A Sea Of Red

BYD's favorite 2 things in one thread? Watch out

I have always heard for over a decade that the primary reason why we wouldn't step up to scholarship hockey was the lack of regional competition would make travel costs prohibitive. It would appear that times are changing in favor of our reconsideration. But the times are not exactly moving at the speed of light.

I think it could happen but the closest NCAA D1 teams to Lynchburg are in State College, PA and Columbus, Ohio. If we add men and women the travel distance is the only problem I could see. I would be totally on board with it happening though, great way to grow the game in "non-natural" market.

The idea being that if Alabama and other SEC schools in hockey-friendly areas like Kentucky, Tennesse & Missouri started adding programs then it could snowball pretty quickly much like we have seen in non-revenue sports like LAX & FH. This seems like very wishful thinking since many schools will cringe at the costs associated with starting up an NCAA program. Then again, who saw this move from Arizona State coming?

While the odds of the SEC sponsoring hockey anytime soon seems remote, perhaps a HockeySouth could be started with teams from across the region combining schools teams from hockey-friendly areas like Nashville, Atlanta, the Triangle with random other schools in the region like Alabama-Huntsville and perhaps even us. That could be a nice first step.

I do agree that any additions would have to be women & men simultaneously due to Title IX.

Sly Fox wrote:it could snowball pretty quickly

I see what you did there.