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The New WCHA (2013-14)

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Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

I love hearing how other schools think that bus travel to UAH is the worst thing ever, given that our players do it all of the time. As I've stated here before, our fly dates would be Anchorage, Fairbanks, Bemidji, and probably Mankato, and we would bus to Bowling Green, Big Rapids, Houghton, Marquette, and the Soo. Six of the nine member schools have been here for travel in the last fifteen years, which is the extent of my affiliation with the program. If NMU and LSSU have figured out how to make it here on NC trips, I'm sure that the intelligent folks at Tech will find a way to make it happen.

Again, given those six schools have made the trips here as non-conference opponents, they know what they're getting themselves into. Bemidji [10-11] and Lake State [11-12] know the best having done it most recently. Though I have not spoken with our folks in Athletics about it, I'm sure that a travel subsidy has been discussed. I do not know our take on that. I know that we offered $70k/yr to the CCHA offices three years ago, so I would consider that the high bound in the discussion.

All I want is for the discussion to be had. There may not be any number short of full subsidy that gets some schools interested, and I'm pretty certain that such a number would not be tenable for us. [We don't have a big oil field managed by the state to draw upon.]

As for the "good of college hockey" line of argument: it holds no sway with me. If it did, we would be in the CCHA now and hopefully have a WCHA offer along with everyone else. If it does now, teams will look at our record and recruiting for the last few years and see that it is impossible to be a successful independent program in the current college hockey environment, and therefore some league will take us in. The WCHA makes more sense than other leagues do.

GFM
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

moose97 said:
You're thinking of Bemidji State. UMD and MSU scheduled BSU every year from '99-'00 through them joining the WCHA last year. UND had BSU on the schedule most years, and SCSU and UMinn every now and then. In addition, the WCHA had announced a scheduling agreement with BSU ~ a year and a half before officially admitting them to the conference.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, Moose --- and you can yell at me on the phone if you feel the need --- but didn't the BSU President essentially say it was WCHA or bust?

GFM
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

gfmorris said:
I love hearing how other schools think that bus travel to UAH is the worst thing ever, given that our players do it all of the time. As I've stated here before, our fly dates would be Anchorage, Fairbanks, Bemidji, and probably Mankato, and we would bus to Bowling Green, Big Rapids, Houghton, Marquette, and the Soo. Six of the nine member schools have been here for travel in the last fifteen years, which is the extent of my affiliation with the program. If NMU and LSSU have figured out how to make it here on NC trips, I'm sure that the intelligent folks at Tech will find a way to make it happen.
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Why Mankato? Houghton and Marquette are both further than Mankato.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

bigblue_dl said:
Why Mankato? Houghton and Marquette are both further than Mankato.
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I was kinda thinking the same thing.

And just spitballing, it's (obviously) cheaper to fly from a hub to hub. I wonder if the WCHA, UAH, MTU, NMU, LSSU got together with an airline, if Green Bay to Nashville flights (guaranteed 25 people round trip) would allow a discount to be cut throughout the winter season. A three hour bus ride to Green Bay, two hour flight, and an hour and a half bus ride from Nashville or Birmingham would be easy to handle in a day. I'm sure that's been bandied about already though.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

LSSULaker889294 said:
Will UAH fold after 2012-13 if the WCHA rejects them?
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IMO, yes.

And I don't think the scheduling agreement idea that someone has floated a couple times changes that - if they willing to do that, why not just add them?

Think the remaining egg(s) in the WCHA basket, and I get the feeling that AH has already indicated that it's not interested.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

I think there is good arguments for both for and against taking in UAH. I realize the travel is a "burden" but if you are going to play D1 sports, then you need to commit to the "burden". I know before BSU went to the WCHA they flew quite a bit more. This was without the guaranteed trips to their arena from UND, UMD, etc. Lets not forget that MN never came to Bemidji but once before they came to the WCHA.

As for the travel to ALASKA, I like the idea, it gives them another couple games per year to get the old rivals back to their arena. Lets be honest, its going to take some time/if ever for Bemidji or Mankato fans look forward to playing Ferris State or BGSU. So if a trip or two to alaska a year allows us an extra few home games to get MN or UND here than perfect. Plus, for BSU, we are saving the trips to CO twice a year.

I'm in between on the scheduled conference games. I think 16 is too few, but I don't like 28 either. I would prefer to see about 24, giving a team the option to get 12-16 (depending on the alaska trips) non conference games. This gives teams like BSU and MSU the chance to get games against old rivals UMD, SCSU, UND, and MN who will also be looking for games. The NaCHO teams are kidding themselves if they think that eastern teams will be lining up to come out west to play all "super league" teams.

Still lots to hash out, I am hoping there are some updates really soon from the new WCHA this spring/summer to give us indications that they are on the right path, which means the first conference call should be about replacing McLeod and the Ref's.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Well exactly what are the good and bad reasons to include UAH? GOOD; Evens out conference for scheduling. If another team closes shop one more is in conference. The right thing to do. BAD; Travel time. Travel cost.

