There is a dark stain on the Duke Athletics Department. Several months of investigative reporting have revealed a story of the systematic betrayal and abuse of our own student-athletes, a true scandal that should force the resignation of Athletics Director Joe Alleva. Let us mourn over the wreckage that was once the Duke men's ice hockey team.
This time of year is indeed the heart of hockey season. Students at campuses across the country gather around the TV to enjoy the pros on ESPN's National Hockey Night. From elite eastern schools like Harvard and Cornell, to the frozen north of Michigan and Minnesota, and even all the way to California, hockey programs are more popular than ever, raking in a combined $872 million last year, according to cnnsportsillustrated.com. But not at Duke.
As recently as the mid-90s, Duke had one of the region's premiere ice hockey programs, attracting top talent from all over the South. "In my day, they used to turn Cameron Indoor Stadium in to a hockey rink when the basketball team was away, and damned if we didn't sell out every game my senior year," said an anonymous Durham resident who played for the 1967 Duke squad that made the NCAA's "Frozen Four."
But all that success evaporated in 1998 with the elevation of Joe Alleva as athletics director. Alleva slashed funding and staff in his very first year in office, diverting resources to a more-profitable men's basketball team. Distracted by the success of Coach K, the Duke community looked idly by as Alleva tightened the financial noose year after year. Today, the women's crew team's budget for new oars exceeds the entire hockey allocation. Off the record, a source inside the hockey team faults what he calls Alleva's "pathological hatred of all things Canadian" for the athletics director's unremitting efforts to kill the program.
The main victims of Alleva's strangulation policy have been the athletes themselves. "Don't even talk to me about a practice facility," said the team's right defenseman, who asked to remain anonymous. "We're lucky if we can find a driveway somewhere where we can shuffle around and pretend we're skating. And then there's the actual games - last week, we had to forfeit a home game to Georgia Tech because we couldn't find anywhere to play. And the week before, we got beat 13-2 by North Carolina A&T on a frozen pond." The source added that all but five players have quit and that the team is forced to start a large block of wood at goalie.
In addition to being undermanned, the team is effectively uncoached. "You know that lifetime contract Coach K signed last year?" continued the right defenseman. "Apparently, there was a clause that made him lifetime hockey coach, too. Of course, he never really shows up or anything."
The deprivation of such basic resources as facilities and coaches is not the only front on which the Athletics Department has attacked the hockey team: Duke men's hockey receives none of the basic promotional support that all other teams take for granted. There are no posters or advertisements. Game times are unannounced. The Duke box office never sells hockey tickets. Neither duke.edu nor the University's official athletic website - goduke.com - carry any mention of ice hockey whatsoever. And unfortunately, this very newspaper is complicit in the willful ignorance: The Chronicle has not even carried hockey scores for the last four years.
It is understandable, then, that student interest in the team is essentially nil. Overall home attendance has dropped from a high of 34,670 in 1983 to last year's total of 12. In a last-ditch effort to raise student awareness and attract a new generation of fans, the team spent the remainder of its budget on 15 promotional bobble-head hockey dolls and attempted to distribute them at the West Campus bus stop this December. One was accepted by a passerby; three were stolen. With three of its five players set to graduate in the spring, the hockey team is running out of money, ideas and the ability to go on.
After I had unearthed this secret history of Duke hockey, I was furious that Athletic Director Alleva's underhanded endeavors were so close to success. The only thing left to do was to confront Alleva himself, and so I called his office last week: "Mr. Alleva, I'm calling from the Duke Chronicle regarding your systematic abuse of our men's ice hockey team over the past five years. You have slashed funding to inexcusable levels; you've made no efforts on behalf of the Athletics Department to recruit new players; you allow the team to go completely uncoached and unpromoted. How can you justify destroying a program that once had such an honored place at Duke? And why are your efforts so craven and covert? What do you have to hide? I demand that you explain yourself to the Duke community."
"Duke doesn't have an ice hockey team."
"With the way you're treating it, that might as well be true."
"No, we literally do not have a hockey team. You're just making all of this up, aren't you?"
"I've had enough of your lies, Mr. Alleva. I want the... Hello? Hello?"
And so the denials and deceptions continue. But it's amazing, isn't it? Not the athletics director's relentless attempts to kill hockey at Duke, but rather that our athletes are intent on resisting such adversity to the very end. Ignored by their fellow students, outmanned by their opponents, assaulted by the administration, these young men take to the ice day after day after day because, deep down, they just want to play hockey.
Skate on, Blue Devils. Skate on.
Rob Goodman is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every other Tuesday.
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