Poll: Baseball or Hockey?

[xc84]

I am neither a hockey nor a baseball guy but if I just look at these two sports, it all comes back to the league were are in now. The ACC. Sorry hockey.

 

[KaiserUEO]

That's just not true. Most elite prep schools are in the north east. Junior teams are in the northeast, midwest, and canada. I was far from elitle, but I had the opportunity to play junior A with upstate guys like Tim Connolly from BVille (4th overall NHL pick), Matt Murley (Troy, went to RPI, 2nd round pick), Drew Bucktooth (Nedrow, elitle lax player, played major juniors in Canada), Matt Maglione (JD, late round caps pick, went on to play at Princeton).

Upstate guys just my generation alone who went on to great hockey careers: Eric Cole (Oswego/Clarkson), NHL mainstay / Brooks Orpik (Amherst, NY/BC) NHL Mainstay / Brian Gionta (Rochester, NY/BC) NHL Mainstay / Robert Esche (Whitesboro/OHL) 8 YR NHL Careeer / Robbie Schremp (Fulton/NHL and Europe). That's just my generation who made it to the NHL. There are at least 25-30 others that played D1 college around that era.

New York is close to Minny, Mass, and Michigan when it comes to producing solid hockey talent. We would be like the equivalent of Ohio in football.

thats nice and all, but no way in hell does Syracuse add a non-ACC sport.

it doesnt make any sense, none.

maybe it did when the Orange were in the purgatory that was the bigeast, but not anymore.

this thread, while a good conversation...is moot.

i think cheri nailed another side to this as well.

 

[SaltineWar]

I think we should get a football team first.

 

[snowycuse]

I am a huge baseball guy but I can completely understand the push for hockey and it would not be an easy decision if picking one or the other. At the end of the day baseball would have to win out when weighing all relevant factors in an unbiased fashion.

 

[orangecuse]

Baseball...not only because of our ACC membership, but it also wouldn't be competing against our other significant revenue generating sport we play during winter...

 

[CIL]

thats nice and all, but no way in hell does Syracuse add a non-ACC sport.

it doesnt make any sense, none.

maybe it did when the Orange were in the purgatory that was the bigeast, but not anymore.

this thread, while a good conversation...is moot.

i think cheri nailed another side to this as well.

I agree with you, we'll probably add a mediocre baseball team. I was disagreeing with the fact that there is more elite talent locally in baseball than hockey. I can name 7-8 CNY'ers in the NHL now. Baseball has Jason Grilli.

There's no way we would add hockey because it makes too much sense!

 

[TDTOrange]

Neither. Take whatever money was earmarked for the new revenue draining sport (plus the new women's sport to go with it) and put it towards football. Unless the ACC says we need to field more sports, I say we need to work on being better in the revenue driving sports (specifically football, I think we're doing ok in basketball ).

 

[Btstimpy]

Ok...hypothetical...with your choice SU adds whatever women's sport to keep Title IX in compliance.
Include what women's sport to add in your comments. Gymnastics for me.

Have at it: I already record SU2NASA for no hockey :bat:

As an outsider from a fellow ACC school, I'd like to see Syracuse add baseball since baseball is one of the ACC's strongest sports and it's getting more and more airtime on ESPN every year. But I can see the interest in ice hockey given Syracuse's geographic region and the fact that Syracuse already has women's ice hockey.

To add baseball you'd probably have to add equivalent women's sports to comply with Title IX, and you'd want to maximize scholarships to make whatever you add as competitive as possible. So I did an analysis on NCAA Division 1 scholarship limits and came up with:

Baseball with 11.7 maximum scholarships

Women's Golf with 6.0 maximum scholarships
Women's Fencing with 5.0 maximum scholarships

I've read somewhere that the ACC is planning to add Fencing since Notre Dame, Boston College, Duke, and North Carolina have fencing. The current ACC rule is to have 4 schools sponsor a sport before the Conference will sponsor a Championship. If Syracuse adds fencing, then the number would be 5.

These 3 sports could be added and fit right into the ACC.

To add Men's Ice Hockey it's a different calculation:

Men's Ice Hockey with 18.0 maximum scholarships

Women's Gymnastics with 12.0 maximum scholarships
Women's Golf with 6.0 maximum scholarships

When Pitt joined, the ACC was planning to sponsor Women's gymnastics and hold a Championship since UNC, NCState, Maryland, and Pitt would make 4 members sponsoring the sport. Now that Maryland is leaving that's been put on hold. But if Syracuse added it, then it would become a possibility again.

Of course with any of these there would need to be facilities and access. Would there be a golf course that a Syracuse team could use?

 

[jkmac]

I'm going to defend Cheriehoop on this one. I played baseball at Horseheads from 80-82. My senior year we played a weeklong tournament down in South Carolina against the best teams in their state. We went undefeated and dominated. All the South Carolina coaches were telling the press that we were the best team they had ever seen and that we had 6 mlb prospects on our team. Kirt Manwaring ended up being the only one to play in the majors. I will always defend upstate NY baseball, we can play with anybody

 

[anomander]

The current Dome is coming down eventually to be used as academic real estate.


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can't wait until all of our home games are moved to MetLife for a season or 2.

if you had to guess, when do you see it happening?

 

[rrlbees]

can't wait until all of our home games are moved to MetLife for a season or 2.

if you had to guess, when do you see it happening?

5 years ago I said in 5 years. So I'll have to take another 5 years.


