Let's also hear it for NIU's hockey team!

https://niuhockey.com/

Love that we have a robust hockey program!

Wish they were an actual "team", with an on-campus facility....

LETS HEAR IT FOR TITLE IX!!! ;(

(09-23-2017 12:25 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  Love that we have a robust hockey program!

Wish they were an actual "team", with an on-campus facility....

LETS HEAR IT FOR TITLE IX!!! ;(

Several schools in the MAC including Miami, BGSU and WMU have ice hockey. Not sure Title IX is the problem here. Miami has a varsity women's precision ice skating team and you can have a women's hockey team.

consideration for ice capabilities was given when the Convo was planned but cost was deemed to be too much

(09-23-2017 06:54 PM)bikechuck Wrote:  

(09-23-2017 12:25 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  Love that we have a robust hockey program!
Wish they were an actual "team", with an on-campus facility....
LETS HEAR IT FOR TITLE IX!!! ;(

Several schools in the MAC including Miami, BGSU and WMU have ice hockey. Not sure Title IX is the problem here. Miami has a varsity women's precision ice skating team and you can have a women's hockey team.

STUPID COMMENT #1: Let's hear it for Title IX!!! That has zero to do with NIU not having an ice hockey team. NIUfilmmaker are you aware that NIU also has club sports for men's and women's rugby, bowling, quidditch. Seriously, where do you think the money is going to come from? Why should we have ice hockey when men's and women's swimming were dropped? We have more All-Americas per scholarship in men's gymnastics and that program is long gone. We won a national championship in badminton. We had a nationally known unbeaten streak in field hockey.

STUPID COMMENT #2: Several schools in the MAC have ice hockey....Miami has a varsity women's precision ice skating team and you can have a women's hockey team. THREE MAC schools -- not several -- have NCAA Division I ice hockey for men and women and they date back decades (Bowling Green since 1969, Miami 1978, and Western Michigan 1973). Miami chooses to pay for those other women's programs; considering the financial crunch and how badly so many of you care only about football, where is the money supposed to come from?
Seriously, can't this idea be dead and buried. Not one of you people have a realistic understanding of the costs involved in having and maintaining an arena with ice hockey. Despite the popularity of the Blackhawks, there is no Division I program in Illinois, UIC tried and failed.
Win the next big mega-million lottery and pay for it, otherwise get realistic before debating which men's program you want eliminated.

The cost of an ice arena could be shared with the DeKalb Sycamore community. I have seen this work in similar communities. A well managed arena is in use 12 or more hours per day, seven days a week. Ice time is rented out to figure skating clubs, youth hockey, high school hockey and open skating for the general public.

Could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport but the facility itself could be built and maintained without being an economic drain.

Also, there is no need to call comments that others contribute stupid.

(09-23-2017 09:07 PM)bikechuck Wrote:  The cost of an ice arena could be shared with the DeKalb Sycamore community. I have seen this work in similar communities. A well managed arena is in use 12 or more hours per day, seven days a week. Ice time is rented out to figure skating clubs, youth hockey, high school hockey and open skating for the general public.

Could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport but the facility itself could be built and maintained without being an economic drain.

Also, there is no need to call comments that others contribute stupid.

Exactly!

U of I could could get D1 Varsity hockey : http://www.ncaa.com/news/icehockey-men/a...ckey-study . Wirtz and the Hawks might want to put some $s up to jump start it. Wait and see,

A basic basic rink is a few (2-4) million, one sheet of ice, no frills like nice lobby or clubhouse. If you can find an empty warehouse with the right structure, maybe a bit less, Mount Prospect just opened a ice facility this way. But keeping this busy enuf to break even, in the Dekalb area, is a tall task. Even if NIU has 2 mens and 2 womens teams, and played games there, there might not be enuf local population (with interest and disposable income) to sell enuf ice time. There are rules of thumb for population density in the area, to run a rink, but Dekalb is shy of this and those rules fail often from what I see. Quite a few rinks in the Chicago area have gone under financially, someone loses alot of cash, and someone comes in to buy it cheaper and hope to do better.

What works is a wealthy individual who loves the game and won't mind taking a cash hit. At least in the Chicago area. If this were the Detroit suburbs or Minnesota, there'd already be a rink the area.

(09-23-2017 09:07 PM)bikechuck Wrote:  The cost of an ice arena could be shared with the DeKalb Sycamore community. I have seen this work in similar communities. A well managed arena is in use 12 or more hours per day, seven days a week. Ice time is rented out to figure skating clubs, youth hockey, high school hockey and open skating for the general public.
Could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport but the facility itself could be built and maintained without being an economic drain.
Also, there is no need to call comments that others contribute stupid.

The DeKalb-Sycamore community needs to be convinced to once again support NIU athletics in general, not share the cost of an ice arena.
There is zero evidence of the kind of interest or need necessary for an ice arena. What works in one community is not guaranteed to work in another and if it's so easy to have a well-managed arena, what's the ratio of suburban cities that have one versus the ones that don't? There's one in St. Charles that just closed.
High School hockey? Do you realize DeKalb and Sycamore are part of a co-op for a high school team out of Belvidere? When those one or two kids graduate, doubt the co-op continues.
You yourself say "could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport," then why build it? DeKalb tried a small skating park near downtown as part of the Christmas/winter season and it was an economic failure.
NIU's enrollment continues to drop, education funding continues to be trimmed, no one wants increased taxes, every developer demands TIFs, and a person in Colorado Springs, CO, re-hashed this topic with support from Dublin, OH, and Wicker Park. But they know what local people want.
Fine, replace Stupid with Unrealistic. And the next time you're in town, please consider joining me at a Huskie volleyball, soccer, wrestling, tennis, gymnastics, baseball, softball, or track event, any of which would welcome more fan support.

