2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

[bigblue_dl]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Cos buying every team 20 tickets doesn't save them on travel? I'm so effing sick of that nonsense. Of course they saved money. They didn't have to buy 20 tickets ffs. Are you really as dim in real life as you so often seem here? As you and everyone else is already aware, I'm not concerned with what people think of me here. In that vain, my admittedly spiteful wish to see the WCHA lose Kato and BG will leave me gleefully laughing if the state of Alaska is cheap enough to kill the hockey programs up there too. Y'all can just drop the W and call yourselves the CHA again with your six half-arsed schools who all moan and whine about spending money. Maybe if your schools were as committed to the sport as UAA and UAF have been you wouldn't end up like that.

You'd have a point if your teams provided anything more than a PWR anchor to the league.

 

[uaafanblog]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

You'd have a point if your teams provided anything more than a PWR anchor to the league.

Cos MTU didn't ever spend years at the effing bottom of the league? Are you seriously pulling that card? You are so much more than a known petulant little baby. UAA had some decent accomplishments in it's history. Successful NCAA appearances. The only team that ever beat the Gophers on their ice in the playoffs (multiple times). We finished in the middle of the league some but yeah ... we finished lower more often than higher. None of that goes against what was clearly the appropriate financial commitment as compared to other schools in the WCHA.

The facts are that more than a few of the budgets of current WCHA teams are FULLY INDICATIVE that those schools are NOT SERIOUS about their commitment to play D1 hockey. And the two teams in the league that have spent nearly TWICE AS MUCH as every other team in the league are being used as political effing pawns. And jerk-offs like you come on this board and spread ignorant misinformation? Grow up baby Huey.

 

[uaafanblog]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Joke? The joke is that your school is the one that's 10 seconds from, to use your terminology, twats up.

Glad you think it's funny.

It's the Alaska schools that are on the verge of cutting their funding to $0.

Wrong. You clearly have NO CLUE about what's going on. Go away and read up before you come to this board and comment.

Even though our little school in the Soo does a horrible job at funding D-1 hockey, we will still have D-1 hockey.

Wow. Congrats on that fine accomplishment! Your pride must be huge.

So thanks for the lecture on funding Mr Twat Waffle. No one wants to see your schools lose their programs. But you need the Midwestern schools far more than they need you.

Which is why UAA and UAF subsidized the weakly budgeted competition. Unlike the whiny babies who inhabit that part of the country; Alaskans typically stepped up historically and did what was necessary.

And if your school is so committed to hockey, why did they build an amazing new basketball arena and not a hockey facility and leave the hockey team at the biggest dump in college hockey?

Because that horrible prostitute harpee that you voted for vice-president used her line-item veto power to cut 120 million dollar dual purpose arena from the budget to prove she was a fiscal conservative to her voting base.

Again, we spent 1.9M a year on hockey. How much does your school spend? 3 times less. LOL ...

 

[manurespreader]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

We've got 4 inter league series right out of the gate this year which will be very important down The road. Huntsville at Uconn, NMU vs wisconsin, ( twice actually), Tech at Duluth, Minnesota and UAA. Not to mention Ferris has 3 of the first 5 out of conference. Every one of these games is big. Good luck to all.

 

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Obviously, the Alaska exemption only helps the schools that pack their arenas. From the WCHA games I watched online this past season, none of them appeared real full. In the old WCHA, schools like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota made a lot of money off of those extra games.

It's not just hockey, either.

GFM

 

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

It's an exercise for the interested writer (i.e. me) to look at the last four seasons for each of the ten schools and see how much better this makes their travel. I think that all of the WCHA schools will be fine with it; Bemidji can pick up NC games with MN schools and NoDak, and UAH just lives this reality. But I can do a weighted miles traveled and do it that way, knowing that longer trips are flights, more expensive, etc. I can probably set up a cutoff point for that.

