Why are MSU, UM, WMU hockey playing in small arena for regional? NCAA explains

For an organization that likes to live by the book, the NCAA tossed the book aside when awarding a hockey regional to an arena that lists its capacity at only 2,500.

Making matters tougher, that NCAA hockey tournament regional, in Maryland Heights, Mo., is set to play host to four very passionate fan bases, including three that are reasonably close to the host site: Michigan State, Michigan and Western Michigan.

Michigan State, Michigan, Western Michigan and North Dakota make up the regional, which starts play Friday at Centene Community Ice Center, the practice facility for the St. Louis Blues.

The complex, opened in 2019, has four rinks, including a "feature" rink that lists the capacity at 2,500, though the NCAA said capacity for the three regional games will be 3,148. Still, in its official handbook, the NCAA says that municipalities can only bid on NCAA hockey regionals if they have a building with a capacity of at least 5,000.

Responding to an inquiry from The Detroit News, an NCAA spokesman said the building was awarded the regional because there was a lack of bids for the west regional. The bids were considered in 2020, during COVID, when the future of in-person sports was uncertain. That might have been a factor in a lack of bids, but the NCAA couldn't confirm that.

"The NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Committee evaluated all bids for the 2024 regional sites in the winter of 2020," the NCAA spokesman said in a statement to The News. "However, only a few venues in the western part of the country submitted bids for the four-year cycle. Given the limited number of sites in the geographical area, the committee chose the best options to enhance the experience of the student-athletes and coaches.”

The Centene Community Ice Center also was awarded the bid, in part, as a package deal for St. Louis, which will host the Frozen Four in 2025. The NCAA hopes that a regional in the area this year will help spark some interest for the Frozen Four next year.

The NCAA didn't disclose what other cities bid on this regional; the NCAA does have a policy that states regionals must be played at neutral venues, and that policy it's not willing to break.

The other three regionals — in Springfield, Mass.; Providence, R.I.; and Sioux Falls, S.D. — are being played in venues with a capacity of more than 5,000. The smaller facility for the west regional has fans of Michigan State, Michigan, Western Michigan and North Dakota scrambling to secure tickets. Each school is given 400 to disperse as it sees fit; that's the same for all regionals. On Monday, tickets for the west regional were selling on the secondary market for more than $1,000. The Missouri regional was a quick sellout, which isn't usually the case for the NCAA hockey tournament.

"Obviously it's not the biggest arena," said Western Michigan senior forward Luke Grainger, "but I'm sure it's gonna be really packed and have a great atmosphere."

Said Michigan State head coach Adam Nightingale: "We're expecting the environment to be really great. Obviously, we'd love to have as many of our fans there as we could, and I understand the frustration, but from our perspective, our job is it doesn't matter where we're playing. Big rink, small rink, outdoor rink, you gotta be ready to play, and that's our job this week, to make sure we're ready to play."

On Friday, Michigan State (24-9-3), the top seed in the regional, will play Western Michigan (21-15-1), at 5 p.m., and Michigan (21-14-3) will play North Dakota (26-11-2) at 8:30 p.m., with both games on ESPNU. The regional final is Sunday, at 6:30 p.m. The Frozen Four is in St. Paul, Minnesota, on April 11 and 13.

North Dakota has the top Division I men's college hockey attendance in the country, at 11,612 per game. Michigan State is sixth at 6,482, Michigan is 10th at 5,775, and Western Michigan is 25th at 3,307.

There have been cries for several years for the NCAA to shift the regionals to campus sites, with the four top seeds hosting, to create a better environment. But, so far, the NCAA has resisted. The first two rounds of the NCAA women's basketball tournament are played at campus sites.

"Does the NCAA need to take a look at how they manage this tournament? The answer is a resounding yes," said Dan Bartholomae, athletic director at Western Michigan, which is in the NCAA Tournament for the third straight year, for the first time in program history. "We've gotta take a serious look at whether we've got to go back to home-hosted sites. If we go back to home-hosted sites, we're going to have issues with capacity (WMU's Lawson Arena seats 3,667), but you're creating a great environment and it's exciting."

Bartholomae said he has a couple of other issues with the NCAA hockey tournament. For starters, it gets underway in the middle of the NCAA's most popular event, the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and the first- and second-round games air on ESPNU, a channel that's no given on cable packages and isn't part of ESPN+ subscriptions.

Bartholomae said the city of Kalamazoo plans to bid in the future, once its $300-million arena, which will host WMU's basketball and hockey teams, is completed, in 2027 or 2029. That arena will seat 6,500 for hockey.

Madeline Kenney contributed

tpaul@detroitnews.com

@tonypaul1984