Students in a Brock University Sport Management course will have unique access to some of the top hockey minds in the country.

As part of a half-credit course taught by Associate Professor Julie Stevens, students will send hockey-related questions to four TSN personalities and executives.

The SPMA 4P97 Advanced Analysis of the Sport Industry: Hockey course moved fully online at the start of the Winter Term, and Stevens is now collaborating with TSN to the benefit of students.

“The overall focus of the course is to examine topics related to the culture and commerce of hockey,” said Stevens. “It relates to hockey in our communities and hockey as a business.”

Knowing how valuable to the learning experience it would be to engage with TSN analysts, Stevens pitched the collaboration idea to the network’s executives. It didn’t take much convincing for TSN’s Senior Vice-President and General Manager Mark Milliere to say yes.

“We’re always open to using our expertise in the market for the betterment of education, and we thought the course was a unique idea, and a great fit for TSN,” he said.

Milliere, who is responsible for all day-to-day operations for TSN including overseeing programming and production for the network, said the “reputation and credibility of Brock Sport Management was one of the main reasons we made the decision to partner with this program. It made us feel confident that our participation and the work we do will be handled well.”

Through the SPMA 4P97 course, students will submit industry-specific questions to host Tessa Bonhomme, Director of Scouting Craig Button, investigative journalist Rick Westhead, and Vice-President and Executive Producer of Live Events Paul Graham. Bonhomme will handle questions about women’s hockey, Button will field queries about youth talent development, Westhead will address legal challenges in hockey, and Graham will handle questions about the politics of international hockey.

“The people we have here are terrific at what they do, and I think these four cover the full spectrum of hockey issues,” said Steve Dryden, TSN’s Senior Managing Editor for Hockey. “I think it’s a good match for what Julie is trying to achieve.”

Stevens said the first term of the online course has more than 100 students signed up, and she expects interest to increase as word spreads about its style.

“The idea is for students to learn about very current and relevant happenings in the hockey industry. What better way to capture that than through hockey media who deal with hockey news and content on a daily basis,” she said.

Any fourth-year students from Brock or any other university are eligible to take the SPMA 4P97 course.

“Students who register for it will likely have an interest in the sport, but my goal is for them to learn something about hockey they didn’t know,” Stevens said. “Hopefully they will move from being general fans of the game to being shrewd analysts.”

Advanced Analysis of the Sport Industry: Hockey will be offered again as the an online, half-credit course in the Spring Term.