ON THIN ICE. May 5, 2008 By: Tommy DiVito

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1 1 ON THIN ICE The next step for Penn State Men s Ice Hockey may not be NCAA Division I status, but with a rink on life support the program is coming to a fork in the road. May 5, 2008 By: Tommy DiVito It was game-night for Penn State Hockey one 2006 winter night in State College, Pa. Then freshmen John Conte walked through the doors of the Greenberg Indoor Sports Complex to the Ice Pavilion. The student-volunteer ticket taker asked him for his ticket. I m play for the team, said Conte, wearing a coat and tie, pointing to his oversized navy blue equipment bag. On his first night, the volunteer was embarrassed to have asked a defenseman for a ticket. If it makes him feel any better, Penn State Hockey is not exactly the best-known sports team on campus. Game and ticket operations are solely dependent on volunteers. The players enter the rink through the same doors as the general public. The home facility barely has 1,200 seats, says rink manager Chris Whittemore from the Zamboni bay, and there is only a few sellouts per season. Penn State Men s Ice Hockey is in an abyss, too small to be called an NCAA varsity sport, too big to be identified as a club sport. And so it is labeled a team sport, one of two at Penn State (The other is rugby). As such, Penn State Men s Ice Hockey is not part of a Big Ten conference, nor do the Penn State Icers play teams like the University of Maine Black Bears in the playoffs. And so the National Championship banners that hang in the rafters at the Greenberg read ACHA (American Collegiate Hockey Association) not NCAA. The lights shine an

2 2 off-yellow color over a mediocre sheet of ice with faded logos and faint blue lines. As the team warms up, the song Under Pressure by Queen blares over the speakers. The song is actually quite symbolic. There s the pressure of game-time ever lingering on the competitors shoulders, the pressure on the coach to continue the legacy of his sixtime national champion predecessor, the financial pressure the team is under to sustain itself, and the pressure taken by the administration to make Penn State the sixth Big Ten varsity hockey squad. But the most important pressure is a type that doesn t even cross the average fan s mind, even though it s literally right under their nose. It s the pressure of the weight of the rink on the frozen ground beneath it. Even though facility is structurally safe, the condition of the cooling equipment that keeps the ice frozen and the heating system that keeps ground below thaw is in terrible shape. The condition of the facility is, right now we have our fingers crossed. That can go at any point in time and if it goes we lose the rink, said Marv Bevan, a project manager at the Penn State Office of Physical Plant. Bevan works in the design and construction division, among whose clients include the Penn State Office of Intercollegiate Athletics. His office walls are covered with blueprints and building plans for Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, Jeffery Field, and a two-rink ice facility proposal from Bevan says the Greenberg Ice Pavilion, built in 1981, is at the end of its life expectancy of years. According to Bevan, the construction of the rink includes a concrete slab the ice sits on, then under it a piping refrigerant to cool it. Under that is a heating system that keeps the earth beneath the facility from freezing. Bevan says that heating system [for one reason or another] is not working. When the ground freezes, it causes the slab [that the ice sits on] to move, said Bevan. That was the case for the other sheet of ice in the Greenberg Indoor Sports Complex when the concrete slab of the smaller studio rink heaved and was shut down a couple of years ago, said Bevan. There is also some indication that the large [hockey] rink has moved also. The issue of the current rink about to expire poses two questions: Which sheet of ice will Penn State Hockey call home if and when the current rink is no longer operational? And if Penn State Men s Ice Hockey does move to a bigger arena, would it be worth it to attempt to become a varsity sport?

3 3 The Next Rink A think-outside-the-box award sits on Joe Battista s desk. He is trying to put that title into practice in order to find the appropriate next step for the Penn State Men s Ice Hockey Program. Battista, a 1983 Penn State Alum, played for the Icers while he was an undergrad and later coached the team from He co-founded the ACHA, and is currently the Executive Director of the Nittany Lion Club; a job that entails raising money for the Office of Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics. Batista says that there is a variety of options for a new rink (or a renovated old one), but the bottom line is money. One option would be putting a rink in the Bryce Jordan Center. Current home to Penn State Men s and Women s Basketball, as well as host to a variety of concerts and other events, the BJC also houses many offices for Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics, including Batista s. By adding new locker rooms, a Zamboni area, and refitting the pullout seats, it would be terribly inefficient to do it that way. But it would be the cheapest in terms of getting it done the fastest, Battista said. For that to happen, there would have to be about a 6-month period of no events in the arena, which no one would be happy about, said Batista. If, by the way, they would have just put ice in [the Jordan Center] in the first place, it would ve been less than a million dollars. And the reason a rink was not added with the construction of the BJC in the mid-90 s? (Photo courtesy: I think it was more of a Title IX issue. It was joining the Big Ten, there was a lot of uncertainty at that time. And money. I think what a lot of people don t understand is when its all said and done, a Division I hockey program is going to cost you a million and a half to two million dollars a year for the men, said Batista, adding that a men s varsity program can most likely make a profit, or at least break even. Another option is a new building. Battista said that it would take a large donor to get a new facility built. For a varsity-type facility with about 7,500 seats, Batista estimates the cost at $70 Million. The largest single gift Penn State athletics has ever received, according to Battista, is $5 Million for Medlar Field at Lubrano Park.

4 4 There s also the opportunity for a new two-sheet ice facility, with a seating capacity of about 3,000, like the one in Bevan s blueprints. If the team stayed club-level, the facility could even be funded, if approved, with state government money as the rink would benefit the community as well as the university. (Photo courtesy: Marv Bevan) The rink, then, would not be owned by Penn State. However, this is nothing new to the Nittany Lion Icers, who spent about $26,000 renting ice time this year (for practices and home games), according to team sports coordinator Meg Handley. Regardless of who owns the potential new building, the location of it would be hard to pinpoint. Another option for a new sheet of ice is to fix a broken Green- Ice -berg. Back at OPP, Bevan and his co-workers are working on a plan that would estimate the cost and timeline for renovating the current facility. The study will be done in about nine months. One of the unknowns is how much of that ground beneath is frozen and you can t build on frozen ground, said Bevan. Bevan said there are two options to renovate the current facility: either wait for months for the ground to completely thaw before putting in a new system, or if you don t want to wait, you would have to dig [out the frozen ground], then replace it with fill and that would be cost-prohibitive. Battista says the last option, if the rink was to become un-operational tomorrow, would be similar to what happened when he attended Penn State. Three days after I arrived on campus, they announced that they were taking the indoor ice rink and making it an indoor practice football facility, said Battista, adding that the school built an outdoor practice rink for the team and the team played all games on the road for two years until Greenberg was built. Our home games were in Mechanicsburg at a rink that doesn t even exist anymore.

5 5 Timeline wise I think [the situation] is something that probably needs immediate action we re living on borrowed time, said current Icers head coach Scott Balboni. Varsity Blues Scott Balboni doesn t get to spend as much time as he d like to on X s and O s. Unfortunately that s only about 30 percent of my time. The rest of it is the business side of hockey and running our own mini-athletic department inside team sports, said Balboni, who is now in his third year as head coach. Despite the hard work that differs from varsity sports, Meg Handley likes her job managing the team sports. The setup the Icers have right now is pretty nice. We do have a lot of freedoms the varsity teams don t have, said Handley from her desk in a crowded East Area Locker Room Building. From coming up with and executing marketing strategies, to reserving travel plans, to balancing the budget, Handley and Balboni work together to manage the daily operations of Penn State Hockey. There s always a misconception that were fully funded by the university like a varsity team is and were certainly not. Were a self-sufficient, self-funding organization, said Balboni. The program only receives $7,500 between the athletic department and the university as a whole. To cover its expenses, Penn State Hockey has a few sources of income. In addition to the booster club, sponsorships, and player dues, there are also four endowment accounts that PSU Hockey can spend the interest on if they need to. But the biggest revenue-generator is ticket sales at $53,000 last year (combined season and individual-game tickets), according to Handley. As far as stability goes, I think ticket sales are a challenge. We are facing some smaller numbers in the past two years than we have before. Getting people to games is tough, said Handley. Many here at Penn State think a jump to the varsity level would most likely generate more interest and help put fans in the stands, however would cost the athletic department a lot of money for a new rink and a new professional staff, says Battista.