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[KaiserUEO]

5 years ago I said in 5 years. So I'll have to take another 5 years.


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nah, 1 is good enough.

Judging by how much u folks up there like the program, play the rest at Cornell, or 1 of the d3 schools stadiums.

You know what, just play at Liverpool, maybe people won't leave early if they can just walk home...

 

[rrlbees]

nah, 1 is good enough.

Judging by how much u folks up there like the program, play the rest at Cornell, or 1 of the d3 schools stadiums.

You know what, just play at Liverpool, maybe people won't leave early if they can just walk home...

It's going to happen.


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[SU2NASA]

Agree, but wouldnt mens hockey be a revenue driver, as someone mentioned above?

It could. Being able to renovate/retrofit Tennity (which it could) would be a significant driver.

 

[KaiserUEO]

It's going to happen.


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If we lose the Dome and JB?? say goodbye to hoop too.

 

[TexanMark]

As an outsider from a fellow ACC school, I'd like to see Syracuse add baseball since baseball is one of the ACC's strongest sports and it's getting more and more airtime on ESPN every year. But I can see the interest in ice hockey given Syracuse's geographic region and the fact that Syracuse already has women's ice hockey.

To add baseball you'd probably have to add equivalent women's sports to comply with Title IX, and you'd want to maximize scholarships to make whatever you add as competitive as possible. So I did an analysis on NCAA Division 1 scholarship limits and came up with:

Baseball with 11.7 maximum scholarships

Women's Golf with 6.0 maximum scholarships
Women's Fencing with 5.0 maximum scholarships

I've read somewhere that the ACC is planning to add Fencing since Notre Dame, Boston College, Duke, and North Carolina have fencing. The current ACC rule is to have 4 schools sponsor a sport before the Conference will sponsor a Championship. If Syracuse adds fencing, then the number would be 5.

These 3 sports could be added and fit right into the ACC.

To add Men's Ice Hockey it's a different calculation:

Men's Ice Hockey with 18.0 maximum scholarships

Women's Gymnastics with 12.0 maximum scholarships
Women's Golf with 6.0 maximum scholarships

When Pitt joined, the ACC was planning to sponsor Women's gymnastics and hold a Championship since UNC, NCState, Maryland, and Pitt would make 4 members sponsoring the sport. Now that Maryland is leaving that's been put on hold. But if Syracuse added it, then it would become a possibility again.

Of course with any of these there would need to be facilities and access. Would there be a golf course that a Syracuse team could use?

The school owns a 36 hole golf course 1 mile from main campus. One of the 18's is quite good. The other 18 is rumored to be the site for a new Dome or Stadium.

 

[#FRANchise]

I bet there's more elite local talent in baseball than hockey. There are a number of local kids who have made pro baseball after playing at programs like Virgina, St John's, Lemoyne, Niagara, etc. Currently there are local kids at Siena, Wake Forest, St John's, Cortland, Lemoyne, Va Tech etc. Our local teams have been dominant in the 15-18 year old Babe Ruth National championships for a number of years including winning national championships. Local baseball talent has been good but has had to leave the area to play D1 ball. Cortland, St John Fisher, Ithaca, Lemoyne etc all have had excellent teams so D2 and D3 teams have excelled nationally too. There are a number of very good community college teams in NYS (Monroe CC etc) that have fed D1, D2 schools.

The best hockey players who get D1 rides are usually older and head off to prep schools etc mainly in the Midwest. or Canada . Even D3 teams like Clarkson University, Hobart, have very few NYS players on their rosters. The best talent wouldn't be local it would be imported.

Clarkson University is actually D1 in both men's and women's hockey (current student at CU). Our women are currently ranked in the top 5 (Beat SU twice) and our men are 7-1-1 and are ranked #17. it doesn't take a huge school to be successful. Our best goal scorer is actually from grand island in Buffalo, along with his brother and both our goalies are from outside of Philly. Dont get me wrong, we have plenty of Canucks as well.



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[ithacat]

can't wait until all of our home games are moved to MetLife for a season or 2.

if you had to guess, when do you see it happening?

Given attendance, maybe save the money and expense and play them at Cornell. I'd even buy season tickets again.


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[Stevenson]

Hockey

 

[Madbiker]

I could care less about playing hockey with a bunch of small northern schools. We're in the ACC...play baseball like every other school in the conference.

 

[Btstimpy]

The school owns a 36 hole golf course 1 mile from main campus. One of the 18's is quite good. The other 18 is rumored to be the site for a new Dome or Stadium.

That's perfect. Then Syracuse should include golf in its plans starting with women's. It could help with the Title IX requirements toward adding either baseball or hockey. The ACC has a good history with golf. Duke women's team is usually very good with several NCAA championships..

 

[BlazeOrange]

The current ACC rule is to have 4 schools sponsor a sport before the Conference will sponsor a Championship.

ND and BC are already playing - SU would make three that I can think of off-hand. If there's another ACC school with a club program primed to upgrade, it could be done. I know, good luck getting those two to change conferences, esp. BC. And the small conference size would allow the teams to schedule their localized rivals in NY, the midwest, and New England. It would also help re-kindle/establish an overall rivalry with BC if we had another raucous fan-friendly sport to compete against them in.

I voted hockey because I would actually follow the team and attend games - baseball, not so much. But in all honesty, the best move is to bank some conference money and improve what we have before making any new additions. Might be feasible next decade, if the 16th school that comes in when ND joins for FB (assuming that happens) has a hockey program.