Opinion: Should the NCAA get ride of neutral Regionals for Ice Hockey

Evan’s Pick: No

A lot of the most notable sports in the college realm include neutral sites for postseason action, the only one I can think of that doesn’t is the first round of the new College Football Playoff and the FCS Playoffs, which go neutral for the Championship game anyway.

In sports, it sometimes happens that a team ends up playing in a favorable spot in what’s supposed to be a “neutral” site, heck it just happened last night when Houston got to play the National Championship game in San Antonio, just three hours from campus.

It happened in the country’s biggest sporting event too recently, the Super Bowl.

In 2021, The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got to play at home and in 2022 the Los Angeles Rams got to play in their home stadium.

Sometimes it just ends up being a coincidence, does it suck for the other team(s), yes but that’s just the way these tournaments go sometimes. Some may argue if you’re really that good than you should be fine wherever you play.

Maybe an idea to potentially fix this would be to rotate regions yearly, however money and arena availability could potentially make this hard.

Chase’s Pick: No

Are neutral sites perfect? No. Should they go away? That answer is also no.

The case with the Penn State situation boils down to the bottom dollar. Since hockey is not one of the big money making sports like football and basketball, the NCAA needs to squeeze as much profit out of their other sports as possible.

Penn State paid the NCAA 100,000 for the right to host a regional as well, so in the event they make the tournament they should be able to play at their home site. It is the same way for all the other teams in college hockey as well.

With the regional host making the tournament also comes with the added assurance that the arena will be close to capacity for the games said host is playing in as well.

It also doesn’t force the host school to both host a tournament regional and send their team to a different site at the same time.

But why can’t the top four teams host the regionals at their arenas? A lot of that has to do with the infrastructure both in and around the arena itself.

It has to be up to a 5,000 seat capacity, be up to safety and operating standards for today, and has proper parking, hotels etc. around the area too.

While I would love for the regionals to get to the point where they are with March Madness in terms of popularity and profit, they simply aren’t and until then this is the best path forward for college hockey.

Bryan’s Pick: Yes

The fan experience is what makes postseason college sports so exciting. The excitement after a goal during an important regular season game would be amplified in a team’s home arena.

Getting to host a College Football Playoff game or a regional in baseball, softball or volleyball is a culmination of a team’s earned efforts.

If a team has worked all season to get to the postseason and they have one of the most impressive resumes in the sport, the natural reward would be playing the first round in their own backyard.

For those wondering if playoff home-field advantage causes a competitive imbalance, there have been five national champions since 2000 that did not host a regional in college baseball.

My argument is not to get rid of neutral sites altogether but instead to get rid of them in the first round.

Luke’s Pick: No

When Penn State won the Allentown regional, I saw a ton of comments and tweets stating how bogus the regional hosting system was. Claiming that PSU wouldn’t have won any of their two games on true neutral ice. My simple rebuttal is, the better team won.

But my longer answer is that Penn State probably shouldn’t have had the ability to be in that great situation. Though the Nittany Lions are one of the hottest teams in the country, early season losses and the loss in the Big Ten semi-final nearly knocked them out of the tournament fully.

This hosting system does offer some of the more financially blessed universities the chance to essentially have a home playoff environment even without a top-four seeded record.

For a school like Penn State, this is great. The support for hockey is evident and there are a ton of venues in the state that could host a regional.

But for a school like Maine, who may not have the financial flexibility like Penn State, it becomes a huge disadvantage. Though they performed at a high level, they had to travel a distance to play a team with a huge level of fan support.

But bidding as a host is taking a chance. A gamble if you would and this gamble doesn’t always pay off. Unfortunately, when a situation like the Penn State run this year makes news, it doesn’t go away easily.

All-in-all, the system should not change. There are very few NCAA playoffs that have a home field advantage in any round and those few aren’t as driven by the fans and student sections as hockey is.

Evan Pochas is a second-year student studying broadcast journalism, to contact him email ejp5753@psu.edu.

Chase Fisher is a first-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email ctf5198@psu.edu.

Luke Stefanisko is a first-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email ljs6415@psu.edu.

Bryan Portney is a first-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email bep5295@psu.edu.