I feel the same way as a UW hockey fan. I honestly don't care about Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State & Penn State. That said, the AD's at these schools clearly don't care about what their hockey fans think. They care what the football & basketball fans who flock to see those opponents think. Getting another few thousand fans into the buildings for those opponents is the goal. Add in the added TV revenue & it's a clear win for the athletic departments as a whole. Lets face it, we'll still schedule UND and DU every year. The buildings will still be packed for those games by the traditional hockey fans.
This whole thing could flop, but I doubt it. I'm not going to stop going to hockey games because we change conferences. I'll complain about it & be a little unhappy, but in a few years we'll have reasons to hate the new conference foes, just the same as we do the old foes. And, really, other than the aforementioned power schools, how many of us really care about the rest of the conference. St. Cloud, Duluth, Mankato, CC, etc. seem to be a factor every few years, but they're basically a generic conference opponent when they're not good (that's probably less true in Minneapolis than it is in Madison, but I'm guessing it's not a lot less true).
