Ice hockey on campus? University of Louisville has 'preliminary' chat

Tim Sullivan | Courier Journal

The timing was coincidence. The meeting was preliminary. Efforts to enhance ice hockey’s place at the University of Louisville are still in the thin-ice stage.

Yet less than 24 hours after Barstool Sports ranked U of L the second-strongest candidate to add pucks to its NCAA Division I profile, university administrators met Tuesday with a delegation aiming at the same goal.

Caution is appropriate. Skepticism may be warranted. If U of L is to add any varsity sports anytime soon, it’s likely to choose something less costly and more commonly played in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Still, as a draw for out-of-state students presently paying their own tuition and as a sport conducive to gender equity considerations, ice hockey would seem to occupy a niche worth nurturing at U of L. Though it’s very early in what figures to be a very long haul, it can’t hurt to hear these guys out.

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“It was a feeling-out, very preliminary,” U of L club hockey coach Brian Graham said of Tuesday’s meeting. “We’re trying to figure out what we can do. We are hoping we have more conversations. They need more details from us and we need more details from them.”

Graham and Michael Pearce, chairman of the Kentucky Amateur Ice Hockey Association, faced-off Tuesday with a group of U of L officials that included Dr. Michael Mardis, U of L’s dean of students, and intramurals director Dale Ramsay. The athletic department, notably, was not represented.

University spokesman John Karman stressed that any changes to U of L’s master plan would require Frankfort’s approval and that current plans carry no provision for a hockey rink. Karman declined to detail any proposals made Tuesday “as they did not originate with the university.”

Though Pearce previously told the Courier Journal he has a group prepared to build an ice rink from scratch at U of L with a goal of gaining Division I status, he chose not to share specifics when contacted Tuesday.

His plan, he said, “hasn’t been fully vetted at this point.”

NCAA Division I currently includes 60 men’s ice hockey programs and 36 women’s programs. To broaden its base, the National Hockey League and its players association have funded feasibility studies at five schools. Four of those studies have been completed and at least one of them, conducted at the University of Illinois, is expected to produce a new varsity program.

“If there’s anything that this project has done, it’s caused a lot of college enthusiasts throughout the country to self-identify,” said Michael Snee, executive director of College Hockey, Inc.

“We made a priority list of schools that were either very desirable or had the ingredients that made it more likely. Do they have a facility? Do we know of potential donors there? Is there a storyline that is so good at that school that it makes sense?”

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At first, priority was assigned to the Big Ten Conference, which now has seven men’s hockey programs and would grow to eight if Illinois adopts the sport. But Arizona State’s fast-track addition of the sport caused organizers to widen their geographic focus.

The Barstool Sports rankings of prospective Division I programs listed Louisville second behind Alabama, with Kentucky, Southern Cal and Oregon filling out the top five.

“I don’t see it happening for quite a while,” Kentucky’s hockey club coach Tim Pergram said Tuesday. “You’d have to have a rink. You’d have to have a conference you play in. It’s very expensive. We don’t have the facilities to have an NCAA scholarship program.”

By tradition, Kentucky's club team plays its home games at midnight at the Lexington Ice Center, and typically packs the small venue at $7 per head.

“I’m an older guy,” Pergram said, “drinking coffee the whole time to stay awake.”

U of L’s club team plays at the Iceland Sports Complex in eastern Louisville, about a 20-minute drive from campus.

“We sell out our home games and we can’t cover (expenses),” Graham said. “Club hockey is bigger than what people think it is. It’s not Ultimate Frisbee. It costs about $115,000 a year.”

Graham’s primary goal is to persuade the university to pay some of the bills. An on-campus rink and Division I status is a dream for down the road.

Asked if he was encouraged by Tuesday’s meeting, Graham replied, “I’m not discouraged. They sat down with me.”

In his sport, you don't get to start with a power play.

Tim Sullivan: 502-582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @TimSullivan714. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/tims