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| The concourse in TD Garden at the 2015 Frozen Four in Boston. |
By Jon Brooks
Many years ago, former UNO Hockey Coach Mike Kemp brought up an idea about how he would be interested in shifting the start of the collegiate hockey season forward by a month or so.
In the intervening years, that concept stayed with me. I've gone back-and-forth as I have mused on whether it would be a better setup for the sport, or if the status quo is as it should be.
His argument was that you'd avoid the "heart" of the NCAA football season in October and early November, and also avoid much of the NCAA basketball postseason in March and April.
Considering the fact that NCAA hockey is largely a niche sport, it is worth considering ideas that might showcase the sport in the best possible light.
The obvious argument against starting the season in the middle of November is the fact that you'd end the season in early May. Such a move would interfere with NHL playoffs, and create problematic scheduling issues for a Frozen Four held at potential NHL venues.
That said, avoiding the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament each March would help alleviate the problem of "competing collegiate interests" trying to nab national media coverage. In addition, ESPN broadcasts NCAA Women's Basketball tournament and National Invitational Tournament (NIT) games on its family of channels -- oftentimes ESPN and ESPN2. That coverage has the effect of pushing the NCAA Men's Ice Hockey tournament games to ESPNU, ESPNNews and ESPN3 (which is their online streaming channel).
One could make the argument that moving college hockey's postseason out of the shadow of "March Madness" would better position the sport for national media coverage (something college hockey sorely lacks).
It could also change the in-season dynamic of the sport. Shifting the season would allow for more non-conference games to be played after the first of the year. Teams currently play some appealing non-conference matchups in October and early November -- games that might be better showcased after Jan. 1.
Conceptually speaking, it would be interesting to see some of those matchups (some having considrable marquee value) in January and early February. Such a move might better position those games for national television coverage (it would certainly be a more attractive time than during the football-heavy fall schedule), and put a greater sense of "importance" on such games in terms of perceived value for fans.
I don't want to meander on too much or go off on a tangent, but I've been intrigued by the notion of having one weekend in the second half of the hockey season reserved for "bracket buster" type games that would allow hockey-related media outlets to determine a handful of matchups with significance in the overall Pairwise Ranking comparisons (this might not be realistic from budget perspective, but it could be terrific from a competition perspective).
March is typically the time of year the hockey season heats up. It can sometimes feel like things are winding down just when the season is becoming interesting.
As I suggested above, NCAA basketball sucks up much of the oxygen this time of year. That point is evident each season when we go to various local sports bars and try to get them to commit a TV to the NCAA Ice Hockey tournament -- at the same time a slew of basketball games are on the air.
Making a shift would mean regular season collegiate ice hockey games (which tend to have local and regional TV coverage) would still be in the regular season at that point in time. The NCHC conference playoffs (as an example) wouldn't start until mid-April, and the Frozen Four wouldn't be until early May.
As long as the NCAA is tied to NHL venues for the Frozen Four, the possibility of shifting the season becomes much more difficult. Such a move might mean different, non-NHL venues would have to be considered. That would limit options significantly. The unknown (to me, anyway) is whether or not there is a non-NHL venue that could accomodate the event.
One other dynamic affecting the proposed season shift is the potential for professional teams to offer playing time to college players whose seasons have ended in early March each year.
There has always been something unsettling about watching college hockey players "drop out" in the middle of a semester to pursue pro careers -- essentially forfeiting credit hours. Shifting the season would mean those student-athletes wouldn't join pro teams until the following fall as AHL teams would have likely closed out their playoff chances by that point.
Whether or not we see a shift in the current NCAA Ice Hockey season structure, it is interesting to consider the possibilities. The sport needs to be allowed room to breathe, and the NCAA needs to see if it can find ways to promote and enhance the sport to increase the overall profile and prestige of the current system — or make a change for the future.
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