From hanging posters around campus to busing students to games, the Ball State Men’s Ice Hockey Club wants to get more fans to games in its third season.
Nick Seifer, president of the hockey club says social media has helped the young team in several ways. Not only does the team use Twitter and Instagram for fan outreach, Facebook actually helped build the team.
“We all kind of met on Facebook going through our class Facebook page, seeing if anyone would want to play some rat hockey or something down in Fishers, and we ended up saying we should start a team,” Seifer said, recalling meeting the team’s current vice president, current treasurer and former secretary.
After making that decision, the men went through the necessary channels to become an official sports club at Ball State. In November 2012 the team was born. Now, the team consists of 24 players, a new head coach, and another assistant coach has been added to the coaching staff, Seifer said. While the young team has struggled in the past, Seifer said they hope to have more success in the 2015-2016 season.
Seifer said the team has been fortunate that the athletes have all been talented, whether they were scouted by Assistant Coach Deron Wait or if they were at Ball State for education and joined the team for fun.
Wait explained the scouting process as more of a way to provide potential athletes with information about Ball State and the hockey club. So far, the team has had roughly 25 to 30 players express interest in Ball State Hockey in the past six months.
With the team’s growth, Seifer said he wants to see growth in the fan base as well. But fans can be hard to attract when the team’s home facility is an hour away. Seifer said when the team is on campus passing out fliers, students express how much they would like to watch a Ball State hockey game, but their attitude changes when students find out Ball State home games take place in Fishers.
To get students to games, the team began renting university buses last season. The first time the team rented a bus, about 45 students came to the game, Seifer said. “[The students] loved it and they expressed interest to come back again,” he added. The club hopes to rent buses for several games this season, and kicked off the bus trips Oct. 16.
While admission to games is free, the team charges $5 for those who take advantage of the bus trip in order to pay for the rental fee.
Fans of the Ball State Hockey club can find more information about the team and the next bus trip by following the club on Twitter @Bsuicehockey, Instagram @ballstateicehockey, and Facebook at Ball State University Hockey.
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