Given its location and the popularity of hockey in the area, it is pretty amazing Syracuse has never had a men's varsity hockey team.
You might think with SU joining the ACC, and all the additional revenue SU will receive from this, the chances to field a hockey team would be dramatically improved. Like Mark says, you would also have to add a women's sport to retain ratios and comply with Title IX (women's gymastics or women's golf makes sense).
The problem with this is the conference we are joining. If it were the B1G, hocley would be a total no brainer. But the ACC doesn't have hockey and never will (one of the reasons BC is such a red haired step child in it; their only decent sport is the only major sport the ACC does not compete in).
When SU joins the ACC in September, I believe it will be the only school in the conference that does not have a varsity baseball team. Even schools like BC and Pitt play baseball. I would imagine the ACC would really like Syracuse to move its club team up to varsity status.
But it is easy to see why SU dropped baseball even before Title IX caused so many men's sports to be discontinued across the nation. The weather in CNY, coupled with the early end of the spring semester for Syracuse makes for a situation where a Syracuse team would struggle to play more than a handful of home games in a given season.
Further, the quality of high school baseball in this area is exceedingly low (lacrosse dominates spring sports). Unlike hockey, I can't see baseball ever being a revenue generating sport at Syracuse.
It will be interesting to see what happens with varsity sports at Syracuse over the next 10 years.
