I was loitering on this thread, so I signed in to give what I know. I have a child at Bates who is a varsity athlete. I asked this question to a coach and the answer was that hockey creates an environment socially that Bates does not wish to have. Other reasons stated might be true as well.
I have a feeling the answer lies in some mysterious place in the middle. Underhill arena is undersized by a foot at 84 ft. in length, although it seems to be listed in places as 85. Bates may feel it has enough “helmet sports” and therefore doesn’t want to put the resources required into a hockey program, particularly if it feels a full-fledged hockey program might throw off the delicate balance of arts, academics, sports, and other programs. Bates has a relatively small endowment for a school of its caliber so funding a hockey program could also mean going without elsewhere and having varsity as opposed to club hockey probably isn’t important enough to the school to do that.
As an 80’s alum I’d always heard the strange story about the funder wanting to keep the rink smaller. I don’t know if it’s apocryphal because I’ve never seen anything in writing or heard the story confirmed by Bates’ administration. It may not have been a vindictive donor, but rather one who wanted the school to be able to offer hockey on campus (previously the club played at an off-campus rink) without it being allowed to drain college resources or change the ethos of the school.
The club has actually performed quite well against its opponents, playing the club teams of such schools as Harvard, MIT, BC, Mass and Northeastern. Not varsity, but still competitive enough for a strong player.
http://bateshockey.com/about
I think you mean 84’ in width. That would be perfectly fine for a hockey rink.
I’m bemused by the comment about the negative social environment that Varsity hockey supposedly creates. Sounds like a coach who knows nothing about hockey making up a narrative to fit the facts. Sounds better than saying, " we can’t afford it", or " we wouldn’t be able to compete", eh?
Yup, I meant width. That makes it a nonstandard size but admittedly I don’t know what the repercussions of having a slightly undersized rink are. I know every pro rink is 200 X 85 but I don’t know if official league games could be played on a 200 X 84 surface.
I’m not sure anyone’s saying hockey would be negative for Bates, just IMO that adding more recruited athletes to an already jocky school might not be in its best interest. The same might be said if the school all of a sudden decided to field a JV football squad. As I said upthread most schools skip a sport or two that others in the same league offer.
With a deep field of nationally ranked teams already in place in NESCAC hockey, it would take quite some time for Bates to become competitive so probably best to focus on other sports that they already excel in such as womens crew, lacrosse and XC/Track, amongst others.