Paul Flanagan folded his arms and surveyed the 25,000-square-foot facility in front him.

He’s stated his displeasure with the facility. Too cold for spectators, he said in 2014. Not attractive to recruits. A place he was thankful for, but wanted to be proud of.

A year and a half later, he looked back out at the building, 15 years into its existence, eight years the home of his Syracuse women’s ice hockey program. His eyes quickly darted to the ceiling.

“It really hasn’t changed other than the lighting, to be honest with you,” Flanagan said.

Flanagan, the head coach, can only point out one discernable difference that’s made the facility more suitable for a Division I team that started when he got to Syracuse.

Unlike many of SU’s athletic facilities, Tennity Ice Pavilion is not owned or operated by SU Athletics. It’s owned by the Department of Recreation Services and isn’t an athletic facility — it’s a recreational facility.

Though the department tries to accommodate the team, Flanagan said there’s more he’d like to see done in Tennity to raise the profile of his program. Syracuse reached the College Hockey America championship game last season and was voted No. 1 in the CHA preseason coaches poll.

“It looks like a high school rink,” junior forward Jessica Sibley said. “…It just doesn’t seem like a Division I program kind of rink.”

Tennity Ice Pavilion features two sheets of ice: a small studio rink near the entrance of the building and a full-sized rink that the ice hockey team shares with club teams and the community.

Metal bleacher seating that holds 350 people — the lowest seating capacity in the CHA — flanks the main rink and there are no concessions, just vending machines.

During games, people often skate on the small rink, a fact that Sibley says, “blows my mind.”

Bill and Marilyn Tennity, who donated the money for Tennity Ice Pavilion to be built, wanted the small rink to be available for whenever the main rink is being used, said Joe Lore, the director of the Department of Recreation Services.

Flanagan has talked to the Department of Recreation Services about adding seating, but that was five or six years ago. It would have a high cost and be challenging to satisfy building codes, he said.

The small size of the building limits what they can do, Flanagan said.

He asked the department about dividing the two rinks somehow but doesn’t want a curtain to go up between them and thinks seating would be the best option.

If Flanagan had his way, chair backs would be added to the bleachers as well as some type of heating. At SU’s exhibition game on Sunday against Queens, many fans left Tennity between periods to stand outside.

“Joe Lore can’t just write a check over at rec services and I get that,” Flanagan said. “… Rec services has certain constraints and budgets that they operate under. We can’t tell them what to do.”

Lore said the Department of Recreation Services is upgrading the heating, ventilation and air condition systems in Tennity, but identifying solutions that do not affect the operation of the building is challenging.

The department has to balance the needs of the ice hockey team with those of the students and groups that also use the building, Lore said. It’s looking to replace the mondo floor throughout the entire arena.

“It’s somewhat of a difficult dynamic, at times, to appeal to us and to do all that they have under their umbrella,” Flanagan said. “… We just need to be patient.”

The two sides have been able to collaborate on adding banners above the rink and framed game photos along the wall, but Sibley said the players can’t treat the rink like it’s their own because their time on the ice is restricted by public skates and other events the rink has.

What the team does have is its own 5,000-square-foot locker room that was added to Tennity and has the “wow factor” that the rink lacks, Flanagan said. It has a weight room, training room, offices, equipment room and a locker room, Flanagan added.

Though the locker room helps in recruiting, Sibley said the team has still lost recruits because of the rink.

“It sucks that they’re going to get players attracted to them more than us because of our facility,” Sibley said of places with large stadiums like Penn State and Rochester Institute of Technology.

The Orange will play five or six home games away from Tennity at the Oncenter War Memorial Arena this year, Flanagan said, so his players can experience games in a place with a “bigger feel.”

When Flanagan looks out on Tennity Ice Pavilion, he sees the projects between his team, SU Athletics and the Department of Recreation Services that have come to fruition.

At St. Lawrence, he coached for nine years prior to SU in a “beautiful barn.” The issues that exist at SU never came up there. There, he worked with the athletic department. Now, it’s more of a middleman.

But in Tennity, he also sees the projects that haven’t materialized and the improvements that can make it more than just a “no-frills” facility.

“We’d like to see something different,” Flanagan said. “But how do we go about it and what do we do? I don’t know.”

Published on September 30, 2015 at 8:39 pm

Contact Jon: [email protected] | @jmettus