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Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

D2D said:
I wonder what MSU's new mens coach thinks about womens hockey?
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row43seat43 said:
He loves it!! If he has any pull they will have a program in the future. He was a great coach that developed all girls that played on his teams. Class act person. I which him all the luck to turn the mens program around. This is good news for girls hockey!
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So does it increase the likelihood of Michigan State starting a women's program in the next few years? And if it does where would the team play? The CHA? The WCHA? Would either team want to take a B10 team knowing it might only be a matter of time before the women's BTHC is formed. Would the B10 immediately form a women's league with just five teams?

Sean
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Sean Pickett said:
So does it increase the likelihood of Michigan State starting a women's program in the next few years? And if it does where would the team play? The CHA? The WCHA? Would either team want to take a B10 team knowing it might only be a matter of time before the women's BTHC is formed. Would the B10 immediately form a women's league with just five teams?

Sean
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Like the men it would take a minimum of six Big Ten schools to form a Big Ten Conference for womens hockey. At least six teams are needed for any conference to get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. So with the addition of Penn State in 2012-13 they would still be two short, and if and when MSU starts a program they would still be one short. Another issue is that if a Big Ten Conference ever does come to fruition it would seriously impact the WCHA, leaving it without their three largest institutions and with just five remaining schools (unlike the men where the WCHA will still have ten schools). You have to believe that the Big Ten schools would give this very serious consideration before forming their own conference.

In any case, a Big Ten Conference for womens hockey will not happen unless two more schools add teams. Hard to say, but based on what row43seat43 is saying, MSU could be next?
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

row43seat43 said:
He loves it!! If he has any pull they will have a program in the future. He was a great coach that developed all girls that played on his teams. Class act person. I which him all the luck to turn the mens program around. This is good news for girls hockey!
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Luvd it based on what?
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Sean Pickett said:
Would the B10 immediately form a women's league with just five teams?

Sean
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Almost certainly not.

All of the stories I have seen about the men's Big10 include this statement:

"Conference rules allow for a conference championship when six member schools sponsor a sport."

If this is true a five team women's Big10 could NOT award an official Big10 conference championship. Further, with only five teams the league would not receive an autobid to the NCAA tournament.

Under those conditions forming a women's Big10 would not be prudent.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

D2D said:
Like the men it would take a minimum of six Big Ten schools to form a Big Ten Conference for womens hockey. At least six teams are needed for any conference to get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. So with the addition of Penn State in 2012-13 they would still be two short, and if and when MSU starts a program they would still be one short. Another issue is that if a Big Ten Conference ever does come to fruition it would seriously impact the WCHA, leaving it without their three largest institutions and with just five remaining schools (unlike the men where the WCHA will still have ten schools). You have to believe that the Big Ten schools would give this very serious consideration before forming their own conference.

In any case, a Big Ten Conference for womens hockey will not happen unless two more schools add teams. Hard to say, but based on what row43seat43 is saying, MSU could be next?
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Lets just clarify what I said. Mr. Anestos is a adovocate of womens hockey! Is daughter is a senior at Adrian and he coached her for many years. He has stayed involved in girls hockey to this day I believe. I do know is teams were not always the most talented but they always played above there ability and new how to play the game. He new how to develop young players and taught them the game of hockey very well. I don't know how successful he will be at DI, but I am sure it will be a run with class. If MSU has the funds I am quite sure he would push for a womens program. Maybe that would get the male chauvenist in Ann Arbor to do something! Like I said before this is good news for womens hockey, but the youth program will take a hit. It's already lost some good coaches over the last few years. When these two universities get womens programs I might consider it Hockeytown!!
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

