Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

[Stratus]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

Yet according to Sean Pickett's attendance worksheet, the Miami State crowds over the past two years are identical to BG's. And hockey has to be the premier sport at Miami State because your football team has been worse than gawd awful for over a decade (ever since Roethlisberger left).

What does any of this have to do with the topic? Nothing. I simply can't pass on an opportunity to smack talk Miami State.

I will return to lurking this thread.

I've always had a soft spot for BG and yeah, I miss the CCHA.

Guess I'm not very good at this smack thing.

I figure schools have a first priority to themselves, secondarily for the sport so this round of shuffling kind of makes sense.
However, leaving any team without a conference is bad for the sport and bad for everyone in the long run.

[gfmorris]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

Miami and Western aren't leaving, the exit fee to leave the NCHC pretty much guarantees they're staying whether they want to or not.

The only thing that thinks me having the feeling that the departure fees don't get involved is that everyone sits down and negotiates like gentlemen.

GOOD GOD THAT'S PAUL KELLY'S MUSIC

gym

[Tipsy McStagger]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

Let's face it, no one is going to convince fans at SCSU that getting an invite months after everyone else the NCHC really wanted had turned the conference down, isn't quite the same thing as being a team the NCHC really wanted. You know like those teams that were actually sitting around the table behind closed doors creating the conference without SCSU's knowledge.

And as for some fans (let's say MTU for example) being bent out of shape and railing on the NCHC all the time, it's not because we are not in the conference as most people like to think. It is the fact that a few former WCHA teams panicked and made a knee jerk reaction out of fear of a Bi6 hockey super-conference. A conference that these teams thought was going to dominate all of college hockey as had never been seen before and the only way to beat them was to make another "super" conference. Why was no super conference needed to keep pace with the CCHA? They had Michigan, MSU and WMU for years and nobody did anything. I didn't see anyone at the WCHA freaking out that the CCHA was going to suddenly dominate the college hockey landscape.

Honestly, if a letter showed up on the Tech AD's desk tomorrow from the NCHC requesting that MTU apply to pair with Mankato, I would be one of the first writing a letter urging against joining for one simple reason: The NCHC was formed by a couple self-serving programs who didn't mind seeing everyone else twist in the wind if they get something better out of the deal for themselves. Let's just say ABC comes along tomorrow and offers UND and DU a million dollars each per season if they go independent and sign TV deals with ESPN. Do you think those two programs are going to give two $-h-!-t-s about the NCHC any more? No chance. They'll bolt to serve themselves and leave everyone in the NCHC hung out to dry once again.

You can tell me over and over again how great the NCHC is, but I have no interest in seeing Tech hockey be part of a conference where your fellow members will stab you in the back if it benefits them. They've shown their true colors to college hockey. A lot of programs got fooled once thinking everyone in the oWCHA was in it together. Only someone stupid gets fooled by the same routine twice. I hope for Mankato's sake they get into the NCHC, because if they have to come back to the WCHA it's going to be ugly for them going forward.

Ryan J

Its funny that you think St. Cloud should be embarrassed or ashamed about not being one of the first teams invited. We have made the NCAA's each year we have been in the NCHC. Finished 1st, 6th and 2nd. The year we finished 6th, we still managed to make the tournament and knocked off your bummy team that had spent all year padding their record against the chum in the WCHA. We are in the NCHC and doing well. We don't care if you don't like it and we don't care if the fans of the other teams in the conference don't like it. Staying in the WCHA would have done us no favors. We could have stuck around and kicked 6 different kinds of dog manure out of Tech, NMU and the Alaska schools but how has that worked out for Mankato? Oh, wait. They are trying to leave your sad-sack conference too.

I don't give a crap about NMU or MTU, and neither do any other SCSU fans. We don't want any schools to drop hockey but we also don't want our program to suffer for the sake of sticking around to try and rescue schools that don't seem to give much of a crap about their program. I don't give two tugs if we showed our "true colors". If our administration's "true colors" are to try and maximize the potential of our program for the benefit of the people that support it, GOOD!!! THAT IS THEIR ***** JOB!!!

MTU finally won a conference title for the first time since Gerald Ford was in office because we left the WCHA. Maybe NMU's garbage program can take advantage now that Mankato is leaving. Probably not. But take some ownership of your programs problems rather than laying the blame at the feet of other programs sick of being dragged down by teams that aren't competitive and can't even draw crowds at their own arenas.

[dakotadan]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

I'm absolutely fine with Minnesota State joining the NCHC... As long as they are replacing St Cloud.

[davyd83]

Its funny that you think St. Cloud should be embarrassed or ashamed about not being one of the first teams invited. We have made the NCAA's each year we have been in the NCHC. Finished 1st, 6th and 2nd. The year we finished 6th, we still managed to make the tournament and knocked off your bummy team that had spent all year padding their record against the chum in the WCHA. We are in the NCHC and doing well. We don't care if you don't like it and we don't care if the fans of the other teams in the conference don't like it. Staying in the WCHA would have done us no favors. We could have stuck around and kicked 6 different kinds of dog manure out of Tech, NMU and the Alaska schools but how has that worked out for Mankato? Oh, wait. They are trying to leave your sad-sack conference too.

