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WCHA Tournament

Lindsay said:
How do men’s tournaments do semis? Saturday and then game Sunday?

I would not have thought Ridder would be booked at night so assumed early games were an intentional choice.

Should def get these games on B1G though.
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The obvious difference between Ridder and St Thomas' Anderson Arena is Ridder is not the Gophers men's rink, so the conflict we're talking about simply wouldn't ever happen. The conflict, at least theoretically, might have happened last year when the WCHAs were held at Amsoil in Duluth (though St Thomas men and Duluth men play in different conferences, so maybe differences in their conference playoff formats could enter into it.)

If you don't want to deal with other men's teams and other non-hockey events, then you hold the WCHAs at Ridder (or LaBahn) every year; if you want to move it around, then you deal with scheduling conflicts.
 
eastcoastgopher said:
Through 2021 it was Friday-Saturday and Saturday-Sunday. The weekend off goes back to 2000, when there were only 12 teams in the tournament.
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You're talking about only the first weekend? Fairly sure the final four has had a day in-between going back much longer than that.
 
Hockeybuckeye said:
Ohio State fans are quite familiar with conflicts with state high school tournaments. When out men's hockey team finishes high enough to host Big Ten Tournament games they get kicked out of their barn as Ohio State has a long term contract they always renew for the state high school wrestling tournament to be held in the Schott! 😡
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It’s almost like the school should build a new rink or 2! I see high school bishop Kearney is building a rink. :)
 
robertearle said:
If you don't want to deal with other men's teams and other non-hockey events, then you hold the WCHAs at Ridder (or LaBahn) every year; if you want to move it around, then you deal with scheduling conflicts.
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Right. Could also choose to prioritize the women when the scheduling conflicts occur
 
Lindsay said:
It’s almost like the school should build a new rink or 2! I see high school bishop Kearney is building a rink. :)
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Before Wisconsin built LaBahn, they played their home games at the Kohl Center, a building that is the home of the men's hockey team, as well as both UW basketball teams - the building can be converted in a matter of a few hours between basketball and hockey, with some retractable seating and the ice 'hiding' under the basketball court. This past weekend, the first round best-of-three of the WCHA tournament has always coincided with (one weekend of) the state high school wrestling tournaments being held at the Kohl Center. So, before LaBahn, this past weekend's games were held at a rink in nearby Verona WI. at a rink pretty much the equivalent of the Ohio State rink (from what I can see on the video streams), maybe 20 miles from campus. Capacity of maybe 1000, maybe less. The trek out there was a bit of a pain, but the energy once there was actually very good.

(For forever, a local drive-in burger chain, Culvers, has had a promotion, free scoop of custard any time a UW hockey team scores five or more goals. There's a Culvers directly across the street from the rink in Verona. So, one night, UW scored five, and after the game, some couple hundred people walked across the street to that Culver's to get their free scoop. The poor guy managing that weekend night said "No, no, no ... we're not doing that." LOL)
 
Lindsay said:
Right. Could also choose to prioritize the women when the scheduling conflicts occur
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I looked at some box scores: on a really good day/night, St Thomas women drew 1000 - the best I saw was 1300 vs Wisconsin. The men draw 2500-3000, more vs (I assume) main rival Augustana, 3500. Reality is reality, and money in NCAA sports rules.

----------------

Last year in Duluth, the Wisconsin WCHA semi vs Duluth drew 867, the final drew 1715. In 2024 at Ridder, the UW vs Minn semi drew 2026, the final drew 1518.
 
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Agree with everyone on wanting to see the women's game not take a backseat to scheduling of everything else.

But selfishly OK with the schedule for this week. Nine year old is pumped that he gets to get out of school a little early Thursday with the Badgers being the 4pm game. Our last chance(s) to see this amazingly talented, accomplished, and fan-friendly class play in person.

On, Wisconsin!
 
