Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Bill Falcone, a part-time resident of Newport, wrote another Letter to the Editor (he writes many) that appeared in today's (11-27-14) Providence Journal. In it, he proposes dropping football at his alma mater URI and adding hockey. It is sad that he could not advocate for a sport he clearly is biased for without dumping on another. Falcone also seems to imply that a hockey program would, unlike football, have success. His only evidence to support this is a reference to the experience of Umass-Lowell. He fails however to mention that hockey is the premier sport at that school, it plays in a 1st class venue (Tsongas Arena) that seats 6500, and is a member of the best college hockey conference (Hockey East) in the nation. The added irony of his proposal is that Falcone likely would not attend many of these proposed D1 URI hockey games as he apparently (according to info associated with his other letters) winters in Florida.



Link (Falcone letter is included with others)
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ ... w=ZW50aXR5
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Ugh.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

Unread post by hrstrat57 »

URI hockey could bang out the RC every friday nite......

Pipe it, ice it and roll out a good hockey east club and they will come....by the thousands!

Could be done by recruiting primarily RI HS athletes.....

Cha ching!

(I however to not advocate a complete drop of NCAA football, drop down yes, drop no)
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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RF1 wrote:Link (Falcone letter is included with others)
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ ... w=ZW50aXR5

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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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hrstrat57 wrote:URI hockey could bang out the RC every friday nite......

Pipe it, ice it and roll out a good hockey east club and they will come....by the thousands!

Could be done by recruiting primarily RI HS athletes.....

Cha ching!

(I however to not advocate a complete drop of NCAA football, drop down yes, drop no)
The Ryan Center is not configured for hockey. I don't think its possible to add a rink given its dimensions.

If URI cannot bang out home basketball games, it certainly won't do so for hockey.

URI would first have to be invited to Hockey East and the odds seem stacked against this. UConn played its first 15+ years in the far from glamorous Atlantic Hockey League before eventually getting a Hockey East invite this past year. It would likely be a similar route for URI hockey. URI however is no UConn and the Huskies didn't have another in state HE member that might not want them invited.

Recruiting RI HS athletes for the team seems dubious. I would think the best would want to play on much better programs in the Hockey East. High school hockey in RI also seems to be in decline as many schools are dropping it due to its cost and lack of player interest coupled with the fact that the best hockey players in RI now go the out of state prep school route. Besides, being located in a strong hockey region is no sure guarantee for success. Look at Brown, UConn, and UMass. The Minutemen were actually blown out 11-1 a week ago by UVM.

Why do some people assume that hockey will somehow instantly be successful at URI and pay for itself. If that were actually the case, wouldn't it have been done a long time ago?
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

Unread post by hrstrat57 »

We disagree RF1.

(Except for one thing, Smith Hill and that other HE program has made certain URI hockey stays off the hot stove for years)

That is about to change.....RC is perfect for hockey, witness the home shows, the entire lower tier comes out...would seat probably 5800 or so for hockey. Not the Whittemore Center but good enough.

Thanks tho for posting the linky, Happy Thanksgiving.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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I can understand why some people would want hockey, but I don't understand this hatred or agenda some people have against football. And the ProvJo loves to run these anti URI football letters, but never would allow a letter against the State purchase and fix over of the Dunk, or the fact that the most expensive sport that the State of RI supports is Providence College basketball, by providing a fixed over Dunk, which cost the State of RI about $10 million a year. So , instead of writing letters against football, try writing a letter to have PC pay their fair share to pay for the State and RICC fix over of the Dunk.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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OBRAM wrote:I can understand why some people would want hockey, but I don't understand this hatred or agenda some people have against football. And the ProvJo loves to run these anti URI football letters, but never would allow a letter against the State purchase and fix over of the Dunk, or the fact that the most expensive sport that the State of RI supports is Providence College basketball, by providing a fixed over Dunk, which cost the State of RI about $10 million a year. So , instead of writing letters against football, try writing a letter to have PC pay their fair share to pay for the State and RICC fix over of the Dunk.
I think the hatred people have against football has developed over the decades of losing. I have always supported the football team and do not support cutting the team. However, at what point do we say enough is enough? If Fleming and his crew produce more of the same results such as 3-9, 1-11, 2-10 records, should the university keep investing time, money, and effort into the program? At some point you have to cut your losses and if they can't produce some results in the next few years it might be time to end it.

