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Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

Flashy Man said:
I don't see it ever happening, but technically couldn't they move up to D2 then play D1 hockey since no comparable sport exists at that level?
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Could but the travel costs would eat them alive just for their sports other than hockey.
GB Puck Fan said:
Technically, yes. But wade back a few pages for someone else's comments on trying to find a D2 conference. And there's still no good facility option for the hockey team. The arena is a dump and Resch is managed by the company which owns the Gamblers.
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That was me who pointed that out back maybe 10 pages or so. To go D2, SNC's options are either the GLIAC, the GLVC, or the NSIC. Some of them would hold the advantage of getting to play other D1 hockey schools for sports like football and basketball, but yeah, just from eyeballing it on the map here, I would say that SNC would tack on about a hundred miles easy to their average conference road trip in all sports.
 
Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

Found them.....

bigmrg74 said:
They would have to move the rest of their athletic department up to D2 to get that done I believe. And then they're to put those sports in with either the NSIC, the GLIAC, or even the GLVC. travel wise with them being in Green Bay, its not going to be ideal either way. the NSIC is mostly Minnesota and Dakota schools, putting them on the wrong side of Wisconsin, but that would be attractive to them being that they would get to face the D1 hockey schools of UMD, St. Cloud, Bemidji, and Mankato. With the GLIAC, their problem would be Lake Michigan in between them and most of the league, but they would get to face Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior without the total barrier to bus travel that is the lake. And Hammer's Alma Mater of Ferris would be fairly close as long as they work out something where they can take one of the Lake Ferries across on a regular basis, along with mine GVSU. The rest of the time, they're going to have to go thru Chicago to reach points ranging from Saginaw, Michigan to Cleveland, Ohio to Columbus, Ohio. After that, they're next best option would be the GLVC. Travel wise they're not much better, as that's mostly Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri. There is Wisconsin Parkside in that league, but they would be looking at a lot of regular trips to St. Louis, Louisville, and Kansas City areas.

It would be a pretty tough road to go for them to go D2 as Wisconsin-Madison really doesn't like the idea of other schools within the state of Wisconsin being able to offer any sort of a scholorship to play football. SNC would really need to have something ironclad worked out with the reformed WCHA to be able to join it, and work out a deal to skate a lot of its big games at the Resch center to afford to go D2 I think. It has been kicked around a bit that Green Bay and the Resch Center would be a pretty good central location to have the WCHA Final Five at, but they would have the problem of no local schools around it. SNC would solve that problem for them.
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bigmrg74 said:
Its not to say that SNC could go the "move the Athletic Department up to D2 so that the Hockey team could be a D1 program. Just saying that option wouldn't exactly be a cheap and easy fix. If the travel was about the same, it would probably be about the same overall cost to run the athletic department as a D2 program as what you would need to give out in financial aid would be roughly about the same as what it would be to give those kids partial scholarships to get them to come to SNC. Right now, the big problem I see for SNC is the overall increase in costs they would have for sports like football, basketball, and volleyball to ship them to and fro. Their current D3 conference, the Midwest Conference, has them with a lot of other Wisconsin schools, a few Illinois schools and one trip to Iowa. I haven't crunched the numbers, but off the top of my head I would say they're adding a hundred miles easy to their average bus trip. That's a pretty big cost that they would be adding to, especially given how much gas has gone up in the past decade and shows little signs of coming back down.
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Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

The Real Georgia Peach said:
So, the WIAC schools just threw away an AQ by going to a 5 team league??? What am I missing here?
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To try to sum up 14 pages and 265 posts:

* Yes, they are throwing away an autobid (for it appears at least 2 years) by leaving the NCHA and flying under just the WIAC banner.

* The WIAC plans to ask for affiliate members to get back to seven. It's not clear who that may or may not be.

* If you believe one line of reasoning, it's basically due to 2 factors, both budget related: A) reducing administrative expenses and the overlap of having 2 conference; B) reducing travel, particularly on the women's side. This may easily then allow SNC and CSS to rejoin the state schools.

* If you believe another line of reasoning (which isn't necessarily mutally exclusive): the state schools are sick of getting their asses kicked by St. Norbert and going under the WIAC flag in order to better control what's happening - even though they have 5 of 7 votes in the NCHA, mind you - in order to perhaps exclude SNC & CSS.

* Loss of the autobid may not be seen as a big deal because a state school hasn't won it in seven of the last nine years anyway. At larges have been the norm and, for two years, could be lived with as the only option.

