Understanding the Business School Obsession With Ice Hockey
At top MBA programs, hundreds of students don skates and pads—many of them for the first time ever—to compete on shaky footing
The four captains from Yale School of Management's class of 2014, celebrating their win of a tournament where first-year students play second-years.
Source: Lokesh Todi via BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Ice hockey, an unpopular sport even among people who enjoy sports, is a veritable obsession at some elite business schools. Each year, hundreds of students at U.S. MBA programs don skates and pads—many for the first time ever—to compete against their peers on the ice.
The hockey tradition has a long history at B-schools, where hockey clubs are often the most popular of any student activity. It's not because students are particularly proficient at the sport. Rather, its appeal is that the slick ice lets a class of overachievers meet each other on equally unsure footing, students say.