The issues with bringing women's hockey to Michigan  — and why the athletic department should do it anyway.

According to author Keith Gave, former Team Canada women’s hockey coach Shannon Brown-Miller once asked legendary Michigan coach Red Berenson about bringing a women’s team to Michigan. Much to Miller-Gordon’s disappointment, Berenson replied, “Not while I am here.” 

The story is somewhat apocryphal, but it’s believable because there is still no women’s hockey team at Michigan. Momentum for the program has increased, however. In 2024, the university commissioned a feasibility study on bringing the program to varsity status. Regent Denise Illitch, whose family owns the Detroit Red wings, has become more vocal in advocating for a women’s team over the past year. Berenson is even now on the committee formed by Illitch and former club coach Jenna Trubiano dedicated to bringing women’s varsity hockey to Michigan. With the rise of the PWHL, it seems like the perfect time to finally bring a women’s varsity team to one of college hockey’s oldest programs. 

But there are two barriers in the way — and they’re not small barriers, either. 

Problem 1: Where would they play? 

On the surface, this seems like an easy question. Surely, a varsity women’s team would play at the same place as the men’s team: on the ice of Yost Ice Arena, one of the most historic buildings in NCAA hockey. 

“I definitely feel Yost has to be part of the equation when we’re talking about the women’s program,” Hobey Baker winner and former Michigan player Brendan Morrison told Rachel Hopmeyer of CBS News Detroit Mar. 15. “This is the cathedral of college hockey right here, this ice arena. It’s, in my opinion, the best rink in college hockey, and I think a lot of others would agree.” 

There is no arguing that Yost is one of the most famous rinks in college hockey. Opened in 1923, it was the longtime home of the basketball team before they moved to Crisler Center. it was converted into an ice hockey arena in 1973 and has hosted the men’s team ever since, along with the synchronized skating team, a host of intramural and rec league teams and the women’s club team since its formation in 1994. 

However, the building wasn’t designed to host multiple varsity hockey teams. With the exception of the men’s own locker room, most of the other locker rooms are so small as to make the Wolverines functionally ineligible to host a regional game, let alone an entire other hockey program. The visiting locker room is currently cordoned off from the main corridor of the stadium by means of a plastic tarp secured to a fence and most of the other locker rooms look like your average beer league locker room with wooden benches and pegs on the walls. 

 The women’s program would also ostensibly need a similar setup to the men’s team in terms of equipment storage and weight rooms. They might be able to share with coordination, but it would likely be both team’s preference to have somewhat of their own space, which simply isn’t feasible at Yost in its present form. It’s not an arena at all conducive to co-hosting two D1 varsity hockey teams. 

The other space constraint with Yost is ice space, which was allegedly one of Berenson’s primary concerns with adding a women’s varsity team. There is only one ice sheet at Yost, and with just one varsity team, it’s already a constant battle for ice space. The men’s team has the ice for most of the afternoon each day, and the other teams practice and play late into the night to accommodate that. If the women were to receive an equal amount of ice time (as they should), they would have to practice in the mornings or after approximately 7 p.m., which isn’t a schedule that is very supportive of student-athletes. 

And how would it work for games? The women’s club team plays early in the day on Saturdays and Sundays to work around the men’s schedule now, but NCAA women’s teams often play at similar times as the men’s teams. Most of them work around this by making their home at another venue. 

But there isn’t anywhere else on Michigan’s campus for the women’s team to play. There isn’t even another ice sheet on campus. The closest is the Ice Cube, which is located close to campus, but isn’t owned by the university. The women’s team would struggle to find adequate ice time there as well because it is a community rink with youth hockey and more rec teams. Furthermore, they probably wouldn’t play games there, so they’d have to constantly be transporting their gear, which is not an equitable solution. 

Problem 2: Cost 

Hockey is an expensive sport, and even the men’s team, which is one of the most popular in the country, does not break even, losing around $1 million dollars in the 2023-24 season. The feasibility study reported that the program loses about $900,000 each year. A women’s team would not immediately experience the support that the men’s team does, meaning it would make less in merchandise, concessions and ticket sales despite costing roughly similar, which would only increase that loss. 

The women’s team would also have a higher cost relative to other schools’ women’s hockey programs as they would have to travel out of state every time they needed to play a serious game because there are no other D1 teams in Michigan. Their closest opponent right now would be Ohio State, which is two-and-a-half hours driving south. Other close opponents would likely include Wisconsin (six hours) and Minnesota (eight hours), but since there is no Big 10 women’s hockey conference, their opponents would also likely frequently include teams on the East Coast, which would increase travel costs. 

The feasibility study estimates that women’s team would cost approximately $4.5 million dollars per year, which is more than nearly all NCAA women’s programs. For comparison, the men’s team had expenses approaching $5 million in the 2023-24 season and that budget will have only increased in the years since. This amount would cover coaches, travel, equipment and other operatinge expenses. 

The cost is one of the reasons the team was not selected for varsity status back in 1998. It’s also going to be difficult to convince the athletic department to fund this at this particular moment for Michigan Athletics. The new revenue sharing rules from the House setltement have added approximately $20 million dollars’ worth of expenses to the budget. 