This is the first year I can remember a day off between semis and finals for the WCHA tourney. While it is true that this is common for the NCAAs, it isn't common for conference hockey tournaments around here. It might make more sense out East where so many conference rivals are in close proximity to each other and they might be able to go home in between. Sure, the teams might like the rest, but the WCHA teams are used to playing back-to-back days all season long. The only time I ever heard complaining was Shannon Miller the year that all 8 teams played over one week (quarters Thu/Fri, semis Sat, Final & 3rd place on Sun). She didn't like that her team had to play three times in four days (UW and tOSU played three days in a row). Guess they should have lost the QF versus not-yet-formidable UND instead of winning in OT, and then the Bulldogs could have gone home to rest. She made enough noise that they moved to the best of three quarters after that.
 
eastcoastgopher said:
Day off between Frozen Four games goes back to 1990. Before then the two semifinals were held on separate days.
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Can't confirm the exact year, but I'll bet you're correct.

The Old Format: Semi-Final #1 on Thursday Night; Semi-Final #2 on Friday Night; Championship Game Saturday Night. From the point of view of a Traveling fan -- especially a neutral fan -- that schedule was great. Quality games in prime time, three nights in a row. Using Thursday as a travel day was more viable, given that there was only one game on opening day, starting in the evening.

Trouble was, it turned out that the Thursday winner had a major advantage over the Friday winner. Specifically: A full day of rest going into the most important game of the year. With some regularity you'd see the Friday winner start to fade as the title game went on. At some point the trend became impossible to ignore. Thus the Thursday doubleheader, with each winning team getting a day's rest.

Historically a 3rd Place Game was played on Saturday Afternoon. But that's a whole 'nuther story.
 
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Lindsay said:
Right. Could also choose to prioritize the women when the scheduling conflicts occur
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Of course I'm with you on this. But I also wonder why the Final Face-Off didn't have a contractual right to the preferred dates.

I presume that there's an application process for the right to host. It seems to me that the successful applicant should be required to guarantee that the agreed upon dates & times will be available. I have no inside info. But it feels like the host school actually retained the legal right to bump the Final Face-Off games if it wished. Which obviously doesn't feel good to the Final Face-Off teams.
 
pgb-ohio said:
Of course I'm with you on this. But I also wonder why the Final Face-Off didn't have a contractual right to the preferred dates.

I presume that there's an application process for the right to host. It seems to me that the successful applicant should be required to guarantee that the agreed upon dates & times will be available. I have no inside info. But it feels like the host school actually retained the legal right to bump the Final Face-Off games if it wished. Which obviously doesn't feel good to the Final Face-Off teams.
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This weekend coincides with men's tournaments in both the CCHA and NCHC conferences. That means the potential for St Thomas and/or Bemidji and/or Mankato and/or Duluth and/or St Cloud hosting best-of-three series this weekend. And at the beginning of the year, none of them knows who might or might not be hosting. And NONE of them are going to contractually commit to giving up their arenas on Friday night or Saturday night, should they qualify to host one of those men's best-of-threes.

So, you can hold the WCHA final four at Ridder year after year after year (or at LaBahn, or at Ohio State) without the "threat" of conflicts with men's schedules. (And you guys tell m LaBahn is just out of the question.) Or you can live with the possibility of getting bumped into a less ideal set of game times at one of the other locations.
 
robertearle said:
This weekend coincides with men's tournaments in both the CCHA and NCHC conferences. That means the potential for St Thomas and/or Bemidji and/or Mankato and/or Duluth and/or St Cloud hosting best-of-three series this weekend. And at the beginning of the year, none of them knows who might or might not be hosting. And NONE of them are going to contractually commit to giving up their arenas on Friday night or Saturday night, should they qualify to host one of those men's best-of-threes.

