  | Ice hockey comes of age at URI with the construction of an ice arena on the Kingston Campus. | ||||||||
 By Shane Donaldson '99 he $12 million building, slated to open in fall 2002, will be a 2,500 seat facility with National Hockey League ice dimensions (200 feet by 85 feet). There will be two team locker rooms and four locker rooms for youth leagues and skating programs. Seating is arranged on three sides of the ice to allow for possible future expansion. When the rink opens, it will be just one of two in the state to operate year-round. Up to the present, members of the ice hockey clubs have had a half-hour drive just to get to their "home rink" in West Warwick. "This is an exciting time for the team," said men's coach Joe Augustine. "It's been tough for the players commuting to West Warwick. Obviously the convenience of having the rink on campus is going to be more attractive to the incoming players." The new home should also make the hockey program more visible on campus. Since most students don't realize that Rhode Island has club teams, drumming up fan support has not been easy. "I think we have a lot of hockey fans on campus, but it's a hassle for them to get to our games," Augustine said. "The convenience of having a Friday night game right at the bottom of the hill is going to be exciting for the students." Club teams must raise most of their own funds, so they are forced to be extremely budget-conscious. Creating a fan base through the arena, as well as using the facility to conduct youth clinics and other programs for the surrounding communities, is going to make fundraising much easier. "Starting at club level here was eye-opening," said women's coach Beth McCann, who has been coach since the club's founding in 1999. "We didn't have pucks; we didn't have sticks; we didn't have equipment; we didn't have tape for our sticks. Not having even the basic things when I walked on that ice the first day was like a whole new world." "Fortunately, I had a great group of freshmen who were so into fundraising that they made the program work. They actually raised 80 percent of our budget. Most of those girls who worked so hard will never benefit from playing on the new ice. But they will benefit from coming back for alumnae events, and keeping the alumnae active is very important to me." Members of the men's club pay $800 in dues each year, sell ads, hold a golf tournament, and sell T-shirts and sweatshirts. "It involves the kids to the point where I think they appreciate things more," Augustine said. "When I was a varsity athlete at Boston College, things were handed to us so we took them for granted. Here, even having a roll of tape becomes important because you don't have the luxury of having it at your fingertips. I tell my players to remember when they leave here how tough it was. I say, 'let's try to make it better for the people coming through in the future." Having a home on campus is a big convenience for practice times. Women's club members have to get up at 4:30 a.m. and make that half-hour drive to West Warwick for time on the ice. "This will be a huge turnaround for my program," McCann said. "Rather than two times a week of practice on ice, we'll be able to bump to three or four times a week. That makes us more competitive, since we play against teams that can practice five times a week." With just three seasons under its belt, the women's program is still working to get to a competitive level. While the win-loss record may not show it, the efforts of team members are quickly raising the talent level. McCann has helped form a Northeastern region of the American Collegiate Hockey Association, which gives the team a league to belong to and makes scheduling much easier. Eight schools besides URI are set to join, including Boston University, UMass-Amherst, and Wheaton. Until this year, if Rhode Island wanted to join the A.C.H.A., the closest opponent would have been Penn State. The travel budget simply prevented such a schedule. "When we started the team three years ago, we basically took whoever could stand up on a pair of skates. We were willing to take them and teach them," McCann said. "Now we are up to a competitive team of 15 players, and this year we have four experienced players who are willing to come to URI and give our program a chance even though we don't have that varsity status. "We treat the team as if it were varsity. The next step to take is with recruiting. Being able to offer a rink on campus is definitely key. Just since the icebreaker we are getting a great response--I have received phone calls from people interested in our program." Augustine, who played professionally for seven seasons and was an assistant coach at Brown before coming to Rhode Island for the 1989-90 season, believes the new rink will help his team become a national power. In his first season the Rams cracked the top 10 in the national club rankings, an impressive feat considering there are more than 200 club teams in the country. The team has been a winner since and has ranked around the top 15 teams each of the last three seasons. "The top club teams in the country, your Penn States and Iowa States, have rinks on their campuses," Augustine said. "It's a recruiting tool, and if you are recruiting against a school with a rink on campus, that school looks far more attractive." In the fall of 2002, Rhode Island will enter a new era of ice hockey. Who knows where the puck will go? • A former Good 5¢ Cigar sports writer, Shane Donaldson '99 is a reporter for the New England Patriots Football Weekly and for the team's Web site at Patriots.com. |
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