Under the new plan, UAH will provide $650,000 to the projected $1.5 million annual budget cited by the school to have a competitive NCAA Division I hockey program. That leaves $850,000 – or 57 percent – to come from other sources.

Those other sources, Altenkirch said, will come “from a combination of ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, advertising, fundraising, you name it.”

The $650,000 would represent a decrease from recent years, where about $800,000 out of a $900,000 budget would come from direct university support. This means we as a fanbase have a greater responsibility to help this program survive and thrive.

We can do this. You can do your part by donating to the 2012 Hockey Campaign.

Members of The University of Alabama in Huntsville administration met this evening with hockey supporters, following discussions with Chancellor Malcolm Portera, and came to a consensus to work closely together to pursue institutional and community support to continue UAH hockey at the Division I level.

When we have more, we’ll share it. Have a great night, everyone.

ETA (2314 hrs): Paul Gattis has filed a longer story.

– WHNT News 19

– WAAY 31

WAFF 48 covered the event, but their video is not yet available online.

Here they are, in order:

Nathan Bowen (’00)

Mark Russell, District 2 City Councilman and President of the Huntsville City Council

Doug Martinson, Huntsville lawyer, Martinson & Beason, PC

Ralph Stone, head of Huntsville Sports Commission

Dan Bodeker, CEO, BFA Systems

Dorla Evans, Ph.D, Professor of Finance and Chair of the Accounting and Finance Department, The University of Alabama in Huntsville

Keith P. Young, M.D., Huntsville pulmonologist

Bob Whiteford, Sergeant Major

Fred Hudson, founder of Huntsville Amateur Hockey Association

Michael Voljticek, assistant director, Von Braun Center

Eric Artrip, Huntsville lawyer, Watson, McKinney, & Artrip, LLC

Remember: give, speak out, show up. We are working on online giving. If you haven’t signed our petition, please do so.

In light of all this, it’s safe to say that Goon has all our backs. Back to today:

@gfmorris What's with Al.com having like no hockey story that I can find about your team's win last night?

January 30, 2011 1:53 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@goon48

Eric Burton

My response to him was to talk to the Huntsville Times folks. There’s a Twitter account at @HSVTimes_Sports, so I pinged them:

@uahhockey There was a short recap of last night's win on bottom left of the sports front.

January 30, 2011 3:46 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@HSVTimes_Sports

Huntsville Sports

Mmmm … yeah. If this is acceptable to you, I would advise you to sit on your hands. Nothing to see here. But if it irks you that an overtime upset of the #15 team in the country on their ice, with our goalie setting a (D-I era) team record for saves with 58, we’d urge you to contact The Huntsville Times about this. John Turner is the sports editor at the Times.

You might want to add that there was no coverage of the Merrimack series in Nashville, either. You might want to be thorough in your thrashing.

Addendum: Please note that The Huntsville Times has exactly zero problem with covering the fool out of the Huntsville Havoc:

[Screenshot taken at 10:55 p.m. night of publication.]

1. Television: ESPNU will carry the game at 3:00 p.m. Huntsville time. Buffalo Wild Wings on University Drive (Madison Sq. Mall) has indicated to us that they receive ESPNU and would be willing to host UAH fans who wanted to congregate to get the game. I was asked to look into this by UAH students, who don’t get ESPNU on campus.
2. Radio: WTKI (92.9FM, 1450AM) will carry the broadcast. I’m not sure exactly when we’ll be on the air, but I’d figure no earlier than 2:30 p.m. Huntsville time. When I say “we”, I mean Steve Moulton (play-by-play) and yours truly (color commentary).
3. On the Web: We honestly don’t know just yet. We are looking into options for rebroadcast on the Internet, and we’ll update you when we have more information. Update, 1:07 p.m. No Internet broadcast. Too expensive to get the rights.

If you’d like to sponsor the radio broadcast, here are the details:

• $75 a game gets you at least five 30-second spots. If you have a spot already produced, we’ll use that; if not, please work with us and we’ll get copy from you for either Steve or I to produce prior to the game. We’ll also do an unspecified amount of in-game reads to thank our corporate sponsors, and if we go into overtime, additional ads are free as our thanks.
• $50 a game gets you an individual sponsorship. We’ll read your name during the game as a thanks from us to you for your support of UAH Hockey Radio. This is designed for boosters, alumni, team parents, etc.
• If neither of these options works for you, we’ll take PayPal in smaller increments.

As it stands, I’m putting this together in the hopes that we’ll get the costs covered, so financial assistance is greatly desired. We’ve got two corporate sponsors already, and we’re hoping to have at least five.

In case you missed it, UAH Hockey isn’t going away, and will be back in 2010-11 on an independent schedule. The CHA Championship victory is not our last hurrah … but man, we’re also not done seeing what the boys will do in 2009-2010.

It marks the Chargers second CHA title and the senior class of Tom Train, Cal Tanaka, Kevin Morrison, Brennan Barker, and Brandon Roshko’s second championship after winning the 2007 crown, also in overtime. They took number one seed Notre Dame to double overtime before falling at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“I don’t want to say we backed in; we won a championship so we deserve to be there,” Cole said. “If you get in, you earned it. Obviously, we’re going to play a number-one seed and a heck of a team, but we’ll battle. We’re not just going there to enjoy the experience.

“It’s officially now College Hockey Alabama; we’re changing the name.”

I guess we have to go get shirts printed up between now and next Friday, eh?

Congratulations to Matti for making the final CHA All-Rookie team!