Southland Should Pick Up the Pace
This is what we are missing by not having a Division I hockey program in Southern California:
* A fast-paced, open game that puts NHL goonery and neutral-zone thuggery to shame. A game with fewer TV timeouts, fewer offside and icing calls and better flow than most NHL contests.
* A chance to watch small, skillful players like New Hampshire center Jason Krog--the country’s top scorer--and Maine freshman winger Niko Dimitrakos weave their magic without being elbowed into submission, as would happen in the NHL.
* The emotional fervor of a fierce rivalry, as embodied in Maine’s 2-1 overtime victory over Boston College Thursday at the Arrowhead Pond in the first semifinal of the NCAA Frozen Four.
* A lively atmosphere not manufactured by scoreboards commanding fans to make noise, but produced spontaneously by raucous pep bands and fans who had an emotional stake in the outcome. These fans weren’t there to be seen or make business deals. They were there because they wanted to be there, some so badly they took tedious cross-country train rides to make it.
“The atmosphere was great. It got better and better as the game went on,” said Maine Coach Shawn Walsh, whose team will face New Hampshire Saturday in the championship game. “Any parent that has little kids who play ice hockey should come out on Saturday.
“Coming here is not like going to, well, I can’t say a few cities because they’d get mad at me, but like Biloxi, Miss. Going to Anaheim is special.”
It was like a college football Saturday, just colder, and an entertaining glimpse of how enjoyable college hockey can be on a big scale. Too bad the 1 p.m starting time held the crowd to 12,582 for the opener; the 12,719 fans who saw the second game got more then their money’s worth.
This glimpse may be all we ever see. In an already crowded local sports landscape, it’s difficult to imagine college hockey making an impact. But just as the NHL had to expand to the Sunbelt and South and secure a network TV deal to be considered a major major league sport, college hockey must make inroads in California and increase its TV exposure to continue its growth.
Like the NHL, college hockey is entrenched in the Northeast and Midwest. “We’re very, very popular in our little niches,” Boston College Coach Jerry York said. Beyond those areas, though, the NHL and college game are largely cult sports, and that won’t change until they draw athletes and fans from throughout the country. TV can accelerate that process for college hockey, the Frozen Four coaches said, although the logical question is which comes first, the widespread interest or the TV contract that creates interest?
“How far we’ve come is astounding. The publicity we’re getting across the country is tremendous, but we’d still like to have a [TV] game of the week,” said Michigan State Coach Ron Mason, the sport’s career leader with 837 victories. “Until we get college hockey in the Southeast Conference and Pac-10, we probably won’t, but it is growing.”
ESPN commentator Brian Engblom, who played at Wisconsin for two years before being drafted by the Montreal Canadiens, believes college hockey would be attractive to a national audience.
“It’s so fast and there are so few whistles. You can go four minutes between whistles,” Engblom said. “Overall, college hockey is so good on TV because of the fact it does go so fast, and that’s what most people like about sports, fast, non-stop action.”
Engblom could have spent Thursday at an NHL game that affected the playoff races. Instead, he asked to work the Frozen Four semifinals and final.
“I did it last year in Boston and it was terrific hockey. The passion and relentless action are great,” he said. “The nature of the game is dramatic: sudden defeat or sudden victory. And those kids don’t leave anything out on the ice. . . .
“People want to know who the future stars [from college teams] are going to be in the NHL, but for the most part we’re going to treat this as its own entity. We’re going to stay away from saying, ‘His rights are owned by this NHL team.’ It’s great even as it is. There are some great hockey players that aren’t going to skate a lap for an NHL team and that’s fine. People who only look at this to see who’s going to be in the NHL are missing the whole boat.”
School spirit infused Thursday’s games with a passion that’s too often missing at NHL games. The pep bands nearly wore out their drums during New Hampshire’s impressive 5-3 victory over Michigan State, and fans gasped at the breathless pace. If UCLA played USC in a game like this at this level, not merely as club sports, Engblom believes college hockey could succeed and turn Southern California a hockey stronghold at every level. A handful of California-bred kids are playing for or have been recruited by Division I schools. What if they stayed home to play for the Trojans or Bruins?
“No doubt, if USC and UCLA got a major division going here it would change things in college hockey,” Engblom said. “It would also be great for the Kings and Ducks. People here are not as tuned to pro teams the way people are geared to USC and UCLA. It’s your school and you want to go, even if you don’t like football. I went to basketball games at Wisconsin and I didn’t know anything about basketball.
“Who knows where it could lead to in this neck of the woods? San Jose and the Ducks coming in [to the NHL] changed the face of the NHL.”
In Maine, last weekend’s Maine-Clarkson regional playoff hockey game knocked the Connecticut-Ohio State men’s basketball game off the CBS affiliate. “The ratings were through the roof,” Walsh said. “The interest is there, in pockets. . . . We’ve got to increase the number of programs, and that’s very difficult in this age because of gender equity [mandated by Title IX]. If UCLA and USC get hockey, if Arizona gets hockey, it’s going to take off.”
That remains a distant dream, but Thursday’s games showed us just how much we’ve been missing and made those dreams all the more tantalizing.
