Midland University is expanding its athletic offerings next fall.
Officials at the Fremont-based school announced last week that men’s and women’s hockey will be added in 2014. It’ll bring the number of varsity sports at Midland to 27. Midland University president Ben Sasse says the campus has grown significantly over the past couple of years.
"Part of that was a performing arts initiative and another piece of it was looking very systematically at the athletic department to see what sports we could add. And over the last 3 years we’ve added 12 variety sports and a little more than that levels of JV competition that we didn’t used to have. And hockey was one of those programs that we initially saw as a great opportunity, but we knew there were a lot of hurdles to clear."
Midland reached an agreement with the Sidner Ice Arena in Fremont, where the hockey games will be played. Sasse says the addition of men’s and women’s hockey is good for recruiting, particularly outside of Nebraska and Iowa.
The school has an enrollment of about 1,100 students.