ARRRRRRGGHHHH!!! It looks like the only Chicago-area division I men's hockey program is going to be trampled in a wave of politics and basketball. I can't officially confirm the report that the UIC Flames will fold, but it certainly looks that way. <sigh> It's a long story, but here's a brief background: Lou Henson, the well-known basketball coach at the University of Illinois (which is in Urbana-Champaign, a couple of hours south of Chicago), retired as of the end of this season. His long-time assistant, Doug Collins, was thought by many to be the obvious choice as Lou's replacement, but he was passed over in favor of Florida's Lon Kruger. Apparently, a lot of trustees got upset about this decision, and as a result Collins was offered the job of coach of the UIC Flames basketball team. The current coach, Bob Hallberg, was "reassigned" unexpectedly to an administrative position last Friday. Today's Chicago Tribune sports section has an article detailing a lot of this information. It may or may not be online at www.chicago.tribune.com, I haven't checked (I get the old-style paper version). The article quotes Collins as saying he is "weighing the options" between assistant at Illinois and head at UIC. In an effort to attract Collins, and perhaps as part of an overall desire, UIC is talking about upgrading its basketball facilities. I'll quote directly from the Trib article (authors: Andrew Gottesman and Teddy Greenstein): --begin quoted material-- [UIC Athletic Director James] Schmidt added that questions about improvements to UIC's Pavilion and practice facility had been resolved. Such considerations were being debated as part of the discussion with Collins, sources said. ... "We've been discussing our athletic program for a while on a number of levels," Schmidt said. "We're going to look at a lot of different things relative to what we need to do to get this to another level." --end quoted material-- Clearly, this is consistent with what Jack Berenzweig heard on the radio; that UIC is going to try to take their basketball team to a higher level at the expense of the hockey team. This has an additional personal note for me, as my hockey club plays every Thursday at the UIC practice ice rink. Or should I say, used to play there. <sniff> I am saddened to hear that Chicago will lose its only Div I hockey program just to get a better basketball team. It is a real travesty. Jeff Benensohn HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.