College hockey has always been a regional sport.  There is tremendous
interest at many of the schools that play it, and not so much at
others.  There is precious little interest outside of these schools.
There have been many attempts over the years to expand the base of
interest, but most have been failures.  How many people remember that
the ECAC used to run a holiday tournament at MSG in New York?  (They
also had one in Boston.)  Colleges in diverse areas of the country
have tried to start teams, but have failed, e.g., Northern Arizona and
US International in San Diego and this was before Title 9.
 
I personally think that had the Maine-Michigan game been shown in
prime time it would have caused a significant increase in interest,
but it was on a weekday in the early afternoon.  Besides for those of
us on H-L, I doubt that many people went out of the way to watch it,
and I doubt that anyone who taped it would have had the foresight to
set the timer for a long enough period.  (Of course, ESPN made sure
that no one saw the last 28 seconds complete anyway.)  Be that as it
may, there will be further opportunities.
 
For those of you who have crystal balls, what do you think would be
the fate of the non-Div-I teams that play Div-I hockey if say 100 real
Div-I teams were playing the sport?  What I mean is do people think
that the Clarksons, Lake States, Colorado Colleges, etc would be able
to compete in recruiting with the like of UCLA and Penn State?
 
I personally think that these schools would not be able to compete
with that many larger schools.  So being from RPI, I have mixed
feelings about a large increase in Div-I hockey.
 
Ralph Baer
RPI '68, '70, '74