D2D said:
Another issue is that if a Big Ten Conference ever does come to fruition it would seriously impact the WCHA, leaving it without their three largest institutions and with just five remaining schools (unlike the men where the WCHA will still have ten schools). You have to believe that the Big Ten schools would give this very serious consideration before forming their own conference.
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In the articles posted about the formation of the men's conference, the B1G office basically said that this was not a consideration. 6 B1G teams means a B1G conference. Period.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Rhett said:
In the articles posted about the formation of the men's conference, the B1G office basically said that this was not a consideration. 6 B1G teams means a B1G conference. Period.
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True but with the men the WCHA will still be left with 10 teams, so they will retain their automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. I would like to think that with the women the Big Ten AD's would consider the impact on what would be a five team WCHA, which could deal a serious blow to a couple of the remaining WCHA schools. In any case this decision is at least a few years off since two more Big Ten schools would need to add womens hockey before it even becomes an issue.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

The primary motivation for the formation of the men's hockey Big10 is . . . surprise . . . money.

The new men's hockey league will be televised by the Big10 Network. The cable TV enterprise is driven, as is most of college athletics in the modern world, by cash. The member schools expect to reap a substantial profit by owning their own cable outlet. But to that end the Big 10 network is always, always in need of new programming. There are only so many football and men's basketball coaches with coach's shows that the network can run. The Big10 Network needs GAMES. The new men's hockey league will help fill that need.

Here is why I think Michigan and Michigan State taking up women's hockey would be a fantastic boon to women's hockey in general. With 6 teams the women WOULD form a women's Big10. And they would then begin to appear regularly on the Big10 network.

The network currently shows every sport that member schools participate in to at least some degree, including the occasional women's ice hockey game. But the one that I have seen on there that piques my interest the most is women's field hockey. The conference has 7 teams sponsoring that sport and yes, they do have an official Big10 league and tournament. This past season Ohio State and Michigan shared the regular season championship, Michigan won the post season tournament. Four teams advanced to the NCAA tournament, Ohio State reached the national semi-finals. The network shows field hockey, women's ice hockey would be on there too.

And THAT is what women's hockey needs, exposure, regular TV (even if it is a niche cable outlet) exposure.

When Michigan and Michigan State begin to sponsor women's teams the level of exposure and the level of general awareness of the sport will rise. The sooner the better.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

D2D said:
True but with the men the WCHA will still be left with 10 teams, so they will retain their automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. I would like to think that with the women the Big Ten AD's would consider the impact on what would be a five team WCHA, which could deal a serious blow to a couple of the remaining WCHA schools. In any case this decision is at least a few years off since two more Big Ten schools would need to add womens hockey before it even becomes an issue.
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You would like to think that, but the B1G office has indicated that preserving other conferences is not a priority, period.

But, you know what, the WCHA would be fine.

#1) This is already a world where Michigan and Michigan State suddenly have women's hockey. The likelihood of another attractive school similar in profile to the WCHA women's teams' schools adding women's hockey in the same time period is strong. NOTE: This is a world where the economy is so strong that Michigan's 2 most prominent public schools are adding a non-revenue sport.

#2) A team that's not a terrible stretch for the WCHA's geography is already adding hockey next year: Lindenwood. You can bet that athletic administrators there have already looked at a map of women's hockey schools and drawn a big circle around the letters "WCHA".

#3) Conferences that get autobids largely get to keep autobids. In men's hockey, the CHA recieved several extensions from the powers that be wherein they kept their autobid while another conference member was sought. Word was, after they dropped to 4, that autobid benefit would have stopped after a couple more years, but we'll never know. Once earned, a D-I hockey conference has never lost an autobid while it continued operations. I think the powers of women's hockey will grant the WCHA similar benefits.

