Washington will be hosting the Frozen Four in 2009. I don't have a local news item to which I can link, though, because college hockey is barely a suggestion of a blip on the local news radar. Well, no, I must be fair: I heard this on the local news radio.
And when I heard it, I thought: Excellent...but huh? None of the schools around here play Division I hockey.
Unless Navy expects that they will be by 2009.
From (of all places) the San Jose Sharks news:
But the most interesting bid may be that of Washington, D.C., only because the U.S. Naval Academy is the host school. Navy has had an on-campus rink for many years, and the Sharks actually practiced there last season. But Navy doesn’t field a Division I varsity team, so what could this bid be all about?Well, it makes the MCI Center’s bid much stronger, there’s no doubt. But in a roundabout way, it may explain the recent decision of the Air Force Academy to drop out of the CHA in favor of Atlantic Hockey, a move which will raise their travel budget.
Air Force has scholarship and academic guidelines that are more similar to Atlantic Hockey,so that is one reason for the move. A second is that the U.S. Military Academy, also known as Army, plays its hockey games in Atlantic Hockey, so a natural rival would begin.
But my imagination is racing with the idea of Navy upgrading its club program to a varsity, and playing in Atlantic Hockey with Army and Air Force. That would really be exciting,and would be a great selling point for the conference. A successful NCAA bid would certainly be a jump starting point for such a project, if they chose to do so.
From this article on the Caps web page, Sounds like Navy's coach Rick Randazzo (a West Point grad) has the same idea:
“When I came in six years ago, Division I really wasn’t even in the picture,” says Randazzo. “Now it’s six years later. It has been a dream of mine to have an Army-Navy game. I think that would be great. I always felt cheated not to have an Army-Navy hockey game. Going to West Point, our biggest competitor was RMC, Royal Military College in Canada. It just wasn’t the same as an Army-Navy game where everybody is cheering you on and fans are coming out of everywhere. We never have that. I know if we had that hockey game it would be unbelievable because hockey is the fastest warrior sport we have. If we were able to do an Army-Navy game, it would be on. It would be great. That would make it worth it whether we were varsity or not. All the other sports here – 23 varsity sports and all the club sports – they play Army except for us. With the new rink, I think it’s going to happen and then we’ll just have to see if there is a good fit for Navy to move in.”
Pretty cool, as it were.
Posted by Nic at June 23, 2005 04:46 PM