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Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

So wait, do they want fewer games, a shorter season in terms of calendar days, or both?

If it's only calendar days, then this might force leagues like the WCHA to move away from the two-game weekend series and play some sort of three-game per week series in order to fit the same number of games into a short period of time. It would likely reduce the number of conference games from two sets of two to a single set of three. that would lead to an unbalanced schedule, and not something most fans would want. People gripe enough around here about only playing certain teams for a single series once every few years as it is. This wouldn't help.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

So, just how many games are they thinking about cutting?? 4 games? that would be 2 weeks off of a regular season. Not everybody is going to be happy with what that would do to the schedule, but it should be doable
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

For most of the WCHA, cutting games would mean cutting scholarships in non-revenue sports (since hockey pays a lot of the bills for athletics) and would exacerbate the problem of Title IX compliance.

If they want to improve the financial picture of their members, allow them to add a couple games without lengthening the season.

Oh, and I note that hockey - much more than say basketball - minimizes out-of-classroom time for these student-athletes, by playing games almost exclusively on Friday-Saturday nights. I suggest the NCAA measure "out of classroom time" rather than "length of season" as its primary yardstick of whether a sport is interfering with academics. (Take that ESPN.)
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Brenthoven said:
Travel, and look at the opening round. Lots of empty seats.
Click to expand...
The NCAA doesn't care about the empty seats. The facility pays the NCAA a flat fee to host the event, and then the ticket sales are kept by the facility.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

St. Clown said:
The NCAA doesn't care about the empty seats. The facility pays the NCAA a flat fee to host the event, and then the ticket sales are kept by the facility.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah. My bad. :o
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Goon said:
Why would they cut it back to 12, they make a lot of money on it being 16 teams.
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Flying some of the schools around to locations far away hurts them, and perhaps some of the regional locations are looking to jump out of the mix. Paying out to host a regional that no one goes to hurts just as bad.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Goon said:
Why would they cut it back to 12, they make a lot of money on it being 16 teams.
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They could probably make as much with two regionals, without the exception that allows us to have 28% of our teams in the tournament.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

GreatLakerMohawk said:
I can definitely see this happening.
Click to expand...

It was the concern of intelligent people everywhere the moment Iona and Fairfield dropped their programs, followed of course by Findlay and Wayne State (but partially made up for by the accession of RMU).

The Michigans and Minnesotas of the world seemed to shrug their shoulders at those developments without considering the possibility of losing the 16-team tournament.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Priceless said:
They could probably make as much with two regionals, without the exception that allows us to have 28% of our teams in the tournament.
Click to expand...

They could probably make the most with 12 if they took the full gate from all tourney games and had the first round best of 3 at campus sites, like back in the day.

Was there an explicit exception granted that allowed us to stay at 16? I thought NCAA rules (20%?) mandated the tourney drop back to 12 with the smaller pool, and have been expecting it to happen the last couple years.

Then again, if ESPN ever gets their 96-team March Madness, that should nuke all the rules. (96/347 = .28)
 
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Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Red Cloud said:
It was the concern of intelligent people everywhere the moment Iona and Fairfield dropped their programs, followed of course by Findlay and Wayne State (but partially made up for by the accession of RMU).

The Michigans and Minnesotas of the world seemed to shrug their shoulders at those developments without considering the possibility of losing the 16-team tournament.
Click to expand...



The NCAA should be responsible for the health/expansion of the sport, not the individual programs, or their conferences.

That seems to be a contradictory statement considering how well we know the collective member institutions (NCAA) cherish hockey and muck up things with idiotic rules and red tape, but making conferences responsible for bringing in orphan programs is not economically feasible. They have enough to concern themselves with their own programs already.

