. The team\u2019s travel late in the year was especially difficult with three straight series at Cornell, Boston University and RIT.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy,\u201d Powers said of his team, \u201cand piecing a schedule that doesn\u2019t kill your team is probably the most difficult part of my job. You know you\u2019re going to have to travel, and we know we have to be open to travel to get games. You hope that teams return that favor.\u201d<\/p>\n
To its credit, LIU is embracing the challenge. The school is ramping up a team on less than a year\u2019s notice without a club team from which to transition, and it doesn\u2019t have a clear conference future. That seems crazy, but the Sharks are seeing and picking their opportunities.<\/p>\n
Martinov isn\u2019t expecting a full slate and is instead looking inward for guidance from a women\u2019s program that played 29 games and won the NEWHA postseason championship in its first season. LIU played UConn and Wisconsin at home to start the season, with one of the games against the Badgers at Nassau Coliseum. Road series at both Yale and RIT provided non-league competition in its first year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge, and that\u2019s a matter of fact,\u201d Martinov said. \u201cWe\u2019re in May and trying to put together a schedule, and other teams have their schedules completed from a while ago. That\u2019s a challenge by itself. Having that said, there are opportunities. We\u2019re looking at all possibilities to build a good experience for this first year with the idea that it\u2019s only going to get better.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the first year (of our women\u2019s team), we had success as conference tournament champions, but we played Wisconsin at Nassau Coliseum. That was fantastic for our first year. It was great for Wisconsin to show a love of the game to help us, and it was great for us to play at Nassau against a national championship team. We went through women\u2019s program development and saw how that worked, but we just have to do it (with men\u2019s) on a shorter timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long Island University’s recent announcement that men\u2019s hockey is coming to campus this fall carried one guarantee amidst its exciting surprise and confusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":106401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[804],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Looking at the Long Island University hockey logistics: What conference will the Sharks join in 2020-21? - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n