I do not want to discuss the hockey issue because right now its not a reality.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Reality is an easy 5-1 road win over a D 3 opponent

Edit to let the coach have a say in this thread...

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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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The only way hockey would be successful if somebody invests $50 million into the program, new rink, facilities. Hockey people think that if they cut football then the money will flow into hockey. Cut football and that money is gone, its not going to hockey, plus does URI want a sport that would compete with basketball (the crown jewel), I don't think so. If anything, hockey could be even more expensive sport than football as you really need a $50 million arena, football could get by with a $25 Million Stadium. Does URI want another indoor stadium when they don't even have an outside track, and the pools are almost 50 years old. Have someone build a rink at Quonset, and have the P-Bruins play there also. I don't think the P-Bruins need a 10,000 seat arena, maybe 6,000-7,000.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Rams Outshot NCAA d3 Daniel Webster 44-17 in sweeping weekend series with a 7-3 win.

Boss Arena north wall can be knocked out to add another 1000 seats if needed. Or the RC can be piped. We don't need a $50m hockey rink.

It's time.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Pipe Ryan ctr, then you need basketball practice facilty.
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We have one. Keaney.
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Keaney is set up for volleyball.
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hrstrat57 wrote:Rams Outshot NCAA d3 Daniel Webster 44-17 in sweeping weekend series with a 7-3 win.

Boss Arena north wall can be knocked out to add another 1000 seats if needed. Or the RC can be piped. We don't need a $50m hockey rink.

It's time.
I do not dispute that capacity could be increased at Boss Arena. I recall reading it was built so that another 1000 or so seats could be added. That however would still only get capacity to 3,500 with all bleacher seating and little to no amenities. The facility would in no way be up to Hockey East standards which you have stated is the ultimate goal. It would be fine for Atlantic Hockey but participation in that league would not generate a lot of interest for URI D1 hockey and make it difficult to justify a program upgrade.

As for your comments about converting the Ryan Center. Please provide some actual back-up that a NCAA D1 college size ice rink could be added to the Ryan Center. I have never read anywhere that this was a possibility and question if the floor dimensions would even allow for it (Boss ice surface is 200' x 85'). In fact, it was implied when being planned that the Ryan Center would be specifically designed for basketball and not be a multi-purpose facility. That would seem to make sense since Boss Arena construction took place at about the same time. Why then would they ever have built two facilities if one could do both jobs?
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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UVM, PC, Merrimack all have arenas that seat under 4k. I dont think immediately having a state of the art arena would be an issue. Finding the funding for bball practice facilities and other upgrades may leave the coffers tapped unless a private donor can be found. Ive always found it strange that the state U of such a rich hockey state doesnt have hockey
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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seanmc94 wrote:UVM, PC, Merrimack all have arenas that seat under 4k. I dont think immediately having a state of the art arena would be an issue. Finding the funding for bball practice facilities and other upgrades may leave the coffers tapped unless a private donor can be found. Ive always found it strange that the state U of such a rich hockey state doesnt have hockey
UVM, PC, and Merrimack are at the bottom of Hockey East as far as facilities are concerned.

