On Feb. 17, Steve Metcalf was introduced as the fifth commissioner of the Hockey East Association, replacing 23-year head Joe Bertagna (Arlington, Mass.), who agreed to part ways with the league at the conclusion of this recently concluded and halted season.
After more than two decades as an athletic administrator at the University of New Hampshire, most recently as deputy director of athletics, where he oversaw both of the school’s hockey programs and did extensive work on capital projects, Metcalf was hired by the league’s member institutions from a pool of roughly 60 candidates, 11 of whom were interviewed.
A member of the NCAA Division 1 Men's Ice Hockey Committee since 2015 and currently its chair, Metcalf was hired one month before the league canceled its postseason tournament over concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Metcalf talked to New England Hockey Journal about the challenges this shutdown presents, growing the Hockey East brand and what things he’d like to improve while overseeing a league made up of 11 men’s teams, nine women’s teams and a dozen member institutions.
New England Hockey Journal: What made this position so attractive to you?
Steve Metcalf: Simply put, I have a longstanding relationship with Joe Bertagna and a longstanding friendship. Being part of the league while working at UNH, I was quite familiar with the job. I love college hockey and everything about it. Hockey East is a great league, with great competition and great coaches.
I started thinking that this might be a nice transition for me, a nice step in my career. And there were guys in the league that said, “You should think about this; you’d be good at this.”
NEHJ: What do you think was the No. 1 factor that impressed the hiring committee the most?
Metcalf: Maybe two things. One is my familiarity with the league. I had a very unique perspective being an administrator for a long, long time. Secondly, my connections and relationships that I have throughout college hockey — nationally, with other conferences, other commissioners and folks at the NCAA.
Being able to take advantage of those relationships, I think they saw that as a real positive. And I assumed they liked some of my ideas, how to grow the brand and develop some revenue streams.
NEHJ: Growing the brand and revenue streams: What can be improved there?
Metcalf: There’s so many more different avenues through which you can promote your brands in sports than there used to be. There’s so much more on the social (media) space. Schools are doing so much more with video. I think we’ve got to pay attention to all of those things and expand what we do in those areas.
We want to give more exposure to the players and the teams that we have in our league. There’s great stories to tell about our teams and players; we’re going to try to tell more of those stories than we’ve done in the past.
NEHJ: Are you comfortable with the television contract (a multi-year one with NESN that was announced before this past season)?
Metcalf: I’m comfortable with it. We realized more revenue from this package than we ever had in the history of Hockey East. It was great for the league. When this package comes to an end we’ll have an opportunity to get out to the market again and grow the package that we have. … Ten years ago it was just NESN. Now they’ve got a second network (NESNPlus) that’s all over New England.
NEHJ: How difficult has it been talking over this position during the coronavirus shutdown?
Metcalf: It has certainly posed some challenges. I wasn’t going to take over this position until the end of the hockey season. The (Hockey East) quarterfinals were beginning on March 13. There was a call with Hockey East (athletic) directors early Thursday afternoon and it was decided that it was going to be the end of the season. Directors were literally telling their coaches do not get on the bus five minutes before they were going to leave.
And I’m trying to process what this means for the league. How are we going to manage with the loss of all that revenue? I think we were slightly better positioned than we could have been. It’s hard to predict what it’s going to look like next year because it’s wait and see.
NEHJ: What are the biggest things you need to address right now?
Metcalf: Usually we would have met in Florida (at the AHCA annual convention in April). We’ve been substituting those with video calls this week, next week, the week after. We’re trying to plan the budget for next year and solve some of the scheduling riddles that are always present. … It’s a busy time, and the fact that we’re not able to sit in the same room together makes it tougher.
NEHJ: What do you feel about the on-ice Hockey East product?
Metcalf: I think we’ve got a great product. If you look at the season that just ended, we were a solid nine teams deep. Going into the postseason, any of those teams could go and win a series and have a shot at the (TD) Garden.
And we always seem to have players in the mix with the national awards. We’ve got NHL talent every year. From top to bottom we’re the strongest conference in the country.
NEHJ: What are your thoughts about the overtime rules?
Metcalf: Those have both come up for discussion in the last two weeks. I was just on a conference call (Friday) morning, and overtime is an issue that’s getting a lot of discussion across all conferences. There seems to be, perhaps, a little momentum or growing interest in going to the same format, or a similar format, to what the NHL has. In college hockey, the RPI and how impactful that is for NCAA selections, tweaking that to award a varying degree of credit for the winner or loser of the game … I think everyone is hopeful we get on the same page and have the same format throughout college hockey.
