New sports usually aren’t funded by the school. I played water polo in high school and it wasn’t incorporated into the actual school sports programs until my third year. The school is already forking out all of its cash so it isn’t easy to reallocate its resources. It will take time and gained popularity. I guess you could play your part by encouraging people to go to the games and making others more aware of its existence.

Your school might not fund the hockey team (which really ***** because mine didnt either) because its still not a very popular high school sport. Once your hockey team gets to be decently good, the school may start to fund it.

Well I am a high school hockey coach of pretty much the same situation. But our team has been at our high school for about 25 years now & still not recognized by our school. The reason why is when you think hockey what do you think of???? Well if you didn’t think fights then maybe you thought of something else violent. This is probably why the school doesn’t recognize it. Some other reason’s are that the sport is expensive, you got your ice time, equipment, & if you want good coaches you need to pay them as well. The team I am coaching we are trying to turn that around. Things we are doing are talking with the local town newspaper, haveing them write articles about the team & our success. Also we won our league last year & we actually got our league trophy put in the school trophie case (first ever hockey trophie in our schools case). You also might want some of the parents to get involved with the school, by the meaning of that is to have them participate with board meetings etc. If you want to be noticed you need to start by showing class, then succeed, & that will get your name known. Hope this works for you, it is working for us, but it takes time. GOOD LUCK…

Hockey is expensive: high ice time costs, high insurance costs, etc.

Good football programs often have a booster’s association to get donations as well.

Also, because of title IX, if a school started supporting a male team, they’d have to come up with a female sports team to support as well. So they’d have to come up with funds for 2 teams.

im not sure about other places in the nation, but here in michigan high school hockey is almost as big as football in some areas. hockey is the most expensive of all the high school sports to operate, so funding doesnt usually go toward that first, becuz there wouldnt be any $$ left for the other sports. hockey might still be an obscure sport in ur area but give it time, it will develop. lacrosse too, here its bigger than baseball and is continuing to spread throughout the nation

I play in Pa as well as a junior goalie. Our school doesnt support the hockey team financially because the PIAA (Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association) does not recognize Ice Hockey as a Varsity sport. This basically handcuffs the school because they dont want to put money into a sport that is not playing against all other schools in an organized pattern. Many schools, espicially in the Lancaster/Lebanon area have a hockey team in the CPIHL (Center Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League) .

Its too bad that your school doesnt help fund the team, however a couple of schools have Booster club that is helped out by the school, but is mostly funded by the Players and Parents through donations and fundraisers. Another reason your school isnt funding hockey is because schools can get grants and money for their successfulness in PIAA sports. Again, since Hockey is not one of them, there is not advantage fro the school to fund money into the program.

NOW to answer what you can do. If your a sophmore or freshman, you might be in luck. Ive heard from our Hockey Club’s president that the PIAA is considering making Hockey a varsity sport in pennsylvania in 2009. What this means is that your school may at that time be willing to fund the program. I hope this answers your question, and I wish my school would fund our hockey club as well.

my county in northern virginia doesnt even recognize hockey as a sport, and half of our school doesnt even know that we have a team. We are just a club and it is also not funded by the school. But we cant even have our scores announced because the county thinks that hockey is too violent. really *****. WE arent bad either but our football team is way better