FYI - UVM is currently in the fundraising phase for a new $75m multipurpose hockey/hoops venue. It is still many years away from shovels in the ground but there is a proposed plan. It includes the following:

• When set up for hockey, the arena will seat 5,700 with 10 suites and an open hospitality area. Gutterson currently holds 4,007.
• In full basketball mode, the arena can accommodate 6,200. But UVM will probably keep capacity in the 4,000 range and adjust, using a curtain system, when necessary. Patrick Gym’s capacity is 3,266.
• New locker rooms for the basketball and hockey programs.
• Addition of a practice rink, which can also be used by the community and youth programs, a major shift in the original plans.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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OBRAM wrote:The only way hockey would be successful if somebody invests $50 million into the program, new rink, facilities. Hockey people think that if they cut football then the money will flow into hockey. Cut football and that money is gone, its not going to hockey, plus does URI want a sport that would compete with basketball (the crown jewel), I don't think so. If anything, hockey could be even more expensive sport than football as you really need a $50 million arena, football could get by with a $25 Million Stadium. Does URI want another indoor stadium when they don't even have an outside track, and the pools are almost 50 years old. Have someone build a rink at Quonset, and have the P-Bruins play there also. I don't think the P-Bruins need a 10,000 seat arena, maybe 6,000-7,000.
There's no nice way of saying this, but this is quite possibly the worst post I've read on this site. There is nothing in this post that comes close to being accurate and it suggests an ignorance of our own facilities, college hockey facilities in the Northeast, college hockey in general, how our athletic department has been run, how professional franchises are run, attitudes of sports fans, and how our state government in relation to the Convention Center Authority work.

1. Let's be totally frank. The only source for the $50 million number you mention twice is your own rectum that you pulled that number out of. We spent $12 million in 2001 to build a 2500 seat hockey arena. We don't need a single penny in facilities upgrades to start Division 1 hockey, our on campus, NHL sized rink that already exists can host a team in the Atlantic Hockey Association tonight and do so easily as a top half of the conference facility.

2. No matter what conference we might want to be in, because we're currently a club team, we will be starting in the AHA as we get our feet wet if the powers that be finally show the brains to make hockey a varsity sport. If we had moved to Division 1 in 2002 when the Boss Arena opened we would probably be starting in Hockey East this year instead of UConn. PC might want to keep us out of Hockey East, but BC has significantly more clout in the league, with significantly larger problems with UConn than PC has with us. Factor in UConn's big timing of UMass while we're conference mates with them and we would have gotten UMass and UMass Lowell's vote for entry over UConn. When it came time to vote on us or UConn the only obvious vote for UConn would have come from PC.

3. As for what we'd need for a rink to move up to the ECAC or Hockey East? Our current facility was designed to be easily expanded to around 3500 seats. Again we spent $12 million in 2001, which comes up to $16 million in today's money to build a 2500 seat rink from scratch. Using those numbers we would need less than $7 million to add 1000 seats and amenities commensurate with higher level hockey conferences. The average rink size in the ECAC is 3246, or pretty much exactly what we'd have with said expansion and would put us in the lower level, but competitive with Hockey East facilities. Again, less than $7 million for a competitive top level Division 1 facility, not the $50 million you said, nor the $20-30 million it would cost for a competitive de facto Division 2 football facility.

4. You also state that if football were to be cut the money wouldn't go to hockey and in fact would be gone. Again, anyone that's paid attention to URI athletics in the last 5 years knows this to be false. I don't know where it would go if we cut the sport, but the money would stay in the athletic department, and we know this because when we were going to cut only 23 scholarships by moving to the NEC that scholarship money was promised to other sports. You have a track record as someone that follows URI athletics, especially football, so you know that to be true, which makes your statement nothing more than a deliberate scare tactic aimed at those that don't follow URI athletics that closely.

5. You state that someone should build a 6-7,000 seat arena in Quonset for us and the PBruins. Anyone that's followed professional sports in at least the last two decades if not longer knows that teams aren't moving to the suburbs, they're moving into cities when they relocate. A Quonset Point facility is a nonstarter for the PBruins. Also, who will build this arena? The PBruins have no need to spend their money on such an arena as long as the Dunkin Donuts Center is available to them. Further you state that the PBruins would prefer 6-7000 seats instead of 10,000. They've averaged at least 7300 each of the last 5 seasons counting this one and at least 8000 each of the last 3 seasons counting this one. So why exactly would the PBruins want to avoid the trend of sports franchises in all sports in all parts of the country to move from the city to the suburbs to move into a theoretical venue that would probably cost them more that wouldn't be large enough to handle the crowds they're getting? This idea makes no sense at best.

