Coralville's Xtream Arena and a Big Ten beckon. Could Iowa's Hawkeyes be suiting up for NCAA hockey sooner than anticipated?
With the ECHL’s Iowa Heartlanders playing what some believe to be their last game, a new window with potential opens up in Coralville.
Could the University of Iowa be the next revealed NCAA division one hockey team?
The campus in Iowa City would have a hockey team just two miles away and a Big Ten Hockey team that could be ready in an instant.
Xtream Arena, the home of the Iowa Heartlanders, is a 5,100-seat setting for hockey, with seating colors already matching the school colors of black and gold.
The Heartlanders finished last in the central division in the 2025-26 season, and 29th out of 30 teams overall, only ahead of the Greensboro Gargoyles.
The Heartlanders have suspended operations on the 2026-27 ECHL season. Credit: Iowa HeartlandersWith that, attendance numbers have been frozen at the bottom of the past two seasons for Iowa, which has ultimately spiraled into the suspension of operations for the 2026-27 season.
Winning can go a long way in Iowa.
The 2025 football season for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes had every single game sell out, whether against an FCS foe of Albany or as big an opponent as the eventual national champion Indiana Hoosiers.
Women’s basketball is also among quite the most popular, with consistently packed houses at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Winning is something the Big Ten Conference could help integrate into Iowa’s hypothetical hockey program. Declaring hockey as a varsity sport for the Hawkeyes could earn them conference funding from arguably the most strengthened, versatile conference in the country.
As is, the Big Ten would be satisfied with a newcomer, only at seven teams in the current day men’s hockey conference, while eight would lead to easier formatting and tournament planning.
With a world like NIL on our hands, that could lead to immediate success in signing future stars for the program.
Hockey at this University makes sense. With 30% of the school’s population coming from Chicago, home of the Chicago Blackhawks and a handful of AAA programs, hockey already has a buzz on campus.
On top of that, hockey continues to actively grow in the Hawkeye State, where USHL teams are galore within the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders, Des Moines Buccaneers, Dubuque Fighting Saints, Sioux City Musketeers, and Waterloo Black Hawks. It only makes sense to have an NCAA program within the land of Iowa as well.
The boxes are checked: an arena waiting with open arms, a conference ready to rival competitive hockey in, and a state that has been salivating for its NCAA birth. The University of Iowa could have a hockey program before you’d believe it.