officials announced in a statement Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\nAthletic Director Joe Spano said the decision follows a month-long review of the university\u2019s academic and athletic programs. The process began after President Kathleen Getz notified staff that Mercyhurst was evaluating restructuring efforts to better align with student interests and workforce needs.<\/p>\n
Over the past several weeks, the athletic department assessed all programs before ultimately deciding to eliminate men\u2019s hockey at the Division I level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took a really hard look at everything, and this is what made sense strategically\u2014how it fit into the big picture and how we will be able to support it in the future,\u201d Spano said.<\/p>\n
Getz said the move is part of a broader effort to position the university for long-term success as it approaches its 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n
Spano said no other athletic programs will be affected.<\/p>\n
Student-athletes impacted by the decision will retain their scholarships, receive academic advising, and be offered assistance if they choose to transfer.<\/p>\n
Members of the coaching staff are free to pursue other opportunities, and the university will support them in their job searches, Spano said.<\/p>\n
Mercyhurst will continue to sponsor women\u2019s Division I hockey, as well as men\u2019s club hockey and its other Division I sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re past the analysis and restructuring phase, and this is the plan moving forward,\u201d Spano said. \u201cThe women\u2019s program is very successful, and we\u2019re proud of it. We look forward to continuing to support it and watching it flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s hockey program has competed at the Division I level since the 1999\u20132000 season. Head coach Rick Gotkin, who recently completed his 38th and final season, led the program throughout its entire Division I tenure.<\/p>\n
During that span, Mercyhurst made three NCAA Tournament appearances, won two Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference titles, and captured two Atlantic Hockey Association regular-season championships along with one conference tournament title.<\/p>\n
Atlantic Hockey America Commissioner Michelle Morgan said the conference was shocked by today\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t something anybody necessarily saw coming,\u201d said Morgan. \u201cKnowing there\u2019s people behind this decision and knowing there are people that this affects. There\u2019s people learning today that their roles and their college careers at an institution they committed to are no more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercyhurst University will discontinue its Division I men\u2019s ice hockey program after this academic year, officials announced in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[15922,136,138,137,14500,6895],"class_list":["post-150748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-division-i","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-men","tag-mercyhurst-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}