By Greg Langlois
It’s Saturday night of Homecoming weekend and everyone seems to be talking about how the Bobcat football team is off to its best start since 1976 or the Cleveland Indians’ World Series prospects. Everyone, it seems, except nearly 1,000 die-hard fa ns gathered in the shoebox of an ice rink called Bird Arena for a hockey game against the University of Illinois.
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| Bobcat players celebrate their third consecutive national title in Ann Arbor, Mich., in March. Photos: Matt Sullivan/OU Post |
“We have the absolute best fan support in the world,” says Marcus Marazon, a junior forward from Athens. “These people yell for us in a packed house every weekend, no matter how cold the walk to the rink is. It just amazes me.”
What may be equally amazing is that the hockey program is staffed 100 percent by volunteers — from coaches to ti cket takers — and receives minimal financial support from the university because it is classified as a club sport.
But it’s hard to consider the Bobcat hockey team an underdog. After winning three consecutive national titles and compiling a 118-15-6 record over the last four seasons, winning has come nearly as easy as scoring an empty-net goal.
Ohio University is among 28 Division I members of the 91-school American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA). The team competes in the eight-team C entral States Collegiate Hockey League, which includes Iowa State and Illinois. Kent State and OU are the only teams in the league from Ohio. The Bobcats began a 34-game regular season in late September and continue play into early March.
The ACHA holds a round-robin, eight-team tournament each year to award the Murdoch Cup, symbolic of the national champion. Playoff teams are determined by a ranking system. In 1995, the Bobcats beat Penn State 4-0 in Tucson to win their first national title. Then, i n 1996, before a raucous Bird Arena crowd, they topped Iowa State, 5-1. Last season, the ’Cats beat Iowa State again in a tight 2-1 battle for the “three-peat” as national champions.
The national titles are believed to be Ohio University’s first in a team sport since the football team won the national small college title in 1960.
But behind all the trophies, rings and victories is a program that has to rely on the sweat of not just its players, but also a legion of volunteers. Ohio Univ ersity is the lone Division I program in the ACHA coached and run totally by volunteers.
“It’s really a student operation here,” says Head Coach Craig McCarthy, himself included. McCarthy, a former junior hockey player from London, Ontario, earned a master’s degree in physical education at OU and is pursuing a doctorate in education. Now in his fifth season of coaching the Bobcats, he was named league coach of the year in 1994-95 and 1995-96. Two athletic administration master’s students, Brent P resswood and Mike Dawson, are helping McCarthy this season as assistant coaches.
In essence, the program is a laboratory for student volunteers to gain experience in their majors. The team has a staff of 25 students for game- night operations, says Bird Arena Director Steve Sammons. General Manager Andrea Navin, a senior sports industry major who interned with the Columbus Chill professional hockey team, coordinates the volunteer staff. Athletic administration students serve as equipment managers, at hletic training majors work as trainers, and advertising majors are promoters. The team also relies on an army of other volunteers from the campus and community on game nights to sell tickets and merchandise, provide security, and work as clock operators and goal judges.
The Bobcat team is a mixture of Ohioans, out-of-state student-athletes and three players from Canada. This year’s 30-man squad features 20 players from Ohio, including six from Athens. All players must pay their own tuition.
“They’re not here because they’re going to the NHL or signing for millions of dollars,” McCarthy says.
Sammons doubles as the team’s faculty adviser. During the first few weeks each quarter, for four nights a week, players are required to attend three-hour study sessions to ensure they don’t fall behind in the classroom. During the season, the team practices from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
The team is challenged each year to raise enough money to compete. Hockey is an expensive sport. The costs of gear — including sticks, skates and pads — and travel add up quickly, says Sammons.
To balance its budget, the program relies heavily on its strong fan support. About 60 percent of the team’s $55,000 annual operating budget is raised through single-game ticket sales, McCarthy says. Game prices were increased 50 cents this year to $3.50 for students and $5.50 for adults to keep up with rising costs.
About 30 percent of the team’s budget is covered by local business spon sorship, season ticket sales, and advertising sold for the game program and displayed at Bird Arena. Both business and individual season ticket holders are known as the Blueline Boosters.
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| Fifth-year Coach Craig McCarthy heads up a volunteer bench staff. |
The OU hockey program didn’t always have to struggle to survive on volunteer support and donations. From 1966 to 1973, the Bobcats played at the varsity level, competing against high-powered programs such as Ohio State, Bowling Green and St. Louis University. Declining enrollment and resulting budget cuts in the early 1970s brought an end to varsity competition, says John McComb, hockey coach from 1958 to 1976.
But whether club sport or varsity, fan suppor t has always been “rowdy and enthusiastic,” McComb recalls. Students, who make up about 90 percent of the team’s fan base, continue to come in droves for home games. Sammons estimates that the team averages 1,100 fans in the 1,200-seat Bird Arena.
Major obstacles stand in the way of hockey returning to OU’s varsity lineup. Athletic Director Tom Boeh says adding the sport would impede the department’s commitment to comply with gender equity mandates. Adding hockey would not help balance the athletic budget or the number of scholarships awarded to women and men. About a $1 million-a-year budget and a new modern arena would be needed to support a varsity hockey program, Boeh says. Today, only 52 schools in the country play Division I varsity hockey.
So while the team remains in its “quasi-varsity” status, as McCarthy describes it, it faces the challenge of building on the extraordinary success of the past. This year’s team had compiled an uncharacteristically mediocre 7-4-0 record as of early November. But McCarthy says he isn’t worried. To him, the season is a “five-month process to try to create a structure with an untouchable foundation.”
Those close to the team credit much of the Bobcats’ success to McCarthy’s overall dedication to the program, his commitment to the physical discipline and mental toughness of his players, and an ability to create a team chemistry.
Goalie Brody Danner, a senior from Tipp City and an ACHA first-team All-American last season, says McCarth y manages to get the ’Cats playing at their optimal level during the playoff run.
“I don’t know how he does it, but he does it every time each year,” Danner says.
Greg Langlois, BSJ ’98, is a student writer in the Office of University News Services and Periodicals.
