While football, basketball and baseball rule the year at LSU, the last of the four major sports — ice hockey — remains unseen and unheard of, with seemingly no place to grow.
But for a few LSU students, this sport cannot only produce excitement, but generate a following as well.
After hockey disbanded in 2008, these students brought it back as a student organization, with hopes of the team becoming a club sport within a few years.
The organization held a meeting Wednesday for any students who are interested in joining the club in the Feliciana Room of the Student Union.
“Football is the predominant thing down here and that is never going to change … and we accept that,” said organization president Elle Schwartz . “But if we can get some people interested in hockey, then we’ll take it.”
Although she only plans on serving as assistant coach, Schwartz — a lifelong San Jose Sharks fan — first contacted LSU’s UREC about bringing the team back. The UREC made it clear that it would first need recognition as a student organization before becoming a club. With the help of vice president David Clark, Schwartz spent the past summer completing paperwork to make hockey a student organization. With the paperwork finished and interest in the sport already growing, the foundation for the sport has been built, Clark said.
“Meeting all of these little goals helps to keep you going,” said public relations officer Chris Burchard. “It’s about making little chips in the block to where you want to be.”
In February, Schwartz and Clark will make a proposal to the Southeastern Collegiate Hockey Conference in hopes of being reinstated into the league they once competed in. If reinstated, LSU will serve one probationary year before coming back to the conference.
With the closest NHL team more than six hours away from Baton Rouge, Burchard said the team has an opportunity to give students a chance to follow a sport they have only watched on television.
“We are kind of like the Jamaican bobsled team from ‘Cool Runnings,’” Burchard said. “We’re taking something some people here would never think about and we’re trying to make it happen. It makes for a great opportunity.”
Schwartz said a lack of student support led to the club’s downfall in 2008. Keeping that in mind, she welcomes not only people who want to play for the team, but those willing to support them, such as Schwartz.
The fast pace and physicality of hockey are two things that could appeal to students who may be interested in the sport, Schwartz said.
This meeting will serve as a place to not only form a team, but form a fan base as well, Schwartz said.
“A lot of people probably want to know if I’m mentally stable for starting a hockey team here,” Schwartz said. “But they’d be surprised. We’ve found people wanting to join … the interest level is there, we just have to fi nd it.”