That help?
 
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Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

Actually the WIAC may have an autobid. Norm can correct me, but if a conference has a stable core of 5(?) I think they get to keep the AQ for 2 additional years while they try to get back to 7.
 
Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

joecct said:
Actually the WIAC may have an autobid. Norm can correct me, but if a conference has a stable core of 5(?) I think they get to keep the AQ for 2 additional years while they try to get back to 7.
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The NCHA (not the WIAC) would be the league that would be trying "to get back to 7". The WIAC, like the MASCAC back in 2008, will be subject to a mandatory two-year waiting period assuming they have the required seven teams when they start playing solo. As long as the NCHA allows, they can remain members of both leagues and still compete for the NCHA's AQ. If the WIAC can not field 7 teams, a Pool B bid will return once the NCHA loses their AQ, otherwise, shy of the addition of NEW schools into the NCHA, their Pool A bid will effectively go to the WIAC (again, assuming the WIAC gets to seven).
 
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Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

norm1909 said:
The NCHA (not the WIAC) would be the league that would be trying "to get back to 7". The WIAC, like the MASCAC back in 2008, will be subject to a mandatory two-year waiting period assuming they have the required seven teams when they start playing solo. As long as the NCHA allows, they can remain members of both leagues and still compete for the NCHA's AQ. If the WIAC can not field 7 teams, a Pool B bid will return once the NCHA loses their AQ, otherwise, shy of the addition of NEW schools into the NCHA, their Pool A bid will effectively go to the WIAC (again, assuming the WIAC gets to seven).
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The WIAC has always had a "conference" and even given out conference championship trophies. Would they still need to wait for the 2 year waiting period?
 
Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

GB Puck Fan said:
To try to sum up 14 pages and 265 posts:

* If you believe one line of reasoning, it's basically due to 2 factors, both budget related: A) reducing administrative expenses and the overlap of having 2 conference; B) reducing travel, particularly on the women's side. This may easily then allow SNC and CSS to rejoin the state schools.
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The woman could fix that problem easily by cutting Adrian from the NCHA...eventhough I do believe that part of the agreement for allowing Adrian to join was that they cover some of the travel costs for schools traveling to play them. The problem with the way the current schedule is set up on the women's side is that UWRF, UWEC, UW-Super and UWSP are all relatively close together, then you have Lake Forest way down in Illinois, Concordia-WI down in Milwaukee-ish. The way the schedule is currently set up--Superior could potentially drive to Lake Forest one weekend, then turn around the next weekend and travel down to Concordia...or Stevens Point drives to Superior one weekend, and then travels to CSS the next.

If you look at Superior's travel time
CSS 15 minutes
Finlandia 4 hours
UWEC-2.5-3 hours
River Falls-3 hours
UWSP--4.5-5 hours
SNC--5.5-6hours
Marian--6 hours
CUW- 7 hours
Lake Forest--8 hours
Adrian-13 hours

It would make a lot more sense for them to come up with a home/away schedule with travel partners like the men used to have....with the exception of Adrian--like the MIAC does with Concordia-MN.
 
Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

gojackets said:
The WIAC has always had a "conference" and even given out conference championship trophies. Would they still need to wait for the 2 year waiting period?
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They don't have an NCAA AQ to begin with, like the MCHA had to do, they too will need to apply for an AQ, presumably in a more timely manner than the MCHA.

Because of their multisport legitimacy, the WIAC gets to apply as soon as they choose, they are not subject to the limitation on single-sport conferences applying for automatic bids in Division-III Tournaments that applies to any sport. Play two years with at least seven teams, and in year 3 they get the AQ.
 
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Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

I caught wind of this while out of town, and it is sad because the entire NCHA has really turned into a powerhouse of teams, SNC manages to get the job done and stay on top of the pile, but many teams in this league have strength to knock us out on any given day. Sorta feel like we are getting penalized for building an outstanding hockey program, NOT just a hockey team.
 
Re: Good Bye NCHA, Hello WIAC. Grab a life vest SNC and CSS!

gojackets said:
The WIAC has always had a "conference" and even given out conference championship trophies. Would they still need to wait for the 2 year waiting period?
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Yes because they have never had the requisite seven teams. I suppose, if they were to admit two teams for 2012-13, they would become eligible for a Pool A bid in 2014-2015 (that being said, I don't know if somebody can fill the seven team count for two conferences at the same time - I kind of think they couldn't)
 
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