6. Speaking of the PBruins and their facilities, the RI Convention Center Authority is already running into significant monetary difficulties and already keeps the rent of their tenants secret and that's with the PBruins being their largest tenant. Losing the 38 dates the PBruins provides would be absolutely crippling to the Dunkin Donuts Center, both from a financial and public relations aspect. The fact is the state and Convention Center Authority would lower the rent of the PBruins as much as they had to to ensure they kept those 38 dates booked and some rent and the ancillary income that comes from those games. There isn't another facility currently in the state or one that has any chance of being built that could lure the PBruins away from the Dunk.

7. You don't think URI would like to add a sport (hockey) that would compete with our basketball program. This is just ignorant of how the vast majority of sports fans think, especially those in New England. The fact is URI hockey would not seriously compete with URI basketball because sports fans, especially those in regions such as New England that have a heavy pro sport bias tend to flock significantly more toward either hockey or basketball and not toward being passionate, season ticket level fans of both sports. The calendars of each sport just naturally dictate that attitude. While there would be overlap, the vast majority of people that would be fans of a hockey program wouldn't be poached from basketball because they just don't care that much about the sport. The fact is we'd be poaching fans from other hockey franchises, be it the PBruins, PC, Brown, or high school.
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RhowdyRam02 just won the internet for today...
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Yep no further comment really needed from me.

However I am curious to know how many naysayers in these threads have ever been to a URI hockey game or even been inside the Boss arena?

Further how many have clicked on the above YouTube re coach Augustine?

Well played Rhowdyram02
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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It would be lame as hell if the state University of Rhode Island didn't have a football program. In fact it'd be kind of embarrassing. And it's more embarrassing than having a bad football program! Then we'd be with Alaska and Vermont as the only states that are without a football program. I don't like the sound of that. Furthermore, the give up attitude is just unacceptable in my eyes. Football is probably the greatest sport in the world, go for it!
Would much rather wait for the basketball team and football team to become more successful. Before getting a hockey team.
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I know that this thread is about the letter that said to scrap football, but personally I just think adding hockey makes a ton of sense for URI.

Football is its own problem and I wish the two could be exclusive of each other.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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adam914 wrote:I know that this thread is about the letter that said to scrap football, but personally I just think adding hockey makes a ton of sense for URI.

Football is its own problem and I wish the two could be exclusive of each other.
I think people will always link the two because the major question about moving hockey to D-1 is, "Where does the money come from?" The 'easiest' solution in the minds of many is to axe football to do so, because that would probably also solve the Title IX scholarship issue. If you're not eliminating football, then it requires some combination of hockey boosters raising the money and/or revenue from basketball or football supporting the expansion into D-1 hockey for men's and women's teams.
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I think division one hockey at URI would be great, but we've had these same conversations before and they go no where. Is there any hard evidence that the University is considering making the jump?
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D1 hockey at URI would be a disaster in my opinion. It would have to start out in D1 as a member of Atlantic Hockey (as noted by even hockey supporters). This would guarantee that it would be a money loser and never generate a lot of support. Fans will have no interest in hockey games vs Mercyhurst, Sacred Heart, Niagara, Canisius, Robert Morris, AIC, Bentley, Air Force, Army, RIT, and Holy Cross.
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Unless you fund hockey with the same money and priority as you do basketball, it would turn out to be another mediocre sport at URI, maybe like football without the crowds. Even if you have top talent in RI, would they go to URI with a 2,000 seat arena, or a UNH, BC , UMass, UMass-Lowell with better facilities? So, saying you need $50 million I don't think is an exaggeration, unless you just want to have hockey for the sake of having hockey. I heard in the 1990's when Oregon football was an unknown, Oregon Football supporters got together and came up with a game plan. They visited the football power houses, saw their facilities, and invested the money. It was not rocket science. And it helped that you had a Phil Knight as a supporter. So, what I am saying, if you want to do hockey and do it right, you need $50 million. For me I rather spend $25 million and help football and bring football up to CAA standards.
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http://m.espn.go.com/extra/ncaa/story?s ... rc=desktop

http://www.thesundevils.com/ViewArticle ... =209771702

Two programs that recently made the jump from club to Division 1. It took private donations to fund the endeavor. Where could we get that type of money?
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Per that link, the two most recent ACHA programs elevated to D1 had the following seed money to make it happen:

Penn State 88 million
Arizona State 32 million

Worth noting - Penn State had immediate automatic inclusion in a high profile hockey conference (Big Ten) and its funding also covered the construction of a new top notch hockey venue. ASU will be an independent as it does not yet have a conference home.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ObTA7fWzZw
Virtual Tour of Penn State Ice arena prior to construction
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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OBRAM wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ObTA7fWzZw
Virtual Tour of Penn State Ice arena prior to construction
It can't compare to Boss Arena!
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OBRAM wrote:Unless you fund hockey with the same money and priority as you do basketball, it would turn out to be another mediocre sport at URI, maybe like football without the crowds. Even if you have top talent in RI, would they go to URI with a 2,000 seat arena, or a UNH, BC , UMass, UMass-Lowell with better facilities? So, saying you need $50 million I don't think is an exaggeration, unless you just want to have hockey for the sake of having hockey. I heard in the 1990's when Oregon football was an unknown, Oregon Football supporters got together and came up with a game plan. They visited the football power houses, saw their facilities, and invested the money. It was not rocket science. And it helped that you had a Phil Knight as a supporter. So, what I am saying, if you want to do hockey and do it right, you need $50 million. For me I rather spend $25 million and help football and bring football up to CAA standards.
No, what you're saying is you support football over every other sport the university offers and you need to make the prospect of hockey sound scary and far more expensive then our shitty football program. So you made up a number that's twice as much as the football number and act as if it's a fact. It's not. You're wrong.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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I love the standard hockey has to meet in this forum. It's a standard no other program other than men's basketball has to meet and certainly not one our shit football program has to reach. According to you people to start hockey it has to be instantly successful, have a place in the best conference in the nation, pay for itself, have top of the nation facilities, play marquee opponents, and draw top talent and do all of those things for it to exist.

Let's apply that same standard to football.

So football needs to be in a top conference to justify its existence. Clearly de facto Division 2 CAA is not good enough we need to be in real Division 1 to reach this goal. And conferences like the MAC and even the American wouldn't be good enough because you lose money in those conferences and they're not prestigious enough, so the ACC is the only conference good enough, so if we can't join the ACC football shouldn't exist. And Meade Stadium clearly isn't cutting it, so we need a new stadium to justify football's existence to go along with our new conference. So we'll need a new 60,000 seat stadium or it's not worth our time to have football. And if we're not drawing top ACC level talent right now and we don't have the money right now for all of this, football shouldn't exist. And because I want it to sound scary and I don't need to worry about facts, I'm just going to say we need to raise $200 million right now or football shouldn't exist.

Pretty dumb and unrealistic, huh? Then maybe you all shouldn't be so dumb and unrealistic when it comes to hockey.

The fact of the matter is there's been a groundswell of support for a long time at URI, and it's been outright ignored. Henry H. Mackal donated $500,000 in 1975 to go towards elevating the hockey program. The intent of his gift was ignored and the university instead used that gift in the mid 80's to build Mackal Field House. Bradford Boss donated a substantial amount of money to fund the construction of the Boss Arena. The men's hockey team is currently a club sport and uses student fees and private fundraising to be able to afford their ambitious schedule. The Atlantic Hockey Association and ECAC have contacted the athletic department in the last decade to gauge our interest in joining. There is interest from the community for us to have a Division 1 hockey team and interest from Division 1 conferences for URI to join.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

Unread post by RF1 »

I am merely using the same criteria that many have applied to football as justification to ending it. In my view all the problems we now have with football would simply be transferred to hockey if football was discontinued and hockey started up. URI would not properly fund the program, facilities would be subpar, the level of play (divsion-conference) would not interest large numbers of fans, etc....

