A few opinions on why small schools can succeed in college hockey:
1. College hockey has different recruiting roots than big-time football
and basketball. Many small-town Canadian kids have no idea what the Big
10 is, nor do they want to go to a school with 40,000 students.
2. Continuity is important. The ultimate keys to the success of Lake State's
program are Bud Cooper and Ron Mason, who started the program with the proper
funding and vision, and later Cooper, who made great decisions to replace
coaches like Mason and Rick Comley.
3. Small town. The small market at LSSU works to our advantage. We are the
number-one game in town. We are not competing with pro sports, etc. for
attention. That makes it much easier to market the program.
**A side note here: our market is actually near 200,000 people. We have a
Canadian city of nearly 100,000 across the river and we consider our market
to be all of the EUP and northern lower peninsula of Michigan. People in
remote areas of the midwest are more apt to drive two hours to see a hockey
game. There's not much else to do on a Friday night in January. This "big
fish in a small pond" atmosphere is a benefit in recruitng as well.
4. University. The U must be committed to the program, and LSSU is
committed. Hockey is the "front porch", so to speak, for this school, just
as football is at Michigan. The University, and Dr. Robert Arbuckle, our
President, were integral in helping with the public campaign to expand our
arena. They address the needs of the program in keeping up with the big
schools, within reason, consistently, too.
Just a few thoughts on that situation. As to small schools like
Merrimack and Lowell, which are in saturated markets, some of these
comments don't necessarily apply to their situation.
Scott Monaghan
Assistant Athletic Director
Lake Superior State University
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906-635-2601
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