There's probably a few more suggestions that are a little further fetched (like noting that realistically, there's little difference in travel from Minnesota to Columbus, Moon Township, and Erie), but it still strengthens the belief that the B1G office's myopicness won't kill the WCHA.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Between Penn State and Lindenwood leaving the ACHA for the NCAA, development of Big10 Men's Hockey, and new coaches at MSU it's only a matter of time before Michigan State decides to add women's hockey. And if Michigan State adds it there's a good chance Michigan would follow. I've always thought Michigan should have women's hockey instead of a sport like women's water polo where Michigan has to travel to the West coast for almost all their road matches. Michigan just strikes up thoughts of a hockey school like Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota; I don't know many people that think of Michigan and water polo :-P.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Who's budget would suffer if Michigan decided to add women's hockey? It surely wouldn't be the football program. Do you thing Coach RB would let them take money from his program?
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Many great points being made here! I'm beginning to agree that a Big Ten womens hockey conference will happen at some point, and perhaps is inevitable. And you've convinced me that the adverse impact it could have on what's left of the WCHA will not be a factor. I am, however, still concerned that the WCHA would be left weaker with the loss of its three largest universities and two of its traditional powers. Budgets are very tight as it is now, and school officials will need to consider the impact that the revised schedules would have on attendance and travel costs.

But with that said, I think we can all agree that it is still premature to say with any degree of certainty that two more Big Ten schools will in fact be adding womens hockey in the immediate future. Yes, all of us here hope it happens, and for several good reasons we BELIEVE it should happen and that it would be good for the growth of womens hockey in general. I just hope we begin to see some concrete signs that things are headed in that direction, sometime in the near future.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Heard from a good source of mine today that PSU is wrapping up its interviewing process after having spoken to at least a dozen candidates. He's pretty sure that they've now got it narrowed down to two people, one with a last name of Johnson and the other Menard (he wasn't given their first names). Apparently there is some disagreement over which one should get the nod, but he did hear that one of them has the edge because he has great connections in Canada and could bring in two impact transfer players right away.

I'll try to get more info early next week, but don't be surprised if a formal announcement is made in the next few days.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

D2D said:
Heard from a good source of mine today that PSU is wrapping up its interviewing process after having spoken to at least a dozen candidates. He's pretty sure that they've now got it narrowed down to two people, one with a last name of Johnson and the other Menard (he wasn't given their first names). Apparently there is some disagreement over which one should get the nod, but he did hear that one of them has the edge because he has great connections in Canada and could bring in two impact transfer players right away.

I'll try to get more info early next week, but don't be surprised if a formal announcement is made in the next few days.
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The French connection? ;)
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

D2D said:
Heard from a good source of mine today that PSU is wrapping up its interviewing process after having spoken to at least a dozen candidates. He's pretty sure that they've now got it narrowed down to two people, one with a last name of Johnson and the other Menard (he wasn't given their first names). Apparently there is some disagreement over which one should get the nod, but he did hear that one of them has the edge because he has great connections in Canada and could bring in two impact transfer players right away.

I'll try to get more info early next week, but don't be surprised if a formal announcement is made in the next few days.
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Ah, and I was just saying to DC that no one seems to appreciate April Fools day anymore! ;)

edit: Hmmm, I'm using DC's PC so it shows DC but tis I, Hux, doing the posting.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

Best post of the year Hux! Thought I heard a gasp the other day from the direction of the WHCA. I only read the thread because when DC posts, I know there is something of value and interest. Thus you got me twice.


DC78-82 said:
Ah, and I was just saying to DC that no one seems to appreciate April Fools day anymore! ;)

edit: Hmmm, I'm using DC's PC so it shows DC but tis I, Hux, doing the posting.
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Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

giwan said:
Luvd it based on what?
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Unless Anastos loves it enough to donate $4-5 million, then it isn't going to happen soon. MSU went through the motions in the early 2000's and determined it would take too much money to start up a non-revenue sport that would have a $1m annual budget. It is mainly due to Munn Arena lack of set up to add compliant dressing rooms/offices, etc. Munn is underground and can't be renovated to fit, the expense would be too high to dig, they would need a new arena to accommodate another team.

When thinking about it from a business standpoint, why would you add a costly program with no potential for income for 25 student-athletes, in an athletic department that is forced to be self-sufficient even if it wasn't self-sufficient, then it would be irresponsible to spend money when the state is suffering finanically. This is why U-M added water polo, less money spent per athlete. If MSU is forced to add a women's sport it will be water polo, unfortunately.
 
Re: Penn State's Impact on Women's Hockey

It is never, never, never going to happen at Michigan or Michigan State. Never.
 
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