How A Basketball Trade Killed UIC's Division 1 Hockey Program
In recent months there has been all kinds of chatter about the University of Illinois getting a hockey program. It’s exciting times for hockey here in Illinois. I’ve written about it like three times now. Illinois absolutely should get a hockey program. Thanks in large part to the Blackhawks renaisance in the city for the past decade or so youth hockey participation rates in the State are at all-time highs and continue to grow. Illinois youth hockey and AAA programs are putting kids into college programs all the time and have never had more representation in the NHL. Having a college hockey team makes sense for the State. But…they used to have one.
I feel like not too many people even know this, but the UIC Flames had a Division 1 hockey program for 30 years. When I say not too many people know I mean my focus group of Carl, Eddie, and WSD. 0-3 on that fact. Maybe it’s because it’s been gone for so long or maybe it was because the program was terrible 
Shout out to Coach Belmonte for not finishing dead last for a couple years. The Flames weren’t in some no-name league though. They were in the CCHA. Going head to head with Michigan, Michigan State, Lake Superior State, Bowling Green, and Ohio State. Programs that were National powers. It was big time, elite college hockey right here in Chicago, but it was just before it’s time.
Now, college hockey has had a bit of a ressurgence lately with Penn State and Arizona State adding programs and being hyper successful in a short time frame. But for the 30 years or so before that college hockey was shrinking. Kent State, UIC, and Fairfield(just off the top of my head) dropped hockey. Funding and Title IX were often the cause for schools dropping hockey and I assumed that was the case for UIC as well, but…turns out that isn’t totally true and the real reason goes back to Fighting Illini Basketball
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That man right there is the LEGENDARY Illinois Basketball coach, Lou Henson. All-time leader in wins, coach of the Flyin Illini, and ran Illinois hoops for 20 years until he left in 1996.
That man right there is Jimmy Collins. Jimmy Collins played under Lou Henson at New Mexico State the 70s, and then became an assistant at Illinois under Henson in 1983. He was known as an unreal recruiter and ran Chicago. He was the guy who was largely responsible for bringing in guys like Kendall Gill and Nick Anderson.
This is where the story gets interesting…Jimmy Collins was supposedly promised the Illinois Head Coaching job after Lou Henson stepped down…except…the Illinois administration called an audible and decided to give the job to Lon Kruger.
Jimmy Collins was allegedly IRATE and threatened to sue the University and claim that the reason he didn’t get hired was racially driven(allegedly). The University system of Illinois intervened and agreed to essentially trade Jimmy Collins the head coaching job at UIC by firing their coach of 10 years, Bob Halberg and dropping the hockey program so they could pour more money into the basketball program to esentially appease Jimmy Collins. That effectively killed college hockey at UIC. A tribune article said the program was losing $600k per year in 1996, and removing hockey allowed them to give an additional $400k/year to Collins and the basketball program.
Anyways, crazy story that killed a program that in theory could be the best sport at UIC had it continued with the way the hockey landscape changed in Illinois and across college hockey since then. Now, it appears, that the Fightin Illini are going to be in the best position to pick up the pieces and start their own program.