6 6 Wayne Wilson is the head coach of the men s hockey team at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He recently took his team from an NCAA Division III program, to Division I. RIT has very similar attendance numbers to Penn State because the Frank Ritter Memorial Ice Arena at RIT only holds 2,100 spectators, according to the RIT media guide. Still, the school made the jump into the NCAA Division I as part of the Atlantic Hockey Association with only a few minor renovations, according to news articles on uscho.com. Frank Ritter Memorial Arena at RIT (photo courtesy: Wilson says what made the upgrade easy on his campus was that unlike Penn State, there has been overwhelming public support from the administration. Also unlike Penn State, RIT was looking for a little bit more out of their Division I debut. Our school wanted a more national presence and the school name more prevalent [the administration] thought one way was playing Division I in a sport, said Wilson via telephone. RIT is a little bit of a different scenario because the operating budget that they run off of wouldn t be nearly what the budget would be here, said Balboni back in his office. I think that it would be difficult for Penn State to compete with [other Big Ten schools] and try to recruit kids away from those schools [To recruit successfully] you have to have comparable facilities to them and we don t have even remotely that. In the Big Ten, there are barely more schools out of NCAA hockey than in. The schools that do have NCAA hockey programs are Michigan, Ohio State, Minnesota, Wisconsin (the 2006 Men s and Women s NCAA Division I National Champions), and Michigan State, the 2007 National Champions. One Big Ten university hockey program that is similar to Penn State is ACHA rival Illinois. The Fighting Illini ran the table this year, finishing 38-0 and capturing this year s ACHA title ACHA All Star Game MVP Brad Hoelzer says Illinois hockey is, like Penn State, at the top of their game and would like to look into becoming a varsity sport. Sometimes when you blow out [smaller club teams], it gets a little boring. When you play teams like Penn State, that s when its fun again, said Hoelzer while on the Penn State campus for the inaugural all-star game. Hoelzer doesn t think Illinois will move to the NCAA anytime soon either. [At our school] we get the third highest revenue behind football and basketball, so its frustrating, said the Illini defensemen, adding he d like to play more Big Ten schools if Illinois ever built a bigger rink.

7 7 Wisconsin hockey plays in a decade-old arena that also houses the school s basketball teams. According to uwbadgers.com, the $76.4 Million Kohl Center holds about 14,000 for a hockey game (17,142 for basketball). In 2007, Wisconsin led all of Division I hockey in total home attendance (288,593) and average home attendance (14,430/game), according to attendance records on NCAA.org. The Kohl Center; Maddison, Wisc. (Photo Courtesy: The University of Michigan s home ice holds just 6,637 spectators, yet Wolverine hockey was sixth in NCAA Division I average home attendance in 2007, according to attendance records on NCAA.org. The Yost Ice Arena is 85 years old, however has been renovated four times, most recently in 2001, according to the school s official athletic site, mgoblue.com. While hockey is huge at other Big Ten schools, Balboni and Battista think it could be just as popular here at Penn State, but would take 3-5 years and a few recruiting classes to compete with the on-ice talent of major NCAA Division I programs. We both are fighting tooth and nail to try to see [Penn State Hockey] get to the next level, said Balboni. We think hockey could be real big time in Happy Valley and have collegiate players leave for the NHL. However, that s not to say Balboni is unhappy where he is now. I say its bittersweet because we do have a unique situation where we have a very loyal close, tight Icer family I think if we got [to the NCAA] it becomes more like a business. Instead of dealing with moms and dads, you re dealing with agents and draft picks and GM s, said Balboni. I don t think going to the NCAA Division I level is in the immediate future for the university, said Balboni. Dekeing Around Other Hurdles If money were not an issue, Penn State would still have an uphill battle trying to become a Division I hockey program. Title IX requires equality between the sexes in all collegiate athletic programs. Some critics speculate that if men s hockey were added, another men s sport would be dropped. Battista recommends adding a women s sport to comply with Title IX, however not Women s Ice Hockey because of its inability to make a profit. Instead, Batista suggests that if Penn State considers adding Men s Hockey as a varsity sport, the women s sport to supplement it should be something more self-sustainable such as crew or water polo.

8 8 That precedent has been set. Schools have added Men s Hockey teams, but not women s hockey teams. Western Michigan University has Division I hockey team for the men, and has more women s varsity sports then men s sports, according to wmubroncos.com. The University of Miami (Ohio) has a Women s Synchronized Skating team that shares the university s sheets of ice with the hockey team who has been to the NCAA tournament three of the last six seasons, according to its official athletic website, muredhawks.com. There s also the impact on current varsity teams at Penn State to consider. Some critics say that since Penn State hockey has had such phenomenal success and Men s Basketball has struggled, basketball should take a backseat. Batista disagrees, stating that because of television deals like the Big Ten Network, basketball still makes a profit despite recent mediocre seasons. (photo courtesy of gopsusports.com) Above, students rush the court after PSU upsets Michigan State, Feb. 2, 2008 Hockey will never make as money as basketball can...we ought to be the biggest basketball fans out there, because if basketball ever put thousand people in [the BJC], there s more money for athletics. Period. The collective pie gets bigger, and it takes a little bit of the financial pressure off all the other sports, said Battista. Pressure is going to force the Penn State University Office of Intercollegiate Athletics to make a decision rapidly. I think a decision is going to have to be made soon [as to renovate the current rink or build a new one]. The athletic department is going to be forced to make a decision quickly on that one way or the other, said Scott Balboni.