Amidst an offseason full of surprises, Wednesday's news of a program dropping ended up being not among the top-five.
Honestly, it's sad.
Alaska Anchorage announcing Wednesday it will drop men's hockey, along with three other sports (women's gymnastics along with men's and women's skiing) following the 2020-21 season does not come as a surprise. The Seawolves are swimming upstream with multiple obstacles in the way of its future.
Small gloom and doom events trickled out over years of struggles. The oil industry changing. The University of Alaska system spending much of the previous offseason working on a slashed budget. The WCHA men's league disappearing as we know it. Forced independence.
One would be a stumbling block. Add in a move from Sullivan Arena to the much smaller Wells Fargo Center and it's tough to say anyone should be surprised. College hockey's evolution made it so paying for teams to come to Alaska, something UAA did when it joined the WCHA in 1993, and still able to turn a profit does not work anymore with like-minded teams.
It speaks volumes when bigger schools are happier to go to Alaska for the extra two games and added profits than the ones who make up a conference with the Seawolves.
