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Realignment Rumors

J

joecct

Well-known member
So far, I've seen two.

Rumor #1 From Dan Myers over on CHN in his blog

Now, reports are circulating that the two leagues may fracture even more, as reported by Kevin Pates of the Duluth News Tribune. According to the report, the buzz at the Frozen Four was around the formation of a new, six-team league featuring DU, UND, Miami, Notre Dame, CC and Nebraska-Omaha.
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Rumor #2 From the Thursday night Frozen Four chat, courtesy of Chris Lerch (and I am summarizing).

Liberty Hockey League consisting of Clarkson, St. Lawrence, RPI, Union, RIT and Colgate.
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Neither are "confirmed" rumors, just perhaps somebody's jottings on a cocktail napkin that was left on some press room table. However, methinks these are seismic waves that may be the precursor to the big shakeup.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

Actually, I've been wondering about major shifts across the country as there are some very unusual OOC games so far for next season's schedules. I've thought they looked as if teams were feeling out unusual opponents to see what could work in the future.

Oh, and there have been distant rumblings about ND joining HE.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

slurpees said:
Not happening.

How are they going to work autobids? You can't hand out eight of them, especially with some of these new "leagues" being mediocre at best.
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NCAA By-laws state that you need a minimum of 6 teams to get an AQ. Nothing about quality. If it shakes out with 8 AQ's that means 1/2 the field is AQ and 1/2 the field is At-Large. I'm OK with that.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

joecct said:
If it shakes out with 8 AQ's that means 1/2 the field is AQ and 1/2 the field is At-Large. I'm OK with that.
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FWIW, the NCAA Basketball Tournament is rougly 1/2 and 1/2 (31 AQs, 37 at-large).

If having 8 conferences means that the sport grows to 65-70 programs, I'm all for it.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

Biddco said:
These rumors seemed to be more and more farfetched.
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At least the Liberty Hockey League rumor is pretty much just a recycle of the age-old rumor of the Ivies splitting off of the ECAC. Just swap Quinnipiac for RIT and you've got it.

Edit: Hey, while we're throwing **** on the wall to see what sticks- might as well just throw in the other Patriot League schools with Colgate (Holy Cross, Army... Navy?) and have a Liberty-Patriot Hockey League.
 
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Re: Realignment Rumors

Jeff_Jackson_for_Pres. said:
Oh, and there have been distant rumblings about ND joining HE.
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Supposedly the "Super Six Conference" would have an interlocking schedule with Hockey East.

Biddco said:
These rumors seemed to be more and more farfetched.
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You can bet that the coaching shake-ups and rumors this offseason are tied to possible realignment.
 
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Re: Realignment Rumors

Goon’s World Hypocrisy – Goon has been crying about the Big Ten HC for months now saying how much it will hurt smaller teams in the CCHA and WCHA and how it’s just bad for college hockey in general. Fast forward to this week when there have been rumors of a possible conference of CC, DU, UND, ND, MIA, and UNO….he writes a post how UND should jump at that chances and how great it would be….that’s hilarious to me because it shows he’s true thoughts about power conferences….he is obviously worried about what the BTHC will do to the WCHA and instead of admitting that he tried to play it off as it will just hurt college hockey in general but all mighty powerful UND will be just fine in the WCHA….funny how he changed his mind about bolting to a new conference though after a rumor surfaced. Guess Loony Goony isn’t worried about the small college hockey schools after all and was just worried about his Susie’s in the new watered down WCHA! I love nothing more than watching Susie's fans squirm and lie to themselves because they don't want to admit what a great thing the Gophs and Sconi will have when the Big Ten starts!

I can’t wait until 2013 when the BTHC dominates college hockey!
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

And also, a conference as far flung as UMD & DU and Miami makes no ****ed sense. It won't happen. UND, while the current champ are not yet a premier program like Miami or ND. They are not going to double their travel budget to play a team that does not even have their own arena.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

The most preposterous thing about the proposed MIA, NDAME, NDAK, UNO, CC, DU conference is the fact that, other than Denver-CC and Miami-Notre Dame, every road trip is 499 miles or more, with 60% of trips over 800 miles. That doesn't seem too cost effective.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

peten16 said:
And also, a conference as far flung as UMD & DU and Miami makes no ****ed sense. It won't happen. UND, while the current champ are not yet a premier program like Miami or ND. They are not going to double their travel budget to play a team that does not even have their own arena.
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The current champ is UMD, as in Minnesota-Duluth. The ND's here are Notre Dame and North Dakota.

And what does it matter if the team has its own arena or not? Of the six teams mentioned, four have their own on campus facilities, while Nebraska-Omaha plays at the Qwest Center, which is a great facility. UNO also has plans underway to build their own facility on campus.
 
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Re: Realignment Rumors

dggoddard said:
Supposedly the "Super Six Conference" would have an interlocking schedule with Hockey East.

You can bet that the coaching shake-ups and rumors this offseason are tied to possible realignment.
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The real question is what does UND believe is best for UND. My fear is that the teams left out in the west will be in serious trouble in an unstable situation. Expansion will only occur with stable conferences, not with conferences where teams are always on the verge of folding the program.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

Almington said:
Expansion will only occur with stable conferences, not with conferences where teams are always on the verge of folding the program.
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And here is the real kicker. The current situation is said to be not conducive to expansion (full conferences). How is the following scenario any better?:

BTHC - 6 - only open to more B1G schools
Anti-BTHC - UND, UND, Miami, UNO, CC, DU - only open to "power" teams
the "left-over" conference/s - whoever doesn't fold that's left from the C/WCHA - open to expansion, but like the CHA, who would want to spend money so they could join this group of out-casts?
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

dggoddard said:
Supposedly the "Super Six Conference" would have an interlocking schedule with Hockey East.

You can bet that the coaching shake-ups and rumors this offseason are tied to possible realignment.
Click to expand...
Not with a 27 game schedule in HEA, they won't. If HEA cuts it down to 18, then you have a possibility.

What if we put the D-I's with the D-I's and the D-II play-ups with the D-II's? And then the NCAA puts in a National Collegiate Championship for D-I/II.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

moose97 said:
And here is the real kicker. The current situation is said to be not conducive to expansion (full conferences). How is the following scenario any better?:

BTHC - 6 - only open to more B1G schools
Anti-BTHC - UND, UND, Miami, UNO, CC, DU - only open to "power" teams
the "left-over" conference/s - whoever doesn't fold that's left from the C/WCHA - open to expansion, but like the CHA, who would want to spend money so they could join this group of out-casts?
Click to expand...

I think that a conference of SCSU, UMD, BSU, MTU, NMU and MSUM would have some stability should an Anti-6 conference form and the political pressure inside MN might be enough to keep MN playing those teams (at least the 4 MN based teams) on a semi-regular basis.

The real losers would be the other 6 teams: UAA, UA(F), Ferris, WMU, LSSU, and BGSU. Those neams needing a home may cause a cascade through AH and ECAC breaking the teams up into 3 or 4 smaller conferences.

I think that at the end of the day if all that happens, 2 major changes happen:
1.) college hockey loses between 2-4 teams
2.) The tournament returns to a 12 team format.
 
Re: Realignment Rumors

davyd83 said:
The most preposterous thing about the proposed MIA, NDAME, NDAK, UNO, CC, DU conference is the fact that, other than Denver-CC and Miami-Notre Dame, every road trip is 499 miles or more, with 60% of trips over 800 miles. That doesn't seem too cost effective.
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Which is why the new proposed rumor will never happen.

peten16 said:
Because clearly those teams dominated this year!!!
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hmmm.. This year? What does that have to do with three years from now?
 
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