On top of that, the school was banned from any postseason competitive revenue sharing for the 2025 and 2026 football seasons and received other financial penalties due to the Connor Stalions sign-stealing investigation, which may approach close to $30 million dollars of lost potential revenue. Basically, the department is $50 million dollars behind where it thought it would be at this time, meaning it is not particularly inclined to drop more than $4.5 million dollars, accounting for inflation since the feasibility study, to fund a whole new team. 

And speaking of things that will cost money…

Solutions

There is no way around this: starting a women’s team will cost more than $4.5 million dollars. The team cannot play at Yost in its current form and they must play somewhere. That means that the school is going to have to spend some money to secure them a place to play. 

Option 1

Retrofit Yost by expanding the back of it into the parking lot of Schembechler Hall, where the football offices are. This is the cheapest option, but it’ll still cost the department $50 million and would take away a significant amount of parking in the area, which those who work for football are not in favor of. 

Expanding Yost that far would give the women’s team the space for similar facilities to the men’s and would let them play at Yost, which is convenient for fans and  It does not, however, solve the ice time problem, which is a major issue. It works monetarily and somewhat logistically, but creates other logistical problems and doesn’t solve the issue of ice time. 

Option 2

Build a brand-new arena with increased seating (8,000-10,000 seats — Yost currently seats around 6,600) with one ice sheet and have both teams play there. The increase in seating would boost revenue and an updated building would allow both teams to be thought of in the planning and provide adequate facilities for both. 

It’s unclear exactly what would become of Yost in this scenario. Land is at a premium in Ann Arbor. As historic as the venue is, it’s possible it may need to be torn down to make space for the new arena or for something else entirely. 

The issues with this plan are the cost and the concept of the men’s team leaving Yost. The arena is deeply tied to the tradition of the program, and the fact that it is outdated is somewhat of a bellwether for whether a recruit is willing to invest in the tradition of the program or is just looking for cushy treatment. Moving the team from there would likely face resistance both from fans and from inside the program. Tearing down Yost would face similar resistance. It would also cost the athletic department $300 million, which is a massive expense. The ice time issue is also still not solved. 

Option 3

Build a new arena with 2 ice sheets for both programs, similar to Minnesota’s setup with Mariucci and Ridder. This option is similar to Option 2, but for $30 million more, it solves the ice time problem. You would still have the resistance to the men’s team leaving Yost, though. 

Option 4

This option is not mentioned in the feasibility study, but it’s been done before and might honestly be the most appealing option. Build the single sheet arena, put the men’s team there, and let the women’s team move into Yost. This would follow Boston University’s model, where the men’s team moved to newly-constructed Agganis Arena, while the women’s team moved into Walter Brown. 

This would still cost $300 million, but it solves the ice sheet problem and the issue of Yost’s potential destruction. It does the women’s team in an older facility, but the men’s team has excellent facilities and the women would be fine. It also allows the women’s team to integrate right into the history of ice hockey at Michigan, which would help them quickly build rapport with the fans. 

Hypothetically, in this scenario, you could also simply leave the men’s team at Yost and build the new arena exclusively for the women’s team. But it’s unlikely that the women’s team would be able to fill it at first and it would not generate enough revenue to recoup its cost on time. 

Additionally, Yost is in a prime location on campus, easily walkable for students and surrounded by the softball and baseball facilities. Teams like soccer and lacrosse, meanwhile, are located further out of town, which makes it difficult for students to get there on the weekends as the school’s buses do not run as often then. A new arena might be located down there or in a similarly inconvenient spot, which would make it even harder for a new team to draw fans. Fans would be much more willing to go the extra mile for a team they already know and love, and would probably be willing to check out the new team at their favorite old arena. It would also allow the men’s team to generate more revenue with additional tickets. 

Funding 

It’s highly unlikely that the money to fund this team will come entirely from the athletics department. There simply isn’t room in the budget for it. One option the feasilblity study suggested is that the school fund some part of it. The University of Michigan and Michigan Athletics operate on completely separate budgets, so the university doesn’t fund athletics directly. Given that the athletic department is strapped for cash, it may be time for the University to provide some funding some them if this program was something the university really wanted. It’s unlikely, though. 

What is much more likely is that a program will be funded through private donations, at least initially. Denise Illitch says that she’s already gotten calls from donors about it, which is a positive sign, but they will probably need to raise a few hundred million dollars for it and it’s unclear if there is that level of enthusiasm. The prospect of Ohio State winning another national championship at something that Michigan doesn’t even compete in is probably helping to raise funds, though. 

One other option is that the team could partner with the Detroit Red Wings, as Delaware women’s hockey did with the Philadelphia Flyers. This is somewhere that Illitch could be very useful, as her family obviously owns the Red Wings. Illitch Holdings has been reluctant to open the purse strings too much in recent years (see the negotiations with Tarik Skubal for evidence), but the Flyers also didn’t directly fund the team, instead providing material support and opportunities for the players, so they might be more open to it. 

Summary

In a state with a town nicknamed “Hockeytown,” it’s frankly shameful that there isn’t a D1 women’s hockey program to be found. Certainly, the flagship university of the state with one of the most successful men’s hockey teams ever should have one. And, as evidenced by the sellout PWHL games at Little Caesars, the enthusiasm is clearly there for women’s hockey in the state. 

The financial barriers and issue of space are significant ones, and the athletic department’s financial status makes it more difficult. But there are solutions, and with the growth of the PWHL and the increase in viewership following the Olympics, the time is right to do it now no matter the other obstacles.