So, you can hold the WCHA final four at Ridder year after year after year (or at LaBahn, or at Ohio State) without the "threat" of conflicts with men's schedules. (And you guys tell m LaBahn is just out of the question.) Or you can live with the possibility of getting bumped into a less ideal set of game times at one of the other locations.
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Duluth (AMSOIL or The DECC) has hosted the WCHA Final Faceoff a few times. Were those years when it was known that the men weren't going to be home, or how did that never get bumped to a different date? BSU has also hosted, although it was poorly attended. This schedule bumping is a new thing.
 
ARM said:
Duluth (AMSOIL or The DECC) has hosted the WCHA Final Faceoff a few times. Were those years when it was known that the men weren't going to be home, or how did that never get bumped to a different date? BSU has also hosted, although it was poorly attended. This schedule bumping is a new thing.
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Maybe the men's conference schedules changed when the men's WCHA blew up, and the HCHC and (?) CCHA were created or re-created. Maybe they got lucky.

The fact is those conferences are playing first round best-of-three series this weekend, and St Thomas, Mankato, and Duluth are all hosting series. (So is North Dakota, FWIW.)
 
ARM said:
Duluth (AMSOIL or The DECC) has hosted the WCHA Final Faceoff a few times. Were those years when it was known that the men weren't going to be home, or how did that never get bumped to a different date? BSU has also hosted, although it was poorly attended. This schedule bumping is a new thing.
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In 2025, Duluth men travelled to Arizona State to play their best-of-three while the WCHA women were playing at Amsoil.

Prior to that, we go to 2015 (the years in between were all at Ridder). That year, North Dakota was playing At Miami-Ohio in the last weekend of their regular season while WCHA women were playing at Engelstad Arena. The following weekend, North Dakota did host an NCHC best-of-three.

In 2014, Bemidji men were playing the final weekend of the regular WCHA season at Bowling Green while the WCHA women were at the Sanford Center playing the final four.

From there, we'd go back to 2008, but I'm going to say we all see the point.
 
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robertearle said:
This weekend coincides with men's tournaments in both the CCHA and NCHC conferences. That means the potential for St Thomas and/or Bemidji and/or Mankato and/or Duluth and/or St Cloud hosting best-of-three series this weekend. And at the beginning of the year, none of them knows who might or might not be hosting. And NONE of them are going to contractually commit to giving up their arenas on Friday night or Saturday night, should they qualify to host one of those men's best-of-threes.

So, you can hold the WCHA final four at Ridder year after year after year (or at LaBahn, or at Ohio State) without the "threat" of conflicts with men's schedules. (And you guys tell m LaBahn is just out of the question.) Or you can live with the possibility of getting bumped into a less ideal set of game times at one of the other locations.
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Or, you can set up the contract up front with dates that everyone can live with. Thursday/Saturday really isn't so bad. But it's a problem when you set up your preparation & travel arrangements for Friday & Saturday, then suddenly you have to change everything on the fly.

Also, does the Final Face-Off absolutely have to be held on a D-1 campus? In the earliest days of the WCHA Tournament, it was held in venues like the Bloomington Ice Garden. In a facility like that, I would think the dates could be guaranteed.
 
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Thanks to all for the info and your thoughts. Yes, we could come up with all sorts of plans where the WCHA plays in some less desirable location or time slot. I just hate that this many years into things we are all so willing for them to have to do so. I get that $$$ talks. More fans will show up for the men; there's no denying that. But Bloomington Ice Garden, or Rochester, or Fogerty Arena in Blaine? No. I went to all of those, and they are fine as HS/community rinks. The players should feel like the league at least tried to put them into a real facility. There are times where it is important that it looks like the sport is moving forward, even if that will never happen in Ohio. As for LaBahn, maybe they should try that in spite of the size challenges. It would likely mean plunking down 6 to 10 tables somewhere, either conncourse or bleachers, where the people on laptops can park. At least it would sell out, provided they go there while MJ is rolling out dominant teams every year. Hopefully, it wouldn't come with some condition like it can't overlap with any event in the Kohl Center.
 
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