Three comments: 1. Bad idea. Hockey only works in places where the lakes freeze in the winter. There would never be a Louisiana player on the team. 2. Title 9 means we would also have to add a women's field hockey team to balance the scholarships. 3. It would never make money. All the funds to pay for it would come out of football revenue, lessing our chances of paying football coaches competitive salaries.
Hockey, no. Soccer, yes! Face it, soccer is the future. (there, that ought to really drive some of you nuts... )
The University of Alabama-Huntsville NCAA Div-1 hockey team began as a club team in 1979. They joined the NCAA in 1985 and won Div II National Championships in '96 and '98. They moved up to Div-1 in 2000. Last season, they made it to the NCAA Tournament, getting knocked out in overtime by #1-seated Notre Dame (who ended up going to the Championship Game). Their current roster has 20 Canadians and 7 Americans (2 from Ohio, and one each from Georgia, Texas, Calfornia, Michigan, Pennslyvania). Their big wins so far this season were a 4-1 victory over preseason #18 Harvard and and a 1-0 victory over currently-ranked #17 Yale. They were competive in their losses to preseason #5 and currently-ranked #11 Colorado College (losing 0-1 and 2-5).
Hockey will never work down here because the would-be fans simply aren't familiar enough with the rules and regulations, and aren't practiced in keeping an eye on that ever-elusive puck. A lot of people went to Kingfish games at first, mainly because it was something new and they wanted to see the fights. However, the weakness of the fights and overall unfamiliarity with the game eventually took over.
John, do you think there would be any local talent available? Don't know if things have changed much, but ice was sorta hard to come by for the twenty odd years when I lived in Louisiana. Just doesn't seem like a natural fit to me.
