Robert Morris Hockey on the Chopping Block
Today, the university announced that they'd be cutting both the mens and women's hockey programs.
Today Robert Morris University announced that they would be cutting both their mens and women’s division one hockey teams. This was not in the cards for either teams and their athletes and shows how little administrators at universities care for their student athletes.
Robert Morris hockey isn’t the first team college team to hit the cutting board this year. Stanford attempted to cut eleven division one athletic teams this past year including wrestling, field hockey, and squash.
Eventually Stanford voted against disbanding the eleven teams due to persistent social media campaigns from the Stanford student athletes. I followed the Stanford situation very closely because I am a wrestling fan and the outcry from the athletes and wrestling community was insane.
The biggest issue that I have with schools cutting programs in this way is that many athletes are left in limbo. Stanford reinstated all eleven teams on May 18th which hurts many athletes because some had already transferred or some were in the process of transferring like Shane Griffith who was set to wrestle for the North Carolina Tar Heels.
In addition to screwing over your current student athletes, many coaches had to find new jobs and recruiting at Stanford has been set back an entire year.
I really hope that Robert Morris University makes the right decision to keep mens and women’s hockey. If RMU student athletes and the hockey community can rally around the Colonials then we could see the administration quickly reverse their ruling.