Club team contemplating jump to Division I

Learning about hockey at IU can be confusing, especially for anyone who has followed NCAA hockey like junior Doug LaFave.\n"The first time I heard that IU was playing teams like Michigan and Michigan State, I wondered what was going on," LaFave said. "I never knew about the club hockey league here."\nLaFave, like many others across the country, watched NCAA hockey. IU, along with hundreds of other universities, plays in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, an organization devoted to club hockey programs.\nLike the NCAA, the ACHA has multiple divisions within the organization. IU is one of 115 teams that compete for the Division II National Championship every year.\nACHA executive director Christian Wilk said the ACHA provides a competitive alternative for schools who do not have the resources to develop NCAA programs. \n"Basically, (each school's) athletic department makes a decision as far as if they are going to move to up to the NCAA level; and the success of the club has no bearing on that decision," Wilk said.\nThe only difference between officially being classified as a D-I team in the ACHA are academic eligibility requirements, Wilk said, but IU hockey General Manager Adam Shuchman said there are many benefits to being a D-I team.\n"The Division I teams get a lot more exposure," Shuchman said. "When someone talks about the ACHA, the first thing they think of is the Division I teams; Penn State and Illinois. Being Division I would put (IU) right up there."\nPlaying D-I would cost the IU club more money each year than it spends now because IU would have to travel further to play other D-I teams. The club currently receives the majority of its financial support from players, alumni, families, and other supporters of the team, Shuchman said, and the extra money would have to come from those supporters who wanted to see the IU program step up a level.\n"In Division I, you get professional-looking teams who act professional," Shuchman said. "We already conduct ourselves at that level and it's something we look into at the beginning of every year."\nWilk said movement from the ACHA to NCAA has happened before but is rare. He said movement between divisions, as IU might do, was more common, with two or three teams moving between divisions every year.\nIU has a recent history of success against some of the top D-I teams in the country, including a sweep of Illinois and a victory over three-time D-I national champion Penn State.\n"They (PSU) came here last year and we beat them," IU coach Rich Holdeman said. "I'm sure we got that invitation (to the Nittany Lion Invitational) so they could have a chance at us again." \nIU will get another opportunity to prove themselves against two D-I teams this weekend when they travel to Pennsylvania as the lone D-II team in the weekend tournament.