Observations From a New College Hockey Fan

When you follow a Pro Sport such as hockey, you often hear about your team’s minor leagues and college prospects. The majority of fans know a few names as they are thrown around during the season, and I certainly fall into that catagory. I had heard of the best of the minors, etc. The ones we bring up during injuries or the ones that come out of camp excelling enough to earn a spot on the team. But up until now, that had been the extent of my knowledge.

Now, because of the suckage that is known as AT&T Uverse, I have had to look elsewhere for hockey shows as they cancelled the NHL Channel. Sure, I can watch King’s games on NBCSports, but I used to love to watch the OTHER hockey games as well. We now get 2-3 a week. Really unfortunate and the only reason we haven’t changed yet is because who knows when the next provider will drop the channel as well. I guess I hoped they would do MY bidding and put MY station back up but enough of this miserable conversation.

Uverse actually did me a favor. I looked for hockey elsewhere. Minor hockey, like the King’s affliates the ECHL’s Ontario Reign and the AHL’s Manchester Monarchs games are not televised. Wouldn’t that be awesome! But, when you look at the channels you will find a ton of College Hockey games on your lineup. My college Hockey viewing has also increased over this All-Star break and I have a few observations.

First off, College Hockey is so much more spirited! You have the student body at the games and that school spirit is on overload. Then, you have the opposing team and their student body fans. The atmosphere is rediculously entertaining. No one is paying these kids. They are doing it for the love of the game. Sure, if they do well they may get drafted but the majority will never make that leap to the NHL level and boy, that doesn’t stop them from giving their best! Plus you have the school bands busting out their best Go Team Go songs! True basic entertainment.

Second, their hockey arena’s differ according to money. You would think that maybe they would differ due to the popularity of the sport. It just doesn’t seem that way to me, but again, I’m new to College hockey rinks. I first noticed the difference watching the Harvard vs Yale game. Wow! Talk about an amazing hockey rink and surrounding seats. Beautiful. And no ads on the side of the rink except wording such as ivyleague.com or Harvard Hockey in big letters above the rafters. Just take a look at this artisty! So clean, so graceful, so intimate! This rink is not welcoming anyone who is not from Harvard. And just to make sure no rif raf comes in, it’s total seat count is 2800 for student body and family fans.

What about a the University of North Dakota’s rink? Wow again but in a completely different way from Harvard. Ads everywhere! Fans coming out of the aisles! This arena seats 11, 640 fans. That’s a totally different rink from the ivy league rinks. This arena actually hosts World Junior games as well as the North Dakota boys and girls state hockey championships every February. Also using this arena are local ice shows as well as concerts.

Rich Hammond over at LAkingsinsider.com had a Junior/College prospect update on January 27, 2012 and I’ll copy part of it here. I printed this out so I could follow some of the King’s prospects when I watch the College hockey games. I was able to see Derek Forbert play on Saturday and I felt like this opened another layer to our Kings’ hockey. Here are a few you can follow:

Andy Andreoff, F (3rd round, 2011) — Playing for the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League, Andreoff has a team-high 44 points, with 19 goals and 25 assists in 36 games.

Derek Forbort, D (1st round, 2010) — A sophomore at the University of North Dakota, Forbort has one goal, three assists and a minus-6 rating in 18 games. He is out of the lineup with an injury suffered during the World Junior Championships.

Chris Gibson, G (2nd round, 2011) — Playing for the Chicoutimi Sagueneens of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Gibson has a 15-10-4 record, a 2.91 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage in 29 games.

Kevin Gravel, D (5th round, 2010) — A sophomore at St. Cloud State University, Gravel has 0 goals, five assists and a minus-3 rating in 24 games.

Maxim Kitsyn, F (6th round, 2010) — Playing for Metallurg Novokuznetsk of the Kontinental Hockey League, Kitsyn has one goal and two assists in 29 games.

Joel Lowry, F (5th round, 2011) — A freshman at Cornell University, Lowry has five goals and six assists in 19 games.

Michael Mersch, F (4th round, 2011) — A sophomore at the University of Wisconsin, Mersch has eight goals and 12 assists in 12 games.

Michael Schumacher, F (7th round, 2011) — Playing for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the OHL, Schumacher is third on the team in points (36), with 21 goals and 15 assists in 44 games.

Nick Shore, F (3rd round, 2011) — A sophomore at the University of Denver, Shore has five goals and 17 assists in 24 games.

Tyler Toffoli, F (2nd round, 2010) — Playing for the Ottawa 67s, ranks first in the OHL in goals (36) and points (74) in 42 games. Toffoli led the OHL in goals last season and tied for the league lead in points.

Jordan Weal, F (3rd round 2010) — Playing for the Regina Pats, ranks second in the Western Hockey League in points (81), with 30 goals and a league-high 51 assists in 48 games. Weal finished fifth in the WHL in points last season.

What is all comes down to is it doesn’t matter if you come from a prestigious ivy League Hockey school like Keven Westgarth from Princeton, or a College Hockey town like Jack Johnson from the University of Michigan, the fact remains that the drive and the love of the game shows through the school spirit of College Hockey and follows our players to the NHL level. Go College Hockey!