Re: Michigan Wolverines 2015-2016 Season
Find an old-timer who was around in the early '80s. Ask about Don Canham and the two divisions he tried to force on the old WCHA.
Yes, travel expenses are part of the story. That was, in fact, the Michigan party line. Make sure your old-timer is willing to give you a candid assessment of the politics of the situation. It goes beyond that party line. The battle was about more than just money.
It's important to note that this is a matter of history, not a theory. And it's a history worth learning. It has everything to do with why we now have a B1G Hockey Conference. Good off-season project for you.
Sincere congratulations on your conference tourney title and nice showing at the Midwest Regional.
I'm not a Michigan old-timer, but I am an old-timer. I remember those days well, and they go back even further than the early 80s.
Don Canham was pushing ideas of merging the WCHA and the upstart CCHA as early as the late 1970s. I think money was a huge part of it. I think money always is. "Follow the money" was what MarK Felt told Bob Woodward all those years ago and college athletics is just as power and money-mad as politics. And I think money means saving money, making more money, keeping more of the money pie for yourself, all sorts of things.
Canham's ideas in 1978 seemed quite radical at the time. His explanations for
Michigan's eventual move (along with Notre Dame and very shortly after that, MSU and MTU) to the CCHA mentioned most prominently financial considerations, and I think his
explanations were valid. I think it was a much simpler time then than it is now, with virtually no considerations of things like media, social or otherwise, or as much of the power five versus non power five vitriol we see now.
I know for Notre Dame it was truly a simple matter of drastically reducing cost and keeping hockey as a D1 sport, or losing it altogether (something that happened anyway two years following the move). We had huge issues with Title IX after the university began admitting women in the fall of 1972 and had been more or less forced to stop funding hockey to comply with rulings being issued in the 1970s dealing with it. The up and down nature of Notre Dame's existence in the WCHA is clearly related to funding. A highly successful 1977 season could not be duplicated in large part because after losing the core of a very good team to graduation Notre Dame drastically cut back recruiting -- including a complete moratorium for a time -- and bad seasons resulted. With that came a huge fall off in attendance and attention. And what followed then was the need -- or perhaps desire -- to reduce costs.
I'm of the opinion that the moves of the late 70s and early 80s were good for the sport. Coupled with Jerry York winning a title at Bowling Green -- the first title not won by one of the schools in either the WCHA or ECAC -- and the formation of Hockey East (along, believe it or not, similar lines of reasoning as the NCHC) college hockey's modern era was ushered in. I am not of the same opinion that the moves we've seen more recently, and the additional moves we are sure to see in the near future, are going to be as good for the overall sport.
It's too bad Don Canham wasn't around a few years ago (he passed away in 2005) to see what has happened in the sport. He would have had some very interesting observations. Canham was a good guy. In my opinion a showman in the very best sense of that word. Unlike subsequent athletic directors at both schools, Canham and Notre Dame's legendary AD Edward "Moose" Krause had a great friendship and relationship.
