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 [log in to unmask] 906-635-2601 HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.