Why A New Venue In This City Could Build Momentum For A College Hockey Hotspot

The second city offers more than enough, but it has never been the perfect college hockey spot, whether for team or showcase. 

The Hockey News co-editor Frank Zawrazky just put together a wonderful piece on restoring the UIC Flames, who used to play college hockey in the heart of Chicago, but there hasn’t been much to see in the collegiate realm in this sport since. 

With a new arena arriving in the city, some think we could see that change.

The Chicago Blackhawks just finished building up the Blackhawks Ice Center, with USG arena inside of it, the future home to the Chicago Steel of the USHL, which can seat 2,000. The modern style and slick black seats look beautiful on photo.

In my personal opinion, this high prestige facility has the complete potential of hosting at least a winter break showcase within its near future.

With the smaller capacity, it would greatly help to get a few smaller programs in to experiment, perhaps some CCHA conference matchups to begin with. By no means does the first Chicago showing need the attendance numbers of a winter event like the Kwik Trip Holiday Classic, where over 7,000 came out on championship Monday.

Besides that, there are other angles that help the case of the idea here. 

In the NHL season, even with a Chicago Blackhawks team near the bottom of the barrel, they still average the fifth-best attendance in the entire league. 

People in this city have come to appreciate their hockey no matter what, especially after the youth hockey boom that correlated with the dynasty of the Blackhawks between 2010 and 2015.

Chicago has college experience as well. Not only will they host the Frozen Four in the future, coming in 2028, but they have already hosted in 2017, which was a grand success, with an average of 19,705 fans at each Frozen Four game there. It was the best average attendance they’ve seen in a Frozen Four series since 2010, when it was hosted at the NFL stadium Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.

The UIC case cannot even be used against this idea. It came in a time when hockey wasn’t appreciated like it is now in Chicago, and the welcoming of a college team or at least a showcase would be electrifying for a hockey fanbase that would be hungry for more.