Best Hockey Schools

monydad
Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:42:27 +0000

“Hah! Cornell hasn’t won a national championship since 1970.”

The OP’s question was, and I quote,

“What are the best schools where hockey is a pretty big deal?”

It was not “which schools are best in hockey?”

Granted the two are usually correlated.

In the case of Cornell, hockey remains a pretty big deal there. They are also still (or again) pretty good at it, they made it to the NCAA tournament regional finals this past year. Nowhere near where they were in the 60s-70s, in terms of national prominence, but fan enthusiasm nevertheless remains high. Which was directly to the OPs question. Their league has gotten quite competitive and exciting within itself, and they are generally up there in it, regardless of national stature.

What happened I think is, during the glory years a fan culture developed, such that the fan antics eventually came to equal or transcend the actual games in entertainment value. The games effectively became an excuse for the fan performance. Sort of like how some people are into The Rocky Horror Picture show whether or not it is actually a great film.

They like, and care about, the actual hockey too though. But the bulk of what fans see is in-league competition which as I said has actually been quite competitive within itself, and exciting. So with all this, fan enthusiasm remains high there.