AIC will drop hockey back to Division II at the end of this season (#491)

American International’s leaders informed members of its hockey team today that the program will return to Division II at the end of the 2024-25 season, ending a 27-year run as a Division I program.

Sources told College Hockey Insider that the program was being dropped back to D-II because of budgetary issues and the changing landscape of NCAA athletics.

According to AIC’s latest EADA filing, men’s hockey had the highest expenditures of any non-football team at the school, totaling $1,773,427.

AIC’s program began in 1948. It was Division II until 1998 when it joined Division I and the MAAC.

For years, the program toiled near the bottom of the national rankings but surged into one of the top programs in Atlantic Hockey after hiring an alumnus as head coach, Eric Lang. Under Lang, the Yellow Jackets won four consecutive Atlantic Hockey regular-season and three consecutive conference tournament championships and made three trips to the NCAA Tournament. AIC was also the top-ranked team in the AHA during the 2019-20 season, when COVID-19 ended the campaign before the NCAA Tournament.

AIC has posted a winning record in six straight seasons. Before the 2018-19 season, AIC had never posted a winning record as a Division I team. AIC was also nationally ranked for the first time in 2018 and remained in the polls through the 2020-21 season when it was ranked for 14 consecutive weeks.

In the 2019 NCAA Tournament, AIC shocked No. 1 St. Cloud State in the first round.

Lang was named AHA Coach of the Year during this run in 2019, 2020, and 2022. College Hockey News named him National Coach of the Year in 2019, and he was a three-time finalist for the Spencer Penrose National Coach of the Year award.

AIC’s dominant run from 2018-23 in Atlantic Hockey, which included the four regular-season titles, was only rivaled by Quinnipiac in the ECAC (4) and Minnesota State in the CCHA (5).

During this run, Lang turned down multiple job offers with other programs to remain the head coach at AIC. The Yellow Jackets also developed coaches. Former assistants under Lang include Vermont head coach Stephen Wiedler, Michigan State assistant coach Mike Towns, and Clarkson assistant coach Cory Schneider.

AIC currently has an interim president (Nicolle Cestero) and an interim AD (Scott Foulis).

In September, the school announced that it was working with Huron, a consulting firm, to create a roadmap for the next three years. The AIC Pathway to Progress initiative was designed to reevaluate the school’s financial and institutional processes.

At a town hall in September, the school announced that it had not hit enrollment goals and did not know the financial impact it would have on the school. At the September town hall, the school said it would hold another town hall this month (November) to update more details on possible budget cuts. It appears the hockey program is a victim of these cuts.

Moving back to Division II, AIC will forgo its partnership with the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield. The move will also result in slashed scholarships.

AIC is a Division II school in all other sports and plays in the Northeast 10. The NE-10 is the only D-II hockey league, but no D-II national championship tournament exists. The NE-10 in Division II includes Assumption, Franklin Pierce, Post, Saint Anselm, Saint Michael’s, and Southern New Hampshire.