BOWLING GREEN — Between the University of Toledo and Bowling Green, our Division I schools sponsor 34 varsity programs.
There is one that has won an NCAA national title — and one that can do it again.
That’s Bowling Green hockey.
The orange-sweatered boys of winter are the exception to the mid-major rule, and, I must say, I love that BG is beginning to truly double down on its unique opportunity.
How else to interpret the ongoing $5.75 million facelift to the Slater Family Ice Arena and now the splash hire of Dennis Williams — who just last year led superstar Connor Bedard and Team Canada to a gold medal at the World Junior Championships — as its ninth hockey coach?
Bowling Green and its top supporters are sending a clarion message: There is no ceiling on the ambitions of its most tradition-rich program.
“There are no guarantees on any of this,” BG president Rodney Rogers said, “but what we want to do is put this program in position to compete at the highest level.”
If we’ve heard that talk before, we’re now seeing the walk.
Good for Bowling Green.
I have long contended the school ought to reprioritize its athletic department and lean into hockey.
That’s not to suggest it disinvest in football and basketball. But if there’s a sport for which it should stretch its limited resources — and marshal an outsized share of its institutional energy — it’s the one on ice.
The one where you can get a big bang for fewer bucks.
I imagine the return on investment of a run to the Frozen Four or beyond, and I think of a school like Quinnipiac, a nice little university in Hamden, Ct., best known for its polling institute.
Quinnipiac — which spends less on all of its men’s sports combined ($9.6 million) than some Mid-American Conference programs invest in football alone — won its first NCAA hockey championship last year, and in the process not only electrified its campus community but elevated its national profile.
Coincidence or not, kids have since wanted in at a record-shattering rate, with the 6,000-student university receiving 5,353 more first-year applications this year than in 2022. (Its transfer applications are up 44 percent over the same span.)
Could Bowling Green hockey reach the same heights and provide the same triple-espresso shot of morale and place-to-be excitement?
I see no reason why not.
Think of the championship ingredients already in place for the program, from its towering history and enthusiastic fan support to the (relatively) level ice on which it skates.
In some sports, Bowling Green and Toledo might as well live on a different planet from the big boys.
I mean, BG spent $7 million on football and $2.5 million on men’s basketball last year, per federal records. Alabama poured $75 million into football; Kentucky rained $22.7 million onto hoops (and that’s not to mention the bulging bags of NIL money).
The gap makes the Grand Canyon seem like a crevice by comparison. The fields and courts are more sloped than a carnival super slide.
In hockey, meanwhile, there are 64 Division I programs, and they generally reside in a similar ecosystem. Look at the schools that compete for national titles, along with the money they invested in hockey last year. In 2021, UMass ($3.7 million) beat St. Cloud State ($2 million) for the championship. In ‘22, Denver ($4.1 million) defeated Minnesota State ($2.8 million). Last year, Quinnipiac ($3 million) conquered Minnesota ($5.3 million). (BG, for the record, spent $2 million.)
When we talk about Bowling Green’s golden hockey past — the 1984 national championship, the Hall of Famers on the ice (Rob Blake and Ken Morrow), the legends on the bench (Ron Mason and Jerry York), the aisle-spilling madness in their old Mercer Road barn — it is not a relic from a bygone era.
It is a bit of magic that BG is uniquely positioned to recapture.
The Falcons have an honest chance to puff out their chest and be the very best in the country.
They just need the right support and leadership.
And I suspect they now have it, with the hire of Williams but the latest show of commitment from the university and the program’s boosters, led by Scott Slater.
True, the new coach arrives with a trace of baggage, real or not, which you might have expected BG to avoid. As coach of the Everett (Wash.) Silvertips of the Western Hockey League, Williams was the subject last summer of two investigations into allegations of misconduct.
It also must be noted the U.S. Center for SafeSport — created in 2017 by the U.S. Olympic Committee to dive into accusations of misconduct in amateur sports — and the WHL both independently investigated and cleared Williams, and BG athletic director Derek van der Merwe spent two weeks vetting the coach. Williams came with glowing endorsements.
“In today's world, optics are defined by social media, which is not helpful,” van der Merwe said, “because it's not necessarily always accurate.”
The moral: It’s best to keep an open mind.
With that, it’s hard to overstate the magnitude of bringing the 44-year-old Bowling Green alum back to campus.
Since Williams left BG in 2010 — you might remember him as the interim coach when the program was on life support — he has earned a reputation as one of the sport’s top young minds.
We could go over his credentials, including his past seven seasons in Everett, where he led one of the top teams in one of the top junior leagues (the Silvertips won more than 70 percent of their games and produced 13 NHL draft picks). All you really need to know is this is the guy Canada entrusted with one of its highest posts as the coach of its national team at the World Juniors, a U-20 event that features a who’s who of future pro stars and is followed across our northern border like we follow March Madness in the States.
For perspective, his two predecessors leading Team Canada were Andre Tourigny and Dave Cameron, the current coach of the Arizona Coyotes and former coach of the Ottawa Senators, respectively.
Guys like Williams usually chase Stanley Cups. He’s coming to Bowling Green to chase another trophy, and BG is all in on helping him to see the climb through. (BG signed Williams to a six-year, $1.95 million deal and is expected to increase its salary pool for assistants, too. Former coach Ty Eigner made an average of $225,000 per year.)
“Where I’m at in my career, I don't look for moves where I don't think I can have success,” Williams said. “We will not shy away from the challenge, but I felt strongly from the president and from Derek that the support and backing of Bowling Green is where it needs to be. And with Scott Slater and all the upgrades and updates to the arena to help with recruiting, our family felt like this was the right time.”
Good for Williams. Better for Bowling Green.
“There is something about hockey that is a treasure and is a treasure to the identity and brand of what this place is,” van der Merwe said, “and I think hockey is something that will define our future as well.”
First Published March 30, 2024, 6:00 p.m.