As for groundswell of support for hockey, I just don't see it. At least with football there are thousands of people going to the games even with the poor product and the program has a very loyal donor base that annually helps to pay operation expenses to keep the sport alive. It is that financial support from key alumni that makes the school wary of cutting it.
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PeterRamTime
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Watch and read that!^
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Yeah it's heartbreaking, but it was heartbreaking for the members of the gymnastics, field hockey, men's tennis and men's swimming teams when they had their sports cut by URI in 2008, especially when they looked at the anchor that is URI football taking up as many resources as it does. How many other sports will we cut before we take the necessary steps with football? And it's heartbreaking for men's hockey players, coaches and supporters to see more interest in their program from outside conferences than from their own athletic department. How many more missed opportunities will go by before we do what is necessary with football? And it will be heartbreaking when the stands at Meade Stadium finally collapse because the university refuses to cut football but refuses to fix it. Hopefully when they finally go the stands won't be full and we can avert a real tragedy on campus.

And while we're watching the video and reading the article, it's pretty hard not to have one question on your mind. If a FBS, bowl eligible team in the part of the country that is mad over college football more than any other region and any other sport fails, what chance does our program have in an area where people don't care about college sports, especially football and the program in question hasn't had a winning year in 13 seasons and hasn't been to the playoffs in almost 30 years?
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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While the prospect of not moving up to D1 hockey is likely very disappointing to the hockey players, it is not really comparable to the feelings of those that play a varsity sport (football or any of the others that have already been dropped) being told it is to be disbanded. Keep in mind that URI hockey players come to URI knowing it is a club sport. Football players come to URI to play FCS level football.
Last edited by RF1 9 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Cutting football is a desperation move. Alabama as a state may be more football-crazy than we are (obviously), but we aren't a directional school. We are a flagship state university. I believe we have a mandate to play the sport - America's sport and the first real collegiate sport - no matter at what level and no matter at what cost. Every sport should try to win, but I'd take a losing football program over a winning hockey program everyday and twice on Saturdays in the fall. Football means more than all the other sports combined because of how it is woven into the social and historical fabric of each school and every school that plays is part of a shared history with the others schools that it has played against for decades.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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As a flagship state university we have a mandate to educate the population, with a special duty to educate the people of Rhode Island. Everything else is a nice diversion and public relations and as such is subject to providing value. That doesn't mean profit, but it does mean providing at least as much as it takes, even if many of the benefits are intangible. You believe football is doing that. Many other people, including myself, believe that due to the crumbling stadium, excessive costs, and unacceptable losing that it's not providing a value commensurate with what it's taking from the table and don't see any hope that it ever will. As long as the administration makes no improvement to the infrastructure and the program continues to lose at historic rates you'll never change our minds, just like apparently no amount of losing and no amount of disrepair will change yours. I believe we've both given up that quest for a while.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

Unread post by Puck Frovidence »

Whew, picked a hell of a time to take a few days off from the board (figured there would be a lot of doom and gloom after Orlando and I'm trying to stay positive 8-) ). RhowdyRam02 you're my gd hero... agree with tons of what you have posted here, well thought out and well stated.

What hockey at URI needs right now is a start. Not a new barn, not a Hockey East title, not even a DI team with 18 scholarships... we just have to start. Everyone knows that varsity hockey will cost money, would need a relatively huge gift from an outside donor. But the thing is, that isn't out of the question... the problem with the prospects for varsity hockey at URI today is that even if somebody showed up with two huge dollar-sign bags and said "GIVE ME HOCKEY", we'd have no idea what to do with the money. No one is saying Thorr should sniff out $32M for a new program, but considering the program success, student and alumni interest what he should be looking do is figure out exactly what it would take. We need a feasibility study, an analysis of costs, some kind of partnership with an organization like College Hockey Inc (like ASU had) to determine what we would need to make this happen. If we had a grasp on how varsity hockey might be realized in terms of costs, staffing, NCAA compliance, etc., it would make it much easier to look for donors. At least we'd know where we stood.


