Bedlam on Ice Won’t Cost OSU Money, Revenue Goes to Football, Mental Health Awareness Mission

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STILLWATER — OSU Hockey’s Chairman of the Board said Bedlam on Ice is going to cost somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million, but the revenue the landmark event creates is going to a charity and to the Cowboy football team.

“I’ll be promoting the hell out of that thing,” said OSU coach Eric Morris as he took the stage after the hockey news conference. “Kudos to you, appreciate you.”

Michael Mann, OSU Hockey’s Chairman, spoke before Morris’ regular media availability on Tuesday to provide some details on the Bedlam hockey game that will be played on Jan. 30 in Boone Pickens Stadium.

At the end of his news conference, Mann announced where the revenue would go.

“It came to me that our president Colleen Harvey and a couple of the people on the staff realized what’s going on with athletics, how it’s growing and the momentum around the football team and all that,” Mann said. “We realized that we had this thing paid for through donors, and there’s two missions on campus that we’re really excited to get involved in. One is Dr. (Jim) Hess and his wife have a mental health awareness mission, so part of our revenue for that game will go to them. And then the majority of the revenue is gonna be donated back to Coach Morris and his staff for his operations and him building a great organization moving forward.”

If an ice rink in the middle of Boone Pickens Stadium isn’t exciting enough, Mann said there will be musical performances and none of it will cost OSU a penny.

“We’re going to announce five Grammy Award-winning acts that are gonna be concert style at intermissions, pregame, postgame sort of thing, as well,” Mann said. “… Additionally to add to that, the university is putting no money towards this, not that they didn’t want to. Obviously, funding for anything today in the university world is difficult, so our student committee has actually worked with sponsors, corporate, donors, great supporters of the program, and they helped put all the money together. So, it’s all been done by the group.”

There’s no denying OSU Hockey is on the rise.

It’s a club team, but it’s well funded. Mann noted that their budget is multimillion dollars.

The Cowboys play in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, making the ACHA Division 2 national final last school year. OSU is off to a 6-1 start this season, beating the OU team it’ll play in Boone Pickens Stadium 11-3 to start the year.

The program has eyes on joining the NCAA Division-I ranks, but Mann said for now, the Cowboys are focused on pulling off this event and bringing more awareness of the sport to the university.

“We have a lot of goals,” Mann said. “As a team or any organization or any university growing something, you want to get to a pinnacle point, but as of today we are really, really focused on developing this outdoor game, having this be a success, going out and winning a national championship in the division that we play in, bringing more awareness to the university on the sport, getting people hooked. I think one thing about this sport, people get hooked very quickly if you look at the stats of fandom around the country. And obviously where that takes us, we’ll discuss that down the road.”