Re: Irish Hockey: Straight Inta Compton
Amid all the talk and speculation I remember posting this in July:
I've heard quiet rumblings that Notre Dame has already tentatively accepted an invitation to the conference they would prefer to be in, but logistics are left to be worked out. All the talk from the powers that be at Notre Dame about there being no hurry and biding their time is just that, talk. They are doing their due diligence of course, but this is just a positioning ploy to give them an out to work out something with someone else if they don't get some of what they want. If what I'm being told is correct, the television aspects are being overstated in a lot of the online speculation and chatter. Exposure (television) is one criteria being worked out, but is hardly the only factor in where Notre Dame hopes to land.
While I may seem to have been wrong about the "biding their time" part, allow me this: We're talking about an arrangement that is two full seasons away still. 3 or 4 months of investigation and negotiation is really nothing at all. Things like this can move quicker, but they can also move much MORE glacially than this appears to have been moving.
Anyway...
It seems as though some in the NCHC and those who follow some of the teams are saying either they tired of waiting on us, or found some of our “demands” to be unacceptable. What were those demands, exactly? Scheduling? TV coverage? TV revenue sharing? Conference tournament location?
The only demand Notre Dame could have made that could fairly be perceived as unfair would be to want the NCHC to ensure that a TV contract with a national network would feature Notre Dame, and be a de facto Notre Dame hockey arrangement, as opposed to a true NCHC “game of the week.” But no team in the NCHC and few in college hockey have any kind of true “national” sports following. This can’t be a surprise to any faithful follower of college hockey, and wherever Notre Dame ends up, they’ll be a primary TV draw. There is no substantial money involved in a college hockey TV agreement or much of a potential in a ratings windfall, so fighting over a small amount of money or very few eyes is hardly in the best interests of any of the 8 teams. A particular scheduling model shouldn’t have been a major roadblock to anyone, because I cannot imagine Notre Dame insisting on anything far removed from the ordinary. A berth in Hockey East will surely mean a distant conference tournament for Notre Dame, so how hard would they have been pushing for, say, Chicago as a condition of joining the NCHC?
Isn’t it just as possible that there were teams making “demands” on Notre Dame that were unreasonable, especially considering that Notre Dame’s athletic department dwarfs those of all the schools in either conference (1 year old data shows ND about 40% larger than even BC)? Perhaps one set of schools or another thought with such a large bank account Notre Dame should have paid a “higher” price to join up, because they were more able to do so. While not a bad guy in any of this, Notre Dame is nonetheless not going to be giving away the store just for the “privilege” of joining any conference. And why should they? Either conference would see many positives in having Notre Dame as a member. And some challenges. For Hockey East it would mean some changes in the way they travel and most likely a change in the way their conference schedule looks. It may mean giving up a game each season against a long held rival. For the NCHC it brings in a team that may draw some attention away from the novelty of being a new league and may center attention a little further East than they may prefer. There too teams may have had to play fewer games against the bigger draws in the league to accommodate Notre Dame on the docket. Both conferences offer profound positives and real challenges to Notre Dame as well. Notre Dame fans have all sorts of opinions on those.
The rumblings I heard in July came from someone closer to the athletic department than I am, but not so close as to be necessarily privy to anything private. How it was explained made it sound that way to me as well, but that the decision making process was ongoing and nothing was set in stone. It still sounds to me that wherever we end up was the intended destination all along. I acknowledge this will not correspond to some of the theories out there. Take that for what it’s worth, and of course absent named sources and public confirmation, take all of this for what it is worth. I do acknowledge that aspect frustrates some of you as well.
Believe it or not, I have no strong opinion one way or the other as to where Notre Dame ends up. I might be the only one, Notre Dame fan or otherwise, who seems to feel this way.
