Ice Hockey at Tennessee State?


Very cool - this could be an opportunity to bring more minorities into the sport and hopefully the Nashville Predators will provide guidance to get the program off the ground.

If they are not in the sport by this age, it will not bring more into it. There are not many minorities playing hockey now and it will just be another sport at a HBCU that is mostly if not all non-minority.
 
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If they are not in the sport by this age, it will not bring more into it. There are not many minorities playing hockey now and it will just be another sport at a HBCU that is mostly if not all non-minority.
You will get no argument from me on that. But, there is another side to that coin......
 
Blame Ricky Weeks and 03 Southern for that - that success made other teams not overlook black infield talent ever again.

I hear ya, but it’s deeper than that. Recreational Departments and inner city junior high/middle school leagues started to drink the wrong water in the early 90’s. Once those programs became jokes for baseball, the high school programs became jokes. This led to HBCU baseball programs having to pick up talent anywhere we could find it. Some inner cities are trying to pick things back up, but finding black powerhouse baseball programs at the high school level is like tying to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
 
I hear ya, but it’s deeper than that. Recreational Departments and inner city junior high/middle school leagues started to drink the wrong water in the early 90’s. Once those programs became jokes for baseball, the high school programs became jokes. This led to HBCU baseball programs having to pick up talent anywhere we could find it. Some inner cities are trying to pick things back up, but finding black powerhouse baseball programs at the high school level is like tying to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Definitely but In Houston there weren’t many high level programs in terms of baseball cause football was pushed immediately in middle school and then basketball came on strong in the 90s and 2000s. The only one was Forest Brook and then Beaumont Ozen and those faded away.

Now you did have way more inner city talent that needed refinement if they went swac but they had enough talent to make it big if coached well. Now you can’t get those same programs to do anything and they have better facilities now with rebuilt schools

And blacks that can play rather stay bench warmers at suburban programs
 
Definitely but In Houston there weren’t many high level programs in terms of baseball cause football was pushed immediately in middle school and then basketball came on strong in the 90s and 2000s. The only one was Forest Brook and then Beaumont Ozen and those faded away.

Now you did have way more inner city talent that needed refinement if they went swac but they had enough talent to make it big if coached well. Now you can’t get those same programs to do anything and they have better facilities now with rebuilt schools

And blacks that can play rather stay bench warmers at suburban programs

You are correct. I've been umpiring baseball for a few years in the Houston area. The inner city schools don't have the talent and most of your black players are at your suburban schools or private schools. I usually look for the black players when I go do a game. On the other hand, I've seen kids playing baseball at a school like Eisenhower that had a lot of potential if they truly committed to the sport but their focus was on basketball and football.
 
You are correct. I've been umpiring baseball for a few years in the Houston area. The inner city schools don't have the talent and most of your black players are at your suburban schools or private schools. I usually look for the black players when I go do a game. On the other hand, I've seen kids playing baseball at a school like Eisenhower that had a lot of potential if they truly committed to the sport but their focus was on basketball and football.
 
We ain't watching it either. Hell, it difficult to get us to watch a baseball game. Just saying.
Back in the day, I was dating someone and we went to a Minor League Hockey game for the hell of it. Much to our surprise, we had the time of our life. It is definitely different from watching it on tv. The highlight of it all for me was they actually let them fight when tempers flare. All the refs do is sit them in a booth (timeout) for a minute and they get to go back in. Loved it!

....Put an Ice rink in the hood, distribute some ice skates and like everything else, I guarantee we will run Hockey too.
 
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Back in the day, I was dating someone and we went to a Minor League Hockey game for the hell of it. Much to our surprise, we had the time of our life. It is definitely different from watching it on tv. The highlight of it all for me was they actually let them fight when tempers flare. All the refs do is sit them in a both (timeout) for a minute and they get to go back in. Loved it!

....Put an Ice rink in the hood, distribute some ice skates and like everything else, I guarantee we will run Hockey too.
I don't disagree with anything you said. We had a hockey franchise here in Houston at one time, but Black folks did not support that. Hell, evidently white people did't either, because they are not here anymore. 🤣
 
It's going to be interesting to see if they can keep the program. University of Alabama at Huntsville dropped it because of the expense it took to run there program. They actually had a good following and won championships. Will the black community or outside community in Nashville support it will be the key! UAH had support of the community and still couldn't keep up with the cost to run the program.

 
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I'm 50/50 on this.. I've been living in Nashville for about 12 years now and I'm not sure if the people here are actually hockey fans or just Preds fan. TSU obviously gets major love around here from the black community, but that same community actually does support the Preds. This will be interesting to see how this plays out, just hope people aren't stupid enough to think that they'll be able to fill a team full of black people.
 
I’d travel from GA to Nashville to catch some games & I’ll even buy merch. Hockey might
Be my 2nd favorite sport. Been watching it since I was in middle school in 2002
 
So who are they gonna play? Are there any schools in the immediate area who have hockey teams?

I still say Tennessee State should use that money to upgrade their track and field facility so that Coach Chandra Cheeseborough-Guice can get Tennessee State competitive again. But, its their money, so........
 
If Hockey didn’t survive at UAH (and Huntsville was called the Hockey Capital of the South)…. No way in ell it will survive at Tennessee State. UAH was winning national championships in hockey. There aren’t any conferences in the South… So they joined a conference that had them playing teams in Michigan. If it stays at the club level they may be ok.
 
I applaud them for taking this step. I just hope that they have the financial backing to fund this completely! Travel alone is heavy on the pockets. I learned that with the Alabama-Huntsville hockey program.

I see that they are playing Club Hockey which is non-scholarship. So their athletic budget won’t take much of a hit at all. But achieving status as a D1 program definitely will change things up.
 
I applaud them for taking this step. I just hope that they have the financial backing to fund this completely! Travel alone is heavy on the pockets. I learned that with the Alabama-Huntsville hockey program.

I see that they are playing Club Hockey which is non-scholarship. So their athletic budget won’t take much of a hit at all. But achieving status as a D1 program definitely will change things up.
I love it as well! I'll be the first to buy their jersey, but then again, I've loved hockey since 1992. I wish SWAC schools would be willing to try something different like this. I have nothing against gymnastics or any other sport, but there is NOTHING like LIVE hockey. I hear Baton Rouge is getting a minor league hockey team back after 15 years. It is an expensive sport, but we all spend money on whatever we like. It's not like baseball or soccer is funding any of our coffers. However, every school must make that decision for themselves.
 
So who are they gonna play? Are there any schools in the immediate area who have hockey teams?

I still say Tennessee State should use that money to upgrade their track and field facility so that Coach Chandra Cheeseborough-Guice can get Tennessee State competitive again. But, its their money, so........

There are a lot of schools with hockey in the south, but they don’t compete for the NCAA ice hockey championship. They’re more of a club level. UGA, GA Tech, UF have some. There are some small schools with a club team but I don’t know them off the top of my head.
 
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