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Should and Could There be a Big Ten Womens Conference?

H

Hockeybuckeye

Well-known member
When the men's CCHA and WCHA conferences were broken up when the Big Ten men's hockey conference came into being I've often wondered when will it will eventually happen for the women and what benefits and consequences would there be?
 
Sure there should be a Big Ten hockey conference. However, I am not sure it works as Minnesota St Cloud, UMD, Bemiji and Minn State would be left out and lots of Big Ten Schools don't have women's hockey.

The bigger question in my opinion would be: I'm not sure how the Univ of Mich, Mich State and Notre Dame don't have D1 women's hockey.
 
Reddington said:
The bigger question in my opinion would be: I'm not sure how the Univ of Mich, Mich State and Notre Dame don't have D1 women's hockey.
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I would ask the same question.
Michigan State just upgraded Munn Arena but I don't believe the upgrades included provisions to accommodate a women's team. Their old arena, Demonstration Hall still has ice and seating and could be ideal for a women's team. I heard the most likely reason is they just don't want to spend the money.
As far as Notre Dame it certainly isn't a lack of money, so I'm puzzled why they don't. Illinois has long been looking at a men's but I have no idea if those discussions included a women's program.
 
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In learning from the lessons of the B18 men's hockey conference firing up, I'd say it's a bad idea. I'm a traditionalist and I like traditional matchups. If other B18 schools would start women's teams, just fit them in where it makes geographically.

The bigger question is all the B18 schools are flush with football and basketball money, it's criminal they won't use a small slice of the hundreds of millions of dollars pie and start women's hockey teams, especially if they have a rink for a men's team.
 
The money is absolutely wild. From a Columbus Dispatch article this summer regarding the new tv rights deal for Big Ten:

“ESPN's Adam Rittenberg reports that the agreement is valued at more than $7 billion.

The Big Ten is expected to eventually distribute $80-$100 million per year to each of its 16 members of the conference after USC and UCLA arrive in 2024.

According to USA Today, in the conference's most recent fiscal year not impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, it issued $54.3 million to most of its members”
 
Worst-case scenario from my mind would be if USC and UCLA added women's hockey to trigger the mandate that the Big Billion form a women's ice hockey league. Not as bad as travel to/from Alaska, but ...

I imagine that the creation of the men's league must have helped someone, but it doesn't seem to be any of the BIG teams. PSU and OSU, maybe.

It would be interesting to see if UND would have another go at a women's team if they could now join a league without OSU/UW/UM.
 
From a Penn State fan perspective, I would love for there to be a Big Ten women's hockey conference, but I don't see it happening anytime soon as Michigan, Michigan State, & Notre Dame do not appear interested in sponsoring women's hockey. If it did happen I suspect the WCHA would add Lindenwood and maintain at least 6 teams, but the remaining CHA teams (RIT, Syracuse, Mercyhurst, and Robert Morris) would probably need to find a new conference or persuade some NEWHA teams to move to CHA. So it would have a similar effect that adding a Big Ten men's hockey conference did in terms of conference realignment.
 
I know Michigan doesn't have the room at Yost to have a woman's team. The visitors locker room is a tarped off section of the south end of the concourse!
They would have to add onto the building and the only place they could do it is on the south end and lose a good portion of the parking lot there. The current administration would never do it. I do remember years ago Red saying he would never share Yost with a women's team.
 
Lindsay said:
The money is absolutely wild. From a Columbus Dispatch article this summer regarding the new tv rights deal for Big Ten:

“ESPN's Adam Rittenberg reports that the agreement is valued at more than $7 billion.

The Big Ten is expected to eventually distribute $80-$100 million per year to each of its 16 members of the conference after USC and UCLA arrive in 2024.

According to USA Today, in the conference's most recent fiscal year not impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, it issued $54.3 million to most of its members”
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And that's just the tv money. And where does all that money go? I don't think I want to know.
 
Reddington said:
Sure there should be a Big Ten hockey conference. However, I am not sure it works as Minnesota St Cloud, UMD, Bemiji and Minn State would be left out and lots of Big Ten Schools don't have women's hockey.

The bigger question in my opinion would be: I'm not sure how the Univ of Mich, Mich State and Notre Dame don't have D1 women's hockey.
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This has been a question for many years. None of those three colleges should be considered to be serious hockey programs until they find a way to get beyond their serious biases.
 
hab said:
This has been a question for many years. None of those three colleges should be considered to be serious hockey programs until they find a way to get beyond their serious biases.
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Don't forget if any Big Ten schools who don't have a men's team, if they add one Title IX mandates they add a new women's sport but it doesn't have to be a women's hockey team. It could be a women's bowling team if you get my meaning.
 
Hockeybuckeye said:
When the men's CCHA and WCHA conferences were broken up when the Big Ten men's hockey conference came into being I've often wondered when will it will eventually happen for the women and what benefits and consequences would there be?
Click to expand...

The Big 10 bylaws state that there must be at least six conference teams playing a sport at the varsity level in order for it to become a league sport. So, until two more schools add women's hockey, there cannot be a Big 10 conference. Note that having six teams does not mean that a sport must be a conference sport.
 
Reddington said:
The bigger question in my opinion would be: I'm not sure how the Univ of Mich, Mich State and Notre Dame don't have D1 women's hockey.
Click to expand...

I don't know about MSU and UND, but the University of Michigan studied the possibility of adding women's ice hockey a while back. What they concluded was that, for the same cost of adding women's hockey, they could add men's and women's lacrosse, providing more athletic opportunities. As some have noted above, adding women's hockey would require either playing at The Cube, far from campus in so-so facilities, or building a new rink on campus.

While I would love for the Wolverines to add women's ice hockey, since I grew up attending men's games there, I find it hard to argue against a decision to add more sports and opportunities.
 
Still Eeyore said:
As some have noted above, adding women's hockey would require either playing at The Cube, far from campus in so-so facilities, or building a new rink on campus.
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I don't know where on campus they could put a new rink and if they did it would be for the women only. The fans and alumni would revolt if they tried to move the men out of Yost, it's iconic and much loved by them.
 
Timothy A said:
And that's just the tv money. And where does all that money go? I don't think I want to know.
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Speaking for Ohio State's cut there was an interview with Coach Muzerall some time back and she was asked how she was able to recruit so well and she replied that we have a football team that brings in a lot of money to the athletic department and her program gets a nice share of it.
 
Hockeybuckeye said:
Speaking for Ohio State's cut there was an interview with Coach Muzerall some time back and she was asked how she was able to recruit so well and she replied that we have a football team that brings in a lot of money to the athletic department and her program gets a nice share of it.
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But, if she thought they were getting screwed she'd never come out and say it, she's way too smart for that. Wasn't Oz's firing from the men's team because he was openly griping about the lack of support the men's team was given?
 
Timothy A said:
Wasn't Oz's firing from the men's team because he was openly griping about the lack of support the men's team was given?
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I never heard the facts of that but the popular opinion was influential people weren't happy with him and he was indifferent to the hockey alumni. Rumors only, not facts.
 
A very selfish NO here! I think the WCHA is a great conference with historic rivalries. We Minnesotans can drive to every away game easily, except OSU. The away games are a great diversion from winter and a good excuse to get away on the weekends.
 
drewkal said:
A very selfish NO here! I think the WCHA is a great conference with historic rivalries. We Minnesotans can drive to every away game easily, except OSU. The away games are a great diversion from winter and a good excuse to get away on the weekends.
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I don't think your opinion is selfish. I wasn't happy at all when the formation of the Big Ten men's conference messed up the WCHA & CCHA and no doubt it would seriously mess up WCHA women's.
 
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