Infractions lead to Univ. of Utah dropping hockey
In late February, officials at the University of Utah decided to no longer support the school’s men’s hockey club.
Members of the Skatin’ Utes coaching staff said this happened because the university felt the team had become too much of a liability.
Stan Weiss, who completed his first year as coach of the team this past season, said he was made aware of the decision during the weekend the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) Nationals were being held (Feb. 26 through March 1).
“I thought it was kind of somebody’s sick joke,” Weiss said. “I was in shock.”
The university’s decision was based on a number of factors, said Weiss, team manager Rob Bruendl, and team faculty liaison and assistant coach Jim Jorgenson.
Off-ice problems
On the Utes’ three-game road trip to California this past season, a player with a private pilot’s license chose to fly his family’s plane to an airport in San Diego, Bruendl said.
At the end of the third game, which was played in Los Angeles, the player had to drive back to San Diego to get his plane and fly home.
Not wanting him to travel to the airport alone, Bruendl sent another player to travel with the pilot.
This, Bruendl said, was viewed by the university as a “huge” risk.
Jorgenson cited the player was already in California for personal business, so the team nor the university should have been responsible for him. Because the team failed to file a travel plan with the university’s Campus Recreation Department (CRD), it was listed as a problem.
“I have to admit that it was in ignorance of club travel policy [which I still have never seen by-the-way] that I handled this situation,” Bruendl said in an e-mail interview.
“But I will stand by my belief that, given the same circumstances today, I would make the same decision,” he said.
* The Skatin’ Utes had also compiled a $30,000 debt at the end of last season, which had accumulated because of what Jorgenson said were “two large errors” made by the university.
The CRD produced monthly financial statements for all club teams, but for the past three years many of the club sports’ fees, which had been paid by the school accounting office, had never been posted back to the CRD.
When this was finally done, the hockey club was shown to be $22,000 in the hole (in large part because hockey is expensive to operate).
The additional $8,000 came from a traffic accident on a road trip to Colorado last season. The team was traveling through a snowstorm on Interstate 80 when the van it was in came across a patch of black ice, rolling the van. There were no serious injuries, but the damage to the van was charged to the club.
Jorgenson said the team always took out extra insurance when renting vans outside the university system (which is something he said they had to do on the trip to Colorado since the university motor pool and state motor pool had no extra vehicles).
The problem was the CRD never recorded the team doing this.
The university threatened to suspend all club sports if the hockey team failed to make up for its debt.
To do this the club created a fundraiser where local high school players could pay to train with the team, and the Utes had major health care companies sponsor 12 home games. The debt was made up for last month (there was $16,000 that remained unpaid at the time of the university’s decision to ax the club).
* During a game at the University of Arizona last season, a Ute player “struck” a fan who threw a beer on him as he walked to the locker room, Jorgenson said. This incident is continually brought up and may have played a role in liability concerns, he said.
* The team allowed several development players to participate in exhibition games which Jorgenson said was in compliance with USA Hockey standards, and should have posed no problems. The university insisted this added to their concerns, he said.
Even with these incidents, which Jorgenson called “petty, minor stuff,” he, Weiss and Bruendl each said the decision to drop hockey was made long ago.
Weiss said there are factions within the university who have wanted to have the hockey program dropped for years.
Jorgenson agreed, saying the university has never been supportive of the program.
Julian Gomez, coordinator for intramural and club sports at the University of Utah, said this isn’t true.
He said the decision to drop hockey was difficult, but also a cut-and-dried one. The team had been on probation for the past two seasons, and the incidents cited above are all violations of that probation, Gomez said.
The U of U has called off all talks of reinstating the team for at least two years. Jorgenson said it could be even longer.
“Given the current administration and its attitude toward hockey at the university, I do not see a chance to revive the program,” he said. “You really have to wonder about the vision displayed here.
“We get a $20 million rink [Steiner Arena, completed two years ago] dropped right on campus at no expense to the university and no one here has any desire to actually use it. Amazing!,” he said.
Hockey West will still function
Hockey West, the ACHA Division I club league created last December, took enough of a blow from losing the Utes that it will not play a league schedule next season, Weber State Head Coach Rob Larsen said.
He said the league, now consisting of Arizona, Arizona State, Weber State and Brigham Young – who will look to play a partial schedule in the league – is trying to get Minot State (North Dakota), the University of Colorado and Colorado State to join before it begins play in the 2004-05 season.
Larsen said Weber State will still be a D-I club next season (they will also have a D-II team) and will play a D-I schedule which will include games against the University of St. Louis, Iowa State and Minot State.
Utah State hockey club Head Coach Jerry Crossley, as well as the coaching staff at Colorado, have been against the jump to D-I all along.
Crossley said the dissolving of the Utes’ program should be a sign to all clubs involved that making a move to the next level – one he says will be too heavy financially and competitively for USU – should not happen.
“I think they’ve all had a reawakening,” he said.
-samhis@cc.usu.edu