(Anastos has already stated that, for instance, he is comfortable staying with an 11 team CCHA league next season and is evaluating methods to cut costs that the conference is responsible for... such as the 4th official, the shootout, etc. so economics seems to be a pretty big stick now.)
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

ACC Hockey!!! Clemson vs. Florida State. Can't wait to see that one!!!
Talk about ugly uni's!!!:eek:
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Kepler said:
They could probably make the most with 12 if they took the full gate from all tourney games and had the first round best of 3 at campus sites, like back in the day.

Was there an explicit exception granted that allowed us to stay at 16? I thought NCAA rules (20%?) mandated the tourney drop back to 12 with the smaller pool, and have been expecting it to happen the last couple years.

Then again, if ESPN ever gets their 96-team March Madness, that should nuke all the rules. (96/347 = .28)
Click to expand...

They would have to fiddle with the brackets again, because they wouldn't want Bemidji and Ferris State hosting regionals while huge barns in Fargo and Madison sit empty.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Priceless said:
They would have to fiddle with the brackets again, because they wouldn't want Bemidji and Ferris State hosting regionals while huge barns in Fargo and Madison sit empty.
Click to expand...

Fargo? What huge barn are you referring to in Fargo? The one where NDSU keeps all their sheep. :p
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Priceless said:
They would have to fiddle with the brackets again, because they wouldn't want Bemidji and Ferris State hosting regionals while huge barns in Fargo and Madison sit empty.
Click to expand...

I dunno - Bemidji seats 2500. I bet some 4-team regionals have drawn less than that, and if you went from 4 4-team sites to 6 2-team sites, each site only would actually only have to draw 2/3 of what the old ones did to draw the same total number of fans.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

The NCAA hockey tourney makes money, unlike other NCAA tourneys, so I don't see them messing with that.

The bigger concern for the NCAA is they don't get why hockey needs such a long season and other sports don't need that long. They don't understand that unlike other NCAA sports, hockey has competition from Major Junior and needs a long season to stay competitive.

Here's what college hockey should do:

1) Keep the same number of games, but start in November instead of October. There are plenty of bye weeks in the current schdeule that can fill up so you don't lose the games. Most fans hate going two weeks without a game, and the player can easily play twice a week for five months instead of six.

2) Get rid of the Canadian exhibition games if you have to shorten schedules.

3) If you have to cut more costs:
- Cut the refs from 4 to 3. The fourth official won't be missed that much.
- Cut travel parties by 3 people per trip. You don't need all those assistants at every game. 20 players, two coaches, one trainer and one equipment person are all you really need on the road.
- Cut printed media guides at all schools - just put them online
-Consolidate a massive sponsorship deal for all 58 D-I schools from competing hockey equipment makers. For example, I bet Nike would love to supply all 58 NCAA d-I jerseys under one contract. It would save a lot of money and would probably make money for the NCAA and the schools.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

Farce Poobah said:
For most of the WCHA, cutting games would mean cutting scholarships in non-revenue sports (since hockey pays a lot of the bills for athletics) and would exacerbate the problem of Title IX compliance.

If they want to improve the financial picture of their members, allow them to add a couple games without lengthening the season.

Oh, and I note that hockey - much more than say basketball - minimizes out-of-classroom time for these student-athletes, by playing games almost exclusively on Friday-Saturday nights. I suggest the NCAA measure "out of classroom time" rather than "length of season" as its primary yardstick of whether a sport is interfering with academics. (Take that ESPN.)
Click to expand...

FB, Good post. I agree with you about the conscientious job done by hockey in scheduling [mostly] Friday and Saturday games to minimize time spent out of the classroom.

I agree with your point concerning sports other than hockey at [many] WCHA schools===> cutting the number of games played would have a "financial ripple effect" on other teams fielded by those schools and complicate the Title IX scenario for athletic departments.
 
Re: Look out, college hockey: The NCAA has noticed us again.

St. Clown said:
The NCAA doesn't care about the empty seats. The facility pays the NCAA a flat fee to host the event, and then the ticket sales are kept by the facility.
Click to expand...

I would guess that the fee the NCAA could charge would be greater with the potential for fewer empty seats.
 
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