(06-29-2019 09:47 PM)DavidSt Wrote: If the NCAA approves to allow Simon Fraser to join D1 in Ice Hockey? How many Canadian schools join D2 to place their hockey teams in D1? We could see a spike of new fans coming to frozen four from Canada. This past season, the attendance for the Frozen 4 was down.
Won't happen. Canadian fans already have plenty of hockey to follow between the NHL, Minor League hockey (AHL, ECHL, etc.) , Junior hockey (WHL, OHL, QMJHL) and Canadian university hockey (U-Sports).
Most top Canadian hockey prospects (with a few exceptions) tend to play Major Junior Hockey in Canada from age 17-20, which the NCAA considers to be pro hockey, and those players are not ever allowed in the NCAA. The major junior players who then age out of the juniors after age 20 and don't make it to the NHL are the ones who populate Canadian University hockey rosters at ages 20-25. Canadian University hockey does not offer athletic scholarships like NCAA D-I schools do, but those Canadian schools tend to be more affordable than US schools, and major junior teams do pay a year of Canadian University tuition for each year the player played Major Junior (2-3 years, typically.), so Canadians can play USports in Canada even after washing out of the juniors or minor leagues, and those Canadian schools don't draw more than a few hundred fans.
In short, Canadian Universities would have a very hard time competing in NCAA D-I, as Canadian D-I talent is already either playing in the US colleges or playing major junior, and top US players don't typically want Canadian degrees (outside of maybe the top few Canadian schools, such as McGill, Toronto or UBC.)
The only way for Canadian University hockey to really compete with NCAA would be to offer athletic scholarships and try to keep Canadian prospects from playing in the US or Juniors, which would be very difficult, as Canadian schools just don't do scholarships.
Finally, the Frozen Four attendance was down this year largely because it was held in Buffalo, NY - a rust-belt city with low population, a low per capita income and is also not on most people's list of early April vacation spots. Non-Stop flights into Buffalo are often limited, difficult and expensive from many other cities, which also hurts access, Other NHL cities are far better Frozen Four event destinations. For example, Tampa (2016), Chicago (2017) and St. Paul (2018) were contractual sellouts, with much easier flights.