New WCHA is dead

[FMR_Alaskan]

Re: New WCHA is dead

I don’t get all the fuss over Huntsville. It’s a 2 hour straight shot south of Nashville, which is not a hard place to fly to these days. If they are committed to building a new rink then it shouldn’t be seen as going out on a limb to include them with the Shady Seven.

The Alaska schools are cooked either way.

[TalonsUpPuckDown]

Re: New WCHA is dead

What we need is someone with the authority and respect to take the WCHA, AHA and maybe a couple of ECAC/NCHC teams and make three conferences based on geography.

If only a governing body like that existed. Oh wait, there is, however, they're more concerned with whether or not I hand Brandon Kruse a free brat at a football tailgate.

[DrunkTrainPolka]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Since MN or WI won't leave the B1G, I say bring in FSU. Michigan Division: MTU, NMU, LSSU and FSU. Minnesota Division: MSU, BSU, SCSU and UMD

That would allow BG (Full D-1 School) to join ND as associate member of B1G bringing them to 8 teams

i like it...

but truth be told, i think that only WMU and UM are possible candidates out of the NACHO.

[DrunkTrainPolka]

Re: New WCHA is dead

I don’t get all the fuss over Huntsville. It’s a 2 hour straight shot south of Nashville, which is not a hard place to fly to these days. If they are committed to building a new rink then it shouldn’t be seen as going out on a limb to include them with the Shady Seven.

The Alaska schools are cooked either way.

i think that you will end up with a single team out of fairbanks... and try that out until more western teams possibly emerge or there is a new shake-up.

[dogs2012]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Since MN or WI won't leave the B1G, I say bring in FSU. Michigan Division: MTU, NMU, LSSU and FSU. Minnesota Division: MSU, BSU, SCSU and UMD

That would allow BG (Full D-1 School) to join ND as associate member of B1G bringing them to 8 teams

Is this hypothetical? I don't see any NCHC teams making a change anytime soon.

[Alaska Hockey]

Re: New WCHA is dead

I don’t get all the fuss over Huntsville. It’s a 2 hour straight shot south of Nashville, which is not a hard place to fly to these days. If they are committed to building a new rink then it shouldn’t be seen as going out on a limb to include them with the Shady Seven.

The Alaska schools are cooked either way.

they want a short bus ride league....

[ticapnews]

Re: New WCHA is dead

If only a governing body like that existed. Oh wait, there is, however, they're more concerned with whether or not I hand Brandon Kruse a free brat at a football tailgate.

Hence the respect part of my statement.

The NCAA has zero interest in solving the issue. It's up to someone who does care about college hockey and has the gravitas to tell college administrators, coaches and fans "This is what we're doing," and have them do it. I don't know if such a person or organization exists.

[TalonsUpPuckDown]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Hence the respect part of my statement.

The NCAA has zero interest in solving the issue. It's up to someone who does care about college hockey and has the gravitas to tell college administrators, coaches and fans "This is what we're doing," and have them do it. I don't know if such a person or organization exists.

I was agreeing with you...

[ticapnews]

Re: New WCHA is dead

I was agreeing with you...

I know

I'm just verbose

[BGFan]

Re: New WCHA is dead

If only a governing body like that existed. Oh wait, there is, however, they're more concerned with whether or not I hand Brandon Kruse a free brat at a football tailgate.

I was there when that happened. I was stunned that A) it got back to the NCAA and B) that it was really an issue. A brat? Really?

[Schadenfreude]

Re: New WCHA is dead

personally i think UAH will end up being the 8th team.

It could happen, I suppose. But there are a lot of variables here.

who else is out there?

I don't have any inside knowledge. But in thinking about the agendas of everyone involved, I imagine the first step will be to see if Miami or Western Michigan would like to join the new CCHA.

Many RedHawk and Bronco fans don't see this as a serious possibility, and perhaps they are right. But I do think this would be the first step and I do think both of these schools would need to at least give it some thought. The opportunity to join a more geographically sensible league that is stronger than the WCHA may not come around again for a while. As a Bowling Green fan, I'm certain the Falcons would love to be back in a conference with these other two MAC schools.

If Miami and/or Western Michigan say yes, perhaps this would open up a spot for Arizona State, Minnesota State, or another school departing the WCHA in the NCHC.

Once Miami and Western Michigan have made firm decisions, the next step would probably to see who else out there wants to join the CCHA. Here, the focus is probably primarily on the Pennsylvania and Western New York schools in Atlantic Hockey. My impression -- and I'll stand corrected -- is that Atlantic Hockey imposes tougher scholarship limitations than the rest of college hockey. Do a couple of these western schools want to step it up and play in a league without these restrictions?

As part of this second step, the new CCHA might also take a look at Arizona State. The fact that the Sun Devils made the Frozen Four tournament as an independent is impressive. I do think there is probably room in this new CCHA for up to one new member outside the core CCHA footprint. There is an argument to be made for Arizona State here. It is a P5 school, it is playing good hockey right now, and a wintertime annual trip to Arizona could be used as a recruiting tool for the other CCHA schools. An argument against is that Arizona State may have its heart set on the NCHC, which is more geographically logical anyway. If there is a strong chance the NCHC is going to admit them in the near future, maybe the CCHA stays away from Arizona State, particularly if Arizona State would put the new CCHA at an odd number of schools when it all shakes out.

After working through these two steps, I think the new CCHA then sees where it is at. If the new CCHA is at an odd number of schools and Arizona State isn't in the fold, then I think they look at Alaska and Alabama-Huntsville and pick one. Given that Alabama-Huntsville is said to be planning a new arena, perhaps the Chargers get an invitation. If one of these schools is admitted, the other two (if there are two, given the Alaska state budget situation) would probably have to look at Atlantic Hockey, I guess.

As a Bowling Green fan, I'm delighted that we are pursuing this new league. We were a founding member of the CCHA and were the last school to leave. I relish the opportunity to try to get Miami and Western Michigan back in our league, if such an effort is happening (and I'll bet it is).

I do feel bad for the situation that Alabama-Huntsville and the Alaska schools find themselves in. They've been important parts of the fabric of college hockey for decades. But much has happened to get us to this point, and the blame certainly does not rest solely on Bowling Green or the other six would-be CCHA schools. The other two western leagues walked away from these outlier programs years ago, leaving the whole burden of all the travel on the WCHA. Bowling Green made two trips to Alaska and one to Alabama last year, and we will repeat those trips this year. That's a lot to ask. Bowling Green is not oozing in money. No MAC school is.

I hope, when this all shakes out, a way can be found to structure college hockey so that programs from Alabama to the Arctic can all thrive. But that doesn't mean all of these programs should be in one conference.

[joecct]

they want a short bus ride league....

Define short. BSU <-> BGSU is a long bus ride.

[MTUHuskies]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Is this hypothetical? I don't see any NCHC teams making a change anytime soon.

Very hypothetical but I think it makes a lot of sense. I understand SCSU & UMD are not dying to leave the Nacho but to have all 4 (Yellow Rodents don't count) mn teams in one conference would be a very good thing for college hockey, IMHO.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: New WCHA is dead

So obviously, there's the tendency among quite a few of us to sort of fanboy out some (not necessarily reasonable) predictions for how things could shake up in this round of realignment. Even the USCHO podcast did a little bit of this in their episode on this news over the Weekend.

Some conference-by-conference thoughts:

B1G: Stays as is. Adds UI in a few years.

Hockey East: Stays as is. Trefzger and Connelly were toying around that ASU shows up here, but I doubt it for the same reasons that they didn't particularly seem too into Notre Dame.

ECAC: Stays as is. We can play the "will the Ivies split off?" game in our heads, but short of Penn and/or Columbia starting up programs, let's not get our hopes up.

nnWCHA: It's the runaway 7. Maybe UAH joins up. Maybe not. Trefzger and Connelly were talking about maybe Mankato and Bemidji head to NCHC and WMU and Miami come in here and we end up with WCHA 3.0 and CCHA 2.0, but that seems like fanboy daydreaming to me.

NCHC: See above about a switchup with nnWCHA. Otherwise stays as is, short of the conference being impressed by any upcoming ASU facilities.

Atlantic Hockey: [Insert endless stream of Navy rumors here, which Trefzger and Connelly claim has more legs than ever these days]. Also a possible home for UAH.

Wildcards:
- The nnWCHA doesn't stay together. Minnesota schools go to NCHC, MI/OH schools do their own thing (link up with UAH and/or some of the more western AHA schools?)
- The remaining D-II schools petition to play up as there is no D-II title, link up with AIC and Bentley (they're all in the NE-10 conference in other sports) to form either a supersized AHA, or a breakaway from the AHA
- New programs that we never knew about or never took seriously come to fruition out of nowhere
- Great West Hockey Conference 2.0 featuring ASU, UAA, UAF, and mystery school(s) TBD. Remember Simon Fraser University?
- A black hole forms and we all die

[gfmorris]

Re: New WCHA is dead

I would not be surprised to hear that UAH was actually part of the discussions but held out of the joint press release as a way to push harder to get funding for the new rink.

We were not.

I don’t get all the fuss over Huntsville. It’s a 2 hour straight shot south of Nashville, which is not a hard place to fly to these days. If they are committed to building a new rink then it shouldn’t be seen as going out on a limb to include them with the Shady Seven.

The Alaska schools are cooked either way.

Here is the the upshot of traveling to Huntsville: getting a full hockey team here sucks. HSV is one of the most expensive airports in the US to fly through for its passenger volume (Google it). We don't get big body aircraft into and out of here, so your options are 1) chartering and 2) flying to Nashville or Atlanta and then busing. 1) No one in the nWCHA/Shady Seven charters and likely never will; flying into either airport adds six hours to the trip. It's simple.

People joke that someone winning the lottery should fund a UAH rink first. HELL NO. Endow a charter service that not only flies UAH direct to road trips but flies road opponents direct into HSV. You wouldn't be able to do a UAH livery without a lot of money, but a subsidized/free charter would make UAH a palatable conference and non-conference foe. I figure $85MM would work this given how UAH's foundation rules govern endowing University activities.

Yep, I'd pay more to endow travel than I would want us to spend on a barn. It's that important. Until there are five other teams within an eight-hour bus ride of Huntsville, it's not worth hoping for an easy league.

GFM