The University Of Illinois Is Likely Getting A Division 1 Hockey Team
24/7 Sports - Josh Whitman acknowledges that adding a hockey program is “an ambitious project” — maybe the biggest he’ll ever has in his career — and that he must raise “many, many more millions” of dollars to fund a 5,000-6,000-seat hockey arena.
But the Illinois athletics director said during a media roundtable on Wednesday that he hopes to green-light a program by the end of the calendar year.
Whitman said he is “increasingly confident” that Illinois has a feasible funding project and that he has received several “seven-figure” commitments for a downtown Champaign arena project that could cost $50-60 million. Whitman said a funding model includes private donations, corporate dollars, retail dollars, concession dollars and developer dollars.
“I’m increasingly confident in what this could like and our chances of making this a reality,” Whitman said. “There does seem to be growing interest. Everywhere I go, I’m asked about it. It seems like a lot of the parties that need to be a part of this project are starting to line up. The opportunity exists for us to get this thing done.”
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Giant news for college hockey. While it isn’t definite, it sounds like a Division 1 hockey program is coming to the University of Illinois. Josh Whitman, the athletic director at Illinois told the media last week that he hopes to officially get the OK on a team by the end of the calendar year.
Illinois would likely join the Big10, which has been astronomical for college hockey. Both Michigan and Ohio State made Frozen Four appearances this year, Notre Dame has been a powerhouse, and Penn State has basically sold out every game since the program started. Adding more big schools to college hockey is extremely important to the game, college hockey’s biggest problem is people aren’t talking about it enough. Add schools with more alumni and more students and people will start talking, it’s pretty simple.
This is why in 2017 the NHL, NHLPA and College Hockey Inc. conducted a feasibility study to see if a d-1 program could work in Champaign. The study, left everyone involved extremely confident that a hockey program at the University would be successful, especially executive director of College Hockey Inc. Mike Snee, who released a statement saying: “The strong consensus of everyone involved in college hockey is that NCAA men’s hockey will flourish at the University of Illinois.” Sounds awfully confident, eh? The director went on to say “From the number of native Illinois players currently playing college hockey to the continued growth of youth hockey players in the state, there are many reasons to be confident that the Fighting Illini could quickly become a top national program and sustain it every year. We are very appreciative of the university administration’s willingness to consider bringing NCAA hockey to Champaign.”
And he makes a great point, I mean, Illinois has the 6th highest youth hockey participation in the entire country. Not too shabby. Yet the state doesn’t have one d-1 program. That just makes 0 sense.
It would likely take a few seasons before the team got to play their first game. But again, if Illinois can start to lead a trend of big schools opening up to the possibility of the idea of bringing in a hockey team, which would be enormous for college hockey and I think it’s coming. There are reports that up to 10 schools are conducting the same study that Illinois just conducted. Imagine if 10 schools the size of the University of Illinois added college hockey? The future would be extremely bright (I hope).