What else?
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

giwan said:
Well exactly what are the good and bad reasons to include UAH? GOOD; Evens out conference for scheduling. If another team closes shop one more is in conference. The right thing to do. BAD; Travel time. Travel cost.

What else?
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Well one other negative would be requiring UAH to guarantee the 14(tbd) games at Von Braun Arena be played at 6-8pm Friday/Saturday. It looks like most of their home games were played on those days of the week at those times but there were a few exceptions this season...
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

giwan said:
Well exactly what are the good and bad reasons to include UAH? GOOD; Evens out conference for scheduling. If another team closes shop one more is in conference. The right thing to do. BAD; Travel time. Travel cost.

What else?
Click to expand...

good, if UAH joins everyone else travels to alaska less.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

In the southwest conference, they have a special charter company based in San Marcos, Texas that provides charters for all the SWC teams using a Dornier Turboprop. They do it every weekend all season long, AND it can be done for a lot less than they charge.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

manurespreader said:
In the southwest conference, they have a special charter company based in San Marcos, Texas that provides charters for all the SWC teams using a Dornier Turboprop. They do it every weekend all season long, AND it can be done for a lot less than they charge.
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of course the problem with hockey is all the equipment required...
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Shirtless Guy said:
of course the problem with hockey is all the equipment required...
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Yeah, but it's easy enough to send most of it out on Wednesday after practice and not worry about it missing class or how it feels after being stuck in transit for 20+ hours.
 
jdmaxim23 said:
I would prefer to see about 24, giving a team the option to get 12-16 (depending on the alaska trips) non conference games. This gives teams like BSU and MSU the chance to get games against old rivals UMD, SCSU, UND, and MN who will also be looking for games.
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The more non-conference games we have with the likes of them, the more we'll be on the road. They won't come to Mankato often, if at all. At least conference games are 50-50 home/away.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

I hate how this all went down, but I actually think as a fan of "western" hockey (e.g. WCHA and CCHA) this league will be intriguing.

I wonder if this will be a competitive league year in, year out with programs switching from top to bottom yearly or will there be dominant teams? Anybody have a feeling on who the dominant teams might be? Obviously, Ferris State had a good year this year. Tech was solid. Bemidji State has been pretty competitive. I don't know if that means they'll do well in the new WCHA year in and year out or if we'll see few, if any, dominant teams. I remember when Northern Michigan, Lake Superior State, and Bowling Green had solid programs.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

MavsFan said:
The more non-conference games we have with the likes of them, the more we'll be on the road. They won't come to Mankato often, if at all. At least conference games are 50-50 home/away.
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For a 34 or 36 game schedule, 24 conference games is just about perfect in my mind. 2/3 of the games are conference games and 1/3 are out of conference games. Its enough games to build rivalries and determine a regular season champ while still giving 5 or 6 series against different teams.

Stop whining about teams not visiting Mankato. MN has already agreed to play games at Kato and I suspect that UMD and SCSU will also visit on a regular basis. Mankato and UNO were playing for many years even before UNO joined the WCHA. The ECAC non-ivies have 6 series to fill and most of them will gladly visit Kato (or anywhere else) for a return trip.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

TheEagle said:
I hate how this all went down, but I actually think as a fan of "western" hockey (e.g. WCHA and CCHA) this league will be intriguing.

I wonder if this will be a competitive league year in, year out with programs switching from top to bottom yearly or will there be dominant teams? Anybody have a feeling on who the dominant teams might be? Obviously, Ferris State had a good year this year. Tech was solid. Bemidji State has been pretty competitive. I don't know if that means they'll do well in the new WCHA year in and year out or if we'll see few, if any, dominant teams. I remember when Northern Michigan, Lake Superior State, and Bowling Green had solid programs.
Click to expand...

I think that the name of the game will be parity. As things stand most of these programs are relatively close to each other performance wise and I don't see that changing much. I don't see any program (or group of programs) as coming to dominate the league.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Once a team starts winning though, then that team may start winning higher end recruits compared to the rest of the league. I think there will be parity initially, but it might be a race to see who can "get off to a good start." I'm hoping it's Bemidji State, but Northern Michigan stands out as a team to me that could become a force in this league.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Tech seems like the most likely if their recruiting budget increased at a similar rate to their pay for coaching.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

It will be interesting to see if the teams from the WCHA do better than the CCHA teams or vice versa. Realignment took 8 of the stronger teams from the old WCHA and 5 from the old CCHA. My gut tells me that the CCHA teams will have an advantage--at least early. Both Alaska teams have struggled for awhile. I think Bemidji State probably has an advantage on Minnesota State. Not sure what to make of the good year by Ferris State and the decent year by Michigan Tech. Lake Superior State is another team that could be pretty good in this league.
 
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