I haven't looked at what the NU/RMU/RIT triad lose in a potential conference switch, but I'll do that. The changes for the seven WCHA schools left if worse turns to worst are pretty stark:

Team | Average trip length over the last four seasons | Average trip length in this fantasy scenario
UAH: 1289, 742
BSU: 885, 673
BGSU: 993, 371
FSU: 868, 341
LSSU: 873, 377
MTU: 810, 425
NMU: 1267, 359

Note that these are somewhat skewed by the fact that UAH, BGSU, NMU, MTU, FSU, and BSU have already done the Alaska double twice, while LSSU's turn through the rotation isn't due for another two years. I haven't figured out the periodicity by which you rotate through all the different pairings, so I cheated and just mapped the new outliers (UAH, BSU) in for the old, swapped RMU in with BG, and treated NU-RIT as a horizontal pair like BSU-MSU was.

There are 45 travel combinations in any 10-team league: ten teams, nine opponents, divided by two opponents per game. You can look at the trip possibilities for each league combination and get the following counts based on the length at which a bus trip becomes a flight:

400 Miles: 14 bus trips, 31 flights now, compared to 20 and 25 in CCHA Lite/2.0
500 Miles: 19 and 26, 26 and 19
600 Miles: 22 and 23, 33 and 12

Now, even this formula has UAH flying everywhere but Bowling Green and Robert Morris, but UAH would bus pretty much anywhere —*probably even to Rochester. UAH bused to SLU once.

I'll write about this in a new spot in the next day or two, maybe after I've had time to look up what the costs would be for the new schools.

And again, Alaska and Mankato fans, please know this: I like your schools, I hope to visit them all very soon, and I want you to be in the WCHA for decades to come. But I work ISS flight operations for a daily living, and I know the power of having Plans B, C, and Y.

GFM

 

[joecct]

I haven't looked at what the NU/RMU/RIT triad lose in a potential conference switch, but I'll do that. The changes for the seven WCHA schools left if worse turns to worst are pretty stark:

Team | Average trip length over the last four seasons | Average trip length in this fantasy scenario
UAH: 1289, 742
BSU: 885, 673
BGSU: 993, 371
FSU: 868, 341
LSSU: 873, 377
MTU: 810, 425
NMU: 1267, 359

Note that these are somewhat skewed by the fact that UAH, BGSU, NMU, MTU, FSU, and BSU have already done the Alaska double twice, while LSSU's turn through the rotation isn't due for another two years. I haven't figured out the periodicity by which you rotate through all the different pairings, so I cheated and just mapped the new outliers (UAH, BSU) in for the old, swapped RMU in with BG, and treated NU-RIT as a horizontal pair like BSU-MSU was.

There are 45 travel combinations in any 10-team league: ten teams, nine opponents, divided by two opponents per game. You can look at the trip possibilities for each league combination and get the following counts based on the length at which a bus trip becomes a flight:

400 Miles: 14 bus trips, 31 flights now, compared to 20 and 25 in CCHA Lite/2.0
500 Miles: 19 and 26, 26 and 19
600 Miles: 22 and 23, 33 and 12

Now, even this formula has UAH flying everywhere but Bowling Green and Robert Morris, but UAH would bus pretty much anywhere —*probably even to Rochester. UAH bused to SLU once.

I'll write about this in a new spot in the next day or two, maybe after I've had time to look up what the costs would be for the new schools.

And again, Alaska and Mankato fans, please know this: I like your schools, I hope to visit them all very soon, and I want you to be in the WCHA for decades to come. But I work ISS flight operations for a daily living, and I know the power of having Plans B, C, and Y.

GFM

Last year BSU flew to AK and UAH. The rest were long bus rides.

 

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

NCHC sez no to expansion: https://twitter.com/TheNCHC/status/771060164476538880

GFM

 

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Now is when the whole ASU things gets interesting.

 

[Bill]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Now is when the whole ASU things gets interesting.

From a (like) school size perspective, the B1G made the most sense for ASU. From a geographic perspective, the NCHC made the most sense. It looks like they are being turned down by both, probably due to their arena (lack thereof) issue. The WCHA may take them, despite the arena issue, but it may depend upon if ASU will subsidize travel. If the WCHA doesn't take them, they can try and survive as an independent for a couple of seasons until they solve their arena issue and then reapply to the B1G and/or NCHC. Personally, I don't think the WCHA would be anything more than a temporary solution for ASU.

