Asher Gibbons
Sports Editor
College hockey is continuously gaining traction, especially here at FSC. When the hockey team plays at the Lakeland Ice Arena, it’s mostly packed with students eager to watch a good game of hockey or simply bang on the tempered glass and enjoy a night out with friends.
As the Mocs near the midway point in the season, the push for playoffs is going to begin after the summation of winter break. The way playoffs are set up, however, is complicated. A big part in this is the fact that our Mocs hockey team isn’t a school sport. It’s a club sport.
The FSC hockey team isn’t an NCAA sport, it’s actually overseen by an organization known as the Amateur Athletic Union, or AAU. Because of this, there’s less restrictions for players, such as the ice time the team receives.
Assistant Coach Nick Nugent said it’s beneficial to continue as a club sport rather than transition to the NCAA.
“What the NCAA is really good at is making rules and then making it really hard to be flexible with those rules,” he said.
The Mocs play in the College Hockey South division of AAU. In contrast to the NCAA, the CHS can quickly make a tournament for the spring without an approval from the AAU. This makes it more flexible for the team to achieve more because they’re a club sport rather than a school sport.
The CHS is a non profit organization with the goal of improving the college hockey scene.
“The goal of the division, the College Hockey South, is to be a good member of AAU,” Nugent said
They are merely a division in the AAU but they control most of what the fans see when they sit down to watch a game. The CHS is tasked with regulating the rules, referees, ice time, player safety and social media.
The CHS also isn’t flawless when it comes to clarity. Multiple schools such as the University of Florida, the University of Alabama and the University of Central Florida have multiple hockey teams within the division. For example, Alabama has both a DI and DIII hockey team within the CHS.
While it may be confusing, it’s actually very good for the sport. Nugent explained that having two teams allows for a developmental group that would play as something similar to a minor league team. The group would be able to get experience on the ice and progress to the main squad as they get better.
“…the long-term goal is to have a DI team, a DII or DIII team, and then have a women’s team,” Nugent said
Unfortunately, the way AAU rankings are determined, and thereby playoffs, are outrageously baffling. The math includes components such as win-losses, rating of opposition, goals scored, goal differential, etc.
Despite a complex system, it simply doesn’t add up when the Mocs beat last season’s DII champion University of Miami Hurricanes twice on November 15 and 16 and didn’t jump above them in the rankings. In fact, FSC (4-8-1) is somehow ranked below Embry-Riddle who carries a record of 3-14-1.
“I mean, I have a PhD. I can’t figure out this darn math,” Nugent said
The top 20 AAU DII teams make the playoffs, and the Mocs are currently ranked 30. If the Mocs can continue to win games, playoffs are absolutely viable this season.
Because of the transition from DIII to DII, there were some bumps in the road in the first half of the season, but the wins against Miami were big confidence boosters to the team.
“Those games we just beat Miami. We belong. We absolutely belong here,” Nugent said
