SFU, keep doing you.

Vancouver's entire economy illustrates that if the moneyed class wants something to be, they'll get it, whether that is the three-quarters empty condominium towers or the megabucks rolling in for the UBC Thunderbirds football team. Or, in this case, a school with zero hockey history wanting to bring NCAA Division I college hockey to the Left Coast, even though their closest competition would be in Alaska and Colorado.

Be that as it might, you might rupture your credulity when you hear the one reason  that former Vancouver Canucks VP Jon Festinger cited as evidence this would work:

One hurting element of St. Thomas calling it quits in men's hockey, of course, is that it takes some shine away from Atlantic University Sport's triumphal finish to the season.

The sport conference, after all, raised the bar for hosting the CIS University Cup and three of its men's hockey powers have something to show for the season, with UNB winning the national championship, Saint Mary's nabbing the nationals bronze, and St. Francis Xavier winning the conference championship. A conference, though, is like a chain: only as strong as its weakest link.

Perhaps less teams could mean more; St. Thomas being in CIS hockey, hate to say it, was a little like Eastern Michigan University playing major-college football when it's a five-minute drive away from the University of Michigan with their Big House. The Tommies averaged 3.5 conference wins over the last six seasons.

Some sad news that one might have feared was coming: the St. Thomas Tommies have folded men's hockey.

As reported by the Aquinian, the campus newspaper at the Fredericton, N.B., school will realize an annual savings to close to a quarter-million dollars, and the plan is that "athletic financial award commitments to a men’s hockey player will be honoured if the player continues his education at STU."

It always sucks when there is suddenly one fewer team in one of the major team sports, but times are tight, especially in Irving-land. One can feel the pain and know that, practically, a campus of 2,300 students that is two-thirds women would be in tough to sponsor a men's hockey program, especially with reigning CIS University Cup champion UNB next door. In fact, of the 11 universities across Canada that have a greater than 2-to-1 female-male ratio, only three are in CIS, the others being Brandon and Nipissing, which does have two hockey teams. That's extrapolated from a list published in Maclean's not too long ago.


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