Bobcat Hockey wins second straight title

[js1010]

My son plays on a youth rep B team in a Canadian league here in Washington state.and has been traveling on a couple showcase teams as well. He has a chance to play in the WHL next season if he gets drafted. If not he's got some tryouts for the BCHL. If nothing worth pursuing works out he might look into the club level hockey in the BSC and just be a student. It really sounds great and I'm sure he'd enjoy that. Does anyone know how the skill level would compare to the junior level leagues? Such as the NA3HL teams like the Helena bighorns or the Bozeman ice dogs?

I think a good way to get an idea of the skill level would be to go look at the MSU roster and look at the players previous teams (easier on desktop). There a few players that were on NA3HL teams, but also a lot of USPHL and some U18 AAA clubs. The Cats D3 team has a lot of Montana HS players.

[wbtfg]

My son plays on a youth rep B team in a Canadian league here in Washington state.and has been traveling on a couple showcase teams as well. He has a chance to play in the WHL next season if he gets drafted. If not he's got some tryouts for the BCHL. If nothing worth pursuing works out he might look into the club level hockey in the BSC and just be a student. It really sounds great and I'm sure he'd enjoy that. Does anyone know how the skill level would compare to the junior level leagues? Such as the NA3HL teams like the Helena bighorns or the Bozeman ice dogs?

It's a good question....I've wondered that myself. I look at it as essentially as players who have aren't pursuring hockey at a varsity level. I'd imagine there are a number of Junior A and B players who are on the team. I'd also imagine there are players who chose not to go the junior route.

That said, it's all self funded so I doubt they have the resouces of a coaching staff that some of the Montana Junior B players have. It would be fun to see how they matched up against each other.

[Hawks86]

Hockey runs from Oct.-March. There is no way they could have hockey, basketball, and indoor track, in the the Brick.

[Montanabob]

Hockey runs from Oct.-March. There is no way they could have hockey, basketball, and indoor track, in the the Brick.

They use outside facilities and will continue to even if it was a BSC sport.

[AFCAT]

Hockey runs from Oct.-March. There is no way they could have hockey, basketball, and indoor track, in the the Brick.

Difficult, sure, but not impossible. MSU track had four indoor events this season in the Brick and two of those were within a week of one another. It might be cheaper to build a new indoor track facility than a hockey venue. Basketball has a lot more events in the Brick but there are many college venues that share basketball and hockey. Hockey could practice at the local Bozeman rink and play big games at the Brick. Basketball can practice at any of the courts on campus. That’s if you want to start off a program on the cheap and build something nicer once you get the funding.

[wbtfg]

I'm not sure how the compressors and freezing system would work for a place like the brick. Is that something that would be set up and town down with regularity? Could we put the ice down and keep it there and put the bball court and indoor track/field events on top?

If it was added, I'd imagine they'd use the same facilities the club team is currently using. I would be sweet to have one game a year (cat/griz) in the brick, similar to what Rodeo and Volleyball does.

[Camo_Cat]

The Bozeman Ice Dogs and the MSU Bobcat hockey teams all share ice at the Gallatin Ice rink at the Gallatin County fairgrounds. They just finished a $1.5 million dollar campaign, and they have plans to expand the arena. I don't think there would be any immediate need to have an on-campus facility if we were to add hockey, which I would love to see!

https://gallatinice.org/news/gallatin-i ... -big-plans

[Hawks86]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

[Camo_Cat]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

I'm in!! Would love to see women's soccer and women's softball added. Let's Go Cats!!

[AFCAT]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

I'm in!! Would love to see women's soccer and women's softball added. Let's Go Cats!!

Costello mentioned that he would like to have women’s soccer someday. Soccer and softball, two more sports to beat the gris in.

[wbtfg]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

Women's hockey and wrestling.

[AFCAT]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

Women's hockey and wrestling.

Women’s wrestling….heck yeah.

[kennethnoisewater]

Thanks @js1010 and others for the insight and conversation. I absolutely love the idea of adding both men's and women's hockey (a wash with Title IX). This should be a priority imo.

I'd love to see it, but I don't think it needs to be a priority. It'll cost a fortune to get a rink on campus that would be sufficient for NCAA competition and I'm not sure where that money is coming from.

I was guessing, based on the rodeo team, it wouldn't need to be on campus. Not sure what the NCAA requirements are though. You certainly make a good point.

How much would it cost to build a hockey rink in the Brick?

Cheaper than building a new arena, that's for sure. You could do it cheaper by putting an ice surface on top of the concrete kind of like they do for the outdoor NHL games at football fields, but you would have to leave the ice in and elevated higher than the surface of the track all winter, because you can't take the ice out every time you need to change things up. Arenas usually just cover their ice with insulated boards and put a basketball court or whatever surface over top of it. That can be done in a few hours. Ideally they'd cut into the concrete, put a refrigeration system through a concrete surface, then the ice would be slightly lower than the rest of the floor so it would be flush when the ice sheet is covered up. I'd think that, along with dasher boards, glass, water filtration system, refrigeration system, Zamboni, new scoreboards, etc, you're looking at a few million bucks. Additionally, you'd have to have a pretty big room dedicated to that refrigeration system, which could maybe be added outside the footprint of the building. A hockey rink is considerably bigger than a basketball court, so maybe bleachers would have to be rebuilt, although there is quite a bit of space between the bleachers and the court normally. But even if it's $5M, that's way cheaper than a new arena. Problem is, track and basketball would be fighting for space. Basketball would need a legit practice facility and track would need to be able to use the IPF regularly, which might not be a problem.

[tdub]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

Women's hockey and wrestling.

Women’s wrestling….heck yeah.

It is growing at an insanely fast pace around the US at both the high school and college level. I’m very biased, admittedly. But Men’s and Women’s wrestling are the most cost effective sports to add, and have the path of least resistance towards national prominence. Will always be hard to beat the Big 10 conference, but outside of that it’s doable. There’s pretty good D1 talent in the area. Right now Montana has D1 kids at, or signing with: Oregon State, Oklahoma State, Iowa, Davidson, NDSU, SDSU, Cal Poly, Purdue, Navy. There’s probably others, that’s just off the top of my head.

In regards to this topic though…I love hockey and would fully support the addition.

[kennethnoisewater]

Thanks @js1010 and others for the insight and conversation. I absolutely love the idea of adding both men's and women's hockey (a wash with Title IX). This should be a priority imo.

I'd love to see it, but I don't think it needs to be a priority. It'll cost a fortune to get a rink on campus that would be sufficient for NCAA competition and I'm not sure where that money is coming from.

I was guessing, based on the rodeo team, it wouldn't need to be on campus. Not sure what the NCAA requirements are though. You certainly make a good point.

I'm sure there's no requirement for it to be on campus, but I think it should be if you want students to attend games in large numbers. I think that should be a big consideration. I feel like if the hockey team was off campus, they'd always be a second class program, and hockey is too expensive to relegate to second class! Sure they could practice off campus (like the rodeo team) but you'd have to have a way to have games on campus.

[AFCAT]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

Women's hockey and wrestling.

Women’s wrestling….heck yeah.

It is growing at an insanely fast pace around the US at both the high school and college level. I’m very biased, admittedly. But Men’s and Women’s wrestling are the most cost effective sports to add, and have the path of least resistance towards national prominence. Will always be hard to beat the Big 10 conference, but outside of that it’s doable. There’s pretty good D1 talent in the area. Right now Montana has D1 kids at, or signing with: Oregon State, Oklahoma State, Iowa, Davidson, NDSU, SDSU, Cal Poly, Purdue, Navy. There’s probably others, that’s just off the top of my head.

In regards to this topic though…I love hockey and would fully support the addition.

I know, my nephew wrestled a few female athletes in high school and those girls were pretty good. I’d love to see separate male and female wrestling teams. Wrestling was one of my favorite sports in high school. I don’t follow it much at the college/university level though.

[CodyCat]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

I'm in!! Would love to see women's soccer and women's softball added. Let's Go Cats!!

Costello mentioned that he would like to have women’s soccer someday. Soccer and softball, two more sports to beat the gris in.

The gris softball and soccer programs are actually pretty dang good. We'd have to field some legit teams to beat them. But, obviously that would be the expectation. Just may not happen right out of the gate.

[js1010]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

Women's hockey and wrestling.

Women’s wrestling….heck yeah.

It is growing at an insanely fast pace around the US at both the high school and college level. I’m very biased, admittedly. But Men’s and Women’s wrestling are the most cost effective sports to add, and have the path of least resistance towards national prominence. Will always be hard to beat the Big 10 conference, but outside of that it’s doable. There’s pretty good D1 talent in the area. Right now Montana has D1 kids at, or signing with: Oregon State, Oklahoma State, Iowa, Davidson, NDSU, SDSU, Cal Poly, Purdue, Navy. There’s probably others, that’s just off the top of my head.

In regards to this topic though…I love hockey and would fully support the addition.

I think thats a great point and something that would be a hurdle for hockey. Right now the highschool and junior hockey programs in the state of Montana are not producing D1 level hockey players. Which makes recruiting significantly harder. Although we might be in a unique position to recruit out of Alberta and B.C.

[kennethnoisewater]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

I'm in!! Would love to see women's soccer and women's softball added. Let's Go Cats!!

Costello mentioned that he would like to have women’s soccer someday. Soccer and softball, two more sports to beat the gris in.

The gris softball and soccer programs are actually pretty dang good. We'd have to field some legit teams to beat them. But, obviously that would be the expectation. Just may not happen right out of the gate.

The gris softball team was good right out of the gate wasn't it? They're currently 0-15, so if you line up an inaugural season with one like they're having now, you might win a couple games!

[wbtfg]

Just some fun off-season debate. Now lets talk about which women's sports to add with 18 more hockey scholarships and 22 more football when the MWC calls.

I'm in!! Would love to see women's soccer and women's softball added. Let's Go Cats!!

Costello mentioned that he would like to have women’s soccer someday. Soccer and softball, two more sports to beat the gris in.

The gris softball and soccer programs are actually pretty dang good. We'd have to field some legit teams to beat them. But, obviously that would be the expectation. Just may not happen right out of the gate.

The gris softball team was good right out of the gate wasn't it? They're currently 0-15, so if you line up an inaugural season with one like they're having now, you might win a couple games!

They haven't had a winning record since 2017. Yikes.