(09-24-2017 01:55 PM)uiniu57 Wrote:  

(09-23-2017 09:07 PM)bikechuck Wrote:  The cost of an ice arena could be shared with the DeKalb Sycamore community. I have seen this work in similar communities. A well managed arena is in use 12 or more hours per day, seven days a week. Ice time is rented out to figure skating clubs, youth hockey, high school hockey and open skating for the general public.
Could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport but the facility itself could be built and maintained without being an economic drain.
Also, there is no need to call comments that others contribute stupid.

The DeKalb-Sycamore community needs to be convinced to once again support NIU athletics in general, not share the cost of an ice arena.
There is zero evidence of the kind of interest or need necessary for an ice arena. What works in one community is not guaranteed to work in another and if it's so easy to have a well-managed arena, what's the ratio of suburban cities that have one versus the ones that don't? There's one in St. Charles that just closed.
High School hockey? Do you realize DeKalb and Sycamore are part of a co-op for a high school team out of Belvidere? When those one or two kids graduate, doubt the co-op continues.
You yourself say "could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport," then why build it? DeKalb tried a small skating park near downtown as part of the Christmas/winter season and it was an economic failure.
NIU's enrollment continues to drop, education funding continues to be trimmed, no one wants increased taxes, every developer demands TIFs, and a person in Colorado Springs, CO, re-hashed this topic with support from Dublin, OH, and Wicker Park. But they know what local people want.
Fine, replace Stupid with Unrealistic. And the next time you're in town, please consider joining me at a Huskie volleyball, soccer, wrestling, tennis, gymnastics, baseball, softball, or track event, any of which would welcome more fan support.

Wow! All I did was post support for the hockey team. If I had known so many pairs of panties would ended up all bunched up in a wad, I would kept just kept silent....live and learn, I guess I will only stick to football.

Fox Valley was a really nice rink 15 years ago. Still was when I went 5 years ago.

Compare that to the deteriorating Center Ice of DuPage which has been around since the 70s(?).

Are those the two closest rinks to NIU?

What about the BMO Harris Bank Center in Rockford? Home rink of the Icehogs, the Blackhawks' AHL affiliate.

Last I heard they are playing at a rink in West Dundee.

(09-24-2017 08:42 PM)murph83 Wrote:  Last I heard they are playing at a rink in West Dundee.

That rink is about 10 years old so kinda newish but very ordinary.

They used to play out of Fox Valley, right? One of the better rinks in Chicagoland.

(09-25-2017 12:19 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(09-24-2017 08:42 PM)murph83 Wrote:  Last I heard they are playing at a rink in West Dundee.

That rink is about 10 years old so kinda newish but very ordinary.

They used to play out of Fox Valley, right? One of the better rinks in Chicagoland.

They started at fox valley before it was even open the first year, maybe 2, was next door at what is the tennis club. IIRC, they had Tampa's old boards. They weren't supported well and the wobble in them was crazy. Then the current building got finished and they moved the the main place, its a nice facility.

What if Dekalb, KC and NIU built one together?

(09-24-2017 01:55 PM)uiniu57 Wrote:  

(09-23-2017 09:07 PM)bikechuck Wrote:  The cost of an ice arena could be shared with the DeKalb Sycamore community. I have seen this work in similar communities. A well managed arena is in use 12 or more hours per day, seven days a week. Ice time is rented out to figure skating clubs, youth hockey, high school hockey and open skating for the general public.
Could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport but the facility itself could be built and maintained without being an economic drain.
Also, there is no need to call comments that others contribute stupid.

The DeKalb-Sycamore community needs to be convinced to once again support NIU athletics in general, not share the cost of an ice arena.
There is zero evidence of the kind of interest or need necessary for an ice arena. What works in one community is not guaranteed to work in another and if it's so easy to have a well-managed arena, what's the ratio of suburban cities that have one versus the ones that don't? There's one in St. Charles that just closed.
High School hockey? Do you realize DeKalb and Sycamore are part of a co-op for a high school team out of Belvidere? When those one or two kids graduate, doubt the co-op continues.
You yourself say "could be that NIU cannot currently afford the sport," then why build it? DeKalb tried a small skating park near downtown as part of the Christmas/winter season and it was an economic failure.
NIU's enrollment continues to drop, education funding continues to be trimmed, no one wants increased taxes, every developer demands TIFs, and a person in Colorado Springs, CO, re-hashed this topic with support from Dublin, OH, and Wicker Park. But they know what local people want.
Fine, replace Stupid with Unrealistic. And the next time you're in town, please consider joining me at a Huskie volleyball, soccer, wrestling, tennis, gymnastics, baseball, softball, or track event, any of which would welcome more fan support.

Unrealistic is better than stupid. Sounds like you are a supporter of NIU athletics and there are too few of us. Thanks for caring and for sharing your point of view.

I still think that an arena could be economically viable if it was well managed and a cooperative effort with the community. It would also e enhance the community.

Rockford has 2 ice rinks, in addition to the BMO Harris. Riverview Ice House and Carlson Ice Arena. Building a rink in DeKalb is not economically feasible.

Blows my mind that the teams have to play at a rink 45+ minutes from campus. They're well attended events, but man. It could be a really cool community vibe getting the players on campus.

Skate with the team, ice shows come in town, eventually get MACHA play up here instead of in Peoria lol, open it up for open skate, get jim cornelison out, there are so many possibilities. Have a learn to skate class, tap in to the hawks fever. It could be so good!

When did the club move out of Rockford?