 

[uaafanblog]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Personally, I don't think the WCHA would be anything more than a temporary solution for ASU.

There's some likelihood that the WCHA is a temporary solution for all it's current members.

 

[BGFan]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

The WCHA was courting them pretty heavily. Surprisingly, at least to me, was the fact the the president of BGSU was one of the people doing the courting. I imagine the name recognition that ASU brings is a likely factor in that. Their name may bring more bodies into the WCHA arenas to watch the games.

 

[joecct]

The WCHA was courting them pretty heavily. Surprisingly, at least to me, was the fact the the president of BGSU was one of the people doing the courting. I imagine the name recognition that ASU brings is a likely factor in that. Their name may bring more bodies into the WCHA arenas to watch the games.

Would you rather have tOSU, WMU and Miami in your barn over ASU, BSU, and Mankato?

Rivalries sell tickets.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Would you rather have tOSU, WMU and Miami in your barn over ASU, BSU, and Mankato?

Rivalries sell tickets.

Back in the old WCHA days, during Sauer's flagging years, when I was in school, UW wasn't much of a draw at SCSU because UW's team just wasn't very good. People want to show up for rivalries and top end opponents. Either feed the crowds to satiate our more base pleasure of hate or give us some top talent to watch.

 

[giwan]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

The WCHA was courting them pretty heavily. Surprisingly, at least to me, was the fact the the president of BGSU was one of the people doing the courting. I imagine the name recognition that ASU brings is a likely factor in that. Their name may bring more bodies into the WCHA arenas to watch the games.

If the ASU brings in fans based on name recognition then you need to take your fans to an educational session on cawlige hawky

 

[TalonsUpPuckDown]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

If the ASU brings in fans based on name recognition then you need to take your fans to an educational session on cawlige hawky

If a bunch of people who have never seen a cawlige hawky game show up at the Ice Arena with AFC* in hand only because they've heard of ASU, then thank god for ignorant fans with disposable income. Anything that puts butts in seats is a positive.


*AFC - Actual Freaking Cash

 

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Personally, I don't think the WCHA would be anything more than a temporary solution for ASU.

The WCHA would write a healthy exit fee into the contract (I'm sure MSU would've had to pay one; who knows if the Alaska schools would be forced to do so in the unfortunate event that they leave D-I hockey), so getting them in the door holds them down and helps keep them going. If they flourish, they'll be able to pay it, and the league will take that money. If not, well, okay.

ETA: Schlossman indicates that the NCHC exit fee is $1.5MM, 3x the expansion fee.

GFM

 

[uaafanblog]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

The WCHA would write a healthy exit fee into the contract (I'm sure MSU would've had to pay one; who knows if the Alaska schools would be forced to do so in the unfortunate event that they leave D-I hockey)

GFM

Only someone stupid enough to sign a post with his initials when there's a username already associated with his post and who also has his unfortunately misspelled name in his freaking signature line would think that UAA or UAF would pay some exit fee when they folded their programs. Who's gonna force them? LOL ... omg.

LOL. Stupidest thing said on this forum all effing month.

shut up once.

 

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Only someone stupid enough to sign a post with his initials when there's a username already associated with his post and who also has his unfortunately misspelled name in his freaking signature line would think that UAA or UAF would pay some exit fee when they folded their programs. Who's gonna force them? LOL ... omg.

Contracts matter, and conference membership is a contract. In a fair world, there absolutely shouldn't be a termination fee if the worst happens! But that's not guaranteed to be the way it would go down.

GFM

 

[giwan]

Re: 2016 WCHA Offseason; It's All Over, Save Ferris

Contracts matter, and conference membership is a contract. In a fair world, there absolutely shouldn't be a termination fee if the worst happens! But that's not guaranteed to be the way it would go down.GFM

Would you write in a specific termination fee starting with ASU of a much higher value? Part of the agreement to entrance along with other possible requirements? Apply to all? Anyone think the NCHC termination fee is the main reason some schools have not bolted already?