The story of how varsity hockey came to be at Arizona State is an interesting one with lots of parallels for URI. It is almost entirely based on the success of the ACHA team and efforts of people connected to the team. They're even keeping their ACHA coach for the move to DI (a move which URI would do well to follow if we ever had the chance). ASU also, by the way were the team that knocked the Rams out of the second round of the national tournament this year, on their way to winning the national championship. Rhody accomplished that feat eight years previously.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

Unread post by OBRAM »

TruePoint wrote:Cutting football is a desperation move. Alabama as a state may be more football-crazy than we are (obviously), but we aren't a directional school. We are a flagship state university. I believe we have a mandate to play the sport - America's sport and the first real collegiate sport - no matter at what level and no matter at what cost. Every sport should try to win, but I'd take a losing football program over a winning hockey program everyday and twice on Saturdays in the fall. Football means more than all the other sports combined because of how it is woven into the social and historical fabric of each school and every school that plays is part of a shared history with the others schools that it has played against for decades.
Great post, I remember going to football games my freshman year, even to Brown Stadium. Back then we had a fantastic band. Hopefully we can get the band and football program back to those higher levels. A football game is more than just the game, it is the atmosphere , it is fall, the band, an event. I am not against Hockey, but I am against having hockey instead of football, and if you have hockey I want it to be as good as UHN and Maine, and that takes money.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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RF1 wrote:While the prospect of not moving up to D1 hockey is likely very disappointing to the hockey players, it is not really comparable to the feelings of those that play a varsity sport (football or any of the others that have already been dropped) being told it is to be disbanded. Keep in mind that URI hockey players come to URI knowing it is a club sport. Football players come to URI to play FCS level football.
I was on the men's tennis team in 2008, so I know exactly how heartbreaking it is. Over a decade of hard work and sacrifice to reach the goal of playing D1 tennis only to have my career ended prematurely...

however the university must act for the good of the university and not just for the good of a few athletes who would be heartbroken...I find it inexcusable that the flagship university does that have both varsity and football programs. However given the situation we our in and our lack of support from the state house the only realistic way for hockey to become varsity is with the elimination of football, which I firmly believe would be in the best interest of the university.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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89 - while I disagree with your opinion I respect the hell out of your Al Pacino quote.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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TP,

Pacino? Thats sly in the only watchable 5 minutes of Rocky Balboa
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Is it not also Pacino in Any Given Sunday? Perhaps borrowing from Sly? Now that you say that I can hear Rocky saying it, too. Maybe to his dumb kid? But I'm going to check the Any Given Sunday speech to see if i just totally misremembered.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Ya it's from last rocky movie they did...movie was mediocre(being generous) but I do love that quote
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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Ha I just heard Stallone doing this bit in a commercial for a video game of all things.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/urialumni ... 630891579/
Homecoming pictures, even URI football has traditions that cannot be duplicated with any other sport.
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Re: Hockey enthusiast letter to Projo-Scrap Football at URI

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I also think the sport of football partnered with basketball works out best schedule wise for the school. Football and men's basketball are the two high profile sports (according to attendance figures) in Kingston. Their schedules have little overlap and fit in well with the URI academic calendar. Football starts at the beginning of September and hoops ends in early March. They cover all but about 6-8 weeks of the normal school year and do not conflict with one another playing at the same time. If football was dropped, there would be a huge void as there would be no high profile sport for first 10 weeks of school. Homecoming would be dramatically changed (for the worse) with no football game. While some may argue that the fall focus could be shifted to soccer I doubt that it would ever come close to taking football's place.

The hockey schedule unfortunately almost mirrors that of hoops. I don't think it would be good to have the two high profile sports playing at the same time and competing for the limited attention of URI sports enthusiasts.
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