I don't give a crap about NMU or MTU, and neither do any other SCSU fans. We don't want any schools to drop hockey but we also don't want our program to suffer for the sake of sticking around to try and rescue schools that don't seem to give much of a crap about their program. I don't give two tugs if we showed our "true colors". If our administration's "true colors" are to try and maximize the potential of our program for the benefit of the people that support it, GOOD!!! THAT IS THEIR ***** JOB!!!

MTU finally won a conference title for the first time since Gerald Ford was in office because we left the WCHA. Maybe NMU's garbage program can take advantage now that Mankato is leaving. Probably not. But take some ownership of your programs problems rather than laying the blame at the feet of other programs sick of being dragged down by teams that aren't competitive and can't even draw crowds at their own arenas.

Check the results last time NMU was at St Cloud. NMU 6 St Cloud 2 and NMU 2-1. That clinching goal by Minnesotan Kyle Follmer looked great on ESPN that Friday night.

[Tipsy McStagger]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

Check the results last time NMU was at St Cloud. NMU 6 St Cloud 2 and NMU 2-1. That clinching goal my Minnesotan Kyle Follmer looked great that Friday night.

Whoa! I take it back! Northern Michigan's hockey program is the envy of everyone else in the country, despite not winning anything of significance since 1992.

[davyd83]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

Whoa! I take it back! Northern Michigan's hockey program is the envy of everyone else in the country, despite not winning anything of significance since 1992.

The St Cloud coaches are class guys. As good as any in the game. The prior staff as well. St. Cloud players through the years have been a pretty good bunch as well. Most Huskies fans are outstanding as well. Most.

[davyd83]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

As much as some of us WCHA folks don't like the move, it would be a good move for Minnesota State. If many of us were in the position of the Mankato AD, President or Coach Mike Hastings, it definitely would be worth exploring. To have Duluth, Omaha, St. Cloud & North Dakota on the schedule every year and in their building most years is a huge plus. As much as I hate to say it, NMU, Lake State & Huntsville are unlikely to generate the excitement that their nearby rivals do.

[joecct]

Whoa! I take it back! Northern Michigan's hockey program is the envy of everyone else in the country, despite not winning anything of significance since 1992.

1991???

[ecbrevik]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

First off, as a UND fan, I'll state straight up that I would rather see Michigan Tech and Bemidji in Grand Forks every year (or most years) than Miami and Western Michigan. It is a simple matter of a traditional rival (Tech) and proximity (Bemidji) versus two schools we have no real historical or geographic connection with. That being said, what is done is done. Speculating that the old WCHA minus Minnesota and Wisconsin would have been just as good as the current NCHC is just that, speculation. We'll never know because it wasn't given a chance to happen. What has happened is that as a conference the NCHC has, despite any and all fan pleasure or displeasure with it, produced some of the best results on the ice over the last 3 years of any conference, arguably the best results of any conference. I suspect that on the whole the schools that formed the NCHC have gotten what they wanted out of it.

As to the money issue, I don't have the time to do the searching, but most of these schools are public institutions, which means their budgets are public record. A little internet work would probably tell whomever is interested enough what most of these schools spend on hockey each year, with the possible exception of schools like DU and CC. My bet is that Miami and Western spend a good deal more than schools like Tech and Bemidji, and that as a conference average the NCHC schools spend a good deal more than the new WCHA schools. The schools that formed the NCHC were afraid of being left behind by the BIG, that is what this really came down to, and they wanted members who were committed to spending the kind of money on hockey they felt would be necessary to be competitive in the future. Whether or not that was the right move depends on your perspective, but it is the move that was made and the move that all of us must now live with until/unless the next big shake-up comes.

[Tipsy McStagger]

1991???

They won a conference tournament in 1992. National titles aren't the only significant prize

[burd]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

Whoa! I take it back! Northern Michigan's hockey program is the envy of everyone else in the country, despite not winning anything of significance since 1992.

But boy, that Drake, Hiller, Beattie, et al. team was fun to watch. Not the Hrkac Circus maybe, but a treat.

[John J. MacInnes]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

Whoa! I take it back! Northern Michigan's hockey program is the envy of everyone else in the country, despite not winning anything of significance since 1992.

I'm looking here for the last time that St. Clod won the NCAA title.

Still looking.

Still looking.

Hmmm.

[St. Clown]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

I'm looking here for the last time that St. Clod won the NCAA title.

Still looking.

Still looking.

Hmmm.

It's been 41 years since Tech won it all. That was before I was even born. So I'm looking for the last time Tech won anything during my lifetime - conference regular season, conference tournament, or national tournament.

Still looking.

Still looking.

Hmmm... That's a long, long time of being a completely irrelevant program. Sure would suck to be Tech, hanging your hat on a time when disco and Motown ruled top 40 radio.

[UpNorthHockey]

Re: Minnesota State Applies to the NCHC

When NCHC admits Kato and ASU, they'll be at ten. The next time they want to cherry pick more teams, I bet they start bouncing existing members. I think CC and Western will eventually get the axe in favor of the teams du jour. NCHC is based solely on profit and looking out for number 1....no loyalty.