Women's Hockey cut at Saint Mary's University: Stronger

Women's Hockey cut at Saint Mary's University: Stronger "business case" for men's hockey and football

posted by Women in Sport International
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 8:59pm EDT

A blog that addresses the tough questions in sport that are important to women and girls.

Saint Mary's University in Halifax Nova Scotia has decided to cut its women's hockey program and its $120,000 price tag from the Varsity Sport Program. Rachel Brady of the Globe and Mail reported that:

Women’s hockey was the school’s third priciest varsity team to operate behind men’s hockey and football, but the review found a stronger business case for those two programs since they generate more revenue and spectators.

SMU’s athletic department considered reducing budgets for all teams, but concluded that would hurt them competitively. The department also considered options to keep women’s hockey, but team members were never consulted.

Not only was the team cut from the budget, the team had no opportunity to discuss the decision with the athletic department, nor where they given an opportunity to attempt to trim their budget. Head coach Lisa Jordan and her players were simply asked to attend a meeting during which the bad news was dropped. The Globe and Mail quoted Jordan as saying that “I’m obviously feeling surprised and blind-sided. I understand that funding a hockey team is not easy and that it’s hard to trim from an athletics budget, but these meetings were very final, and we aren’t being given an opportunity to discuss it.”

This news is especially troubling for a team that has been very successful on the rink. This past season Saint Mary's won the Atlantic Championship for the fourth time in the team's 14-year history, and placed fourth at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport National Championship.

Although it seems as if it is very little the team can do to change the school's decision (as the school's final budget is due April 1), the team is not giving up hope. Supporters of the team, including Halifax city councillor Sue Uteck and Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame member Kathy Mullane, will be attending a rally today at Saint Mary's University in support of the team.

It would be interesting to see, when the school's budget is released , whether SMU is funding male and female sports equally with the removal of women's hockey. The top two teams in terms of funding at SMU are men's hockey and men's football (I would assume by a large margin). Now with the removal of women's hockey, who wants to bet that the third highest funded sport is also a men's team?

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There is 1 comment on this post. Join the discussion!

McCarter.Nathan says:

"Now with the removal of women's hockey, who wants to bet that the third highest funded sport is also a men's team?"

In regards to athletics you cannot always look at just the numbers. It's more telling if they up the budgets an equal percentage and/or are providing the same quality to each team. The best example I was ever taught for this lesson was baseball vs. softball. If you have to order new equipment, like bats, for the programs the top of the line baseball bat may be $500 and the top softball bat may be $300. Now more money is going toward baseball but the quality is the same. That's where the focus should be looked at in regards to the programs not just the raw numbers.

Monday, March 21, 2011 at 9:04pm EDT

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Women's Hockey cut at Saint Mary's University: Stronger "business case" for men's hockey and football

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