Jason writes:
 
>>Hello all recipients of this list.  I am writing about club hockey.  Sorry
>>that it isn't D-I, but that's all we have here at Bradley University.  Our
>>school may be going (most likely) to the tournament for the championships.
>>I think that it is such BS that hockey is a club sport here when it is the
>>most winning team on campus.  Has anyone ever watched club college hockey?
>>It is brutal!  The refs don't call anything.  If they did the game would
>>take 4 hours to play.  I was just wondering what everyone thought of club
>>college hockey.
 
I have a friend at Bowling Green, who isn't on the list (his loss :) ), who I
thought would respond to this question well.  I sent the original to him.  He
sent me his answer, which I have forwarded to the list (my editing in
brackets):
 
>It doesn't matter that your club [hockey] team is the winningest, it matters
>how good they are.  Even if they have the best record of all your teams (how
>can you compare different sport anyhow?), this doesn't mean they could
>necessarily compete in D1 (or even D3).  I play for the club team at
>Bowling Green State University.  Even though our record is about the same
>as our varsity (near last place in CCHA), we would get crushed against
>teams like Miami, Michigan, [Notre Dame, Ohio State,] etc.  The best your team
>can do is try to schedule a game against a D3 team (you very well could have a
>chance - I know we could beat some D3 teams).  That would give you some idea
>of your competitiveness.  Then maybe try to petition D1.
>
>As for the actual game, I do agree that it is very physical (as is any hit
>league), and maybe sometimes brutal (again, as can be games in any hit
>league.)  I don't think you can single out club hockey as being brutal -
>I've seen many NHL games that were brutal.  Now if you are from Canada, and
>are using brutal in the terms of being bad, then, again, this can be said
>about any level of hockey lower than D1.  The refs are bad, but that is why
>they aren't any higher! [reffing a higher league, that is]  If they called
>everything in the NHL, the games *would* take 4 hours.  Just be happy that
>they don't call everything, and that there is no league like from the movie
>_Slapshot_ (except maybe the ECHL) - those games would've taken a couple of
>days to play! :)
>
>George
 
George's email address is: [log in to unmask]
 
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