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WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

SJHovey said:
In the WCHA, three went up (Mankato, Tech and BG) while 7 went down. In the NCHC, only North Dakota increased its attendance, with the other 7 showing declines.

What do I think this shows? Teams in the NCHC and WCHA counted on the attendance boosts brought on by the appearance of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan St. in their arenas. I don't think the creation of the NCHC had anything to do with shifts in attendance or interest at these western schools, either by increasing attendance at the NCHC schools or decreasing it at the WCHA schools.

I think that if we want to help college hockey, two things need to happen. First, each conference has to take a close look at whether a conference tournament makes sense financially, as opposed to playoff games on campus at the higher seeds.

Second, I think it's incumbent upon the "name" schools in college hockey (and I mean all of them) to make a conscious effort to be willing to schedule away non-conference games with many different programs, not just traditional rivals.
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sort of.
even after back-to-back 20-win seasons in the WCHA, BGSU's avg. attendance is up a paltry amount from the darkest days in the CCHA. meh. so yeah, your attendance analysis is cursory at best.
the WCHA hasn't done us any favors, at least attendance-wise. in the WCHA era, best attendance at the Madhouse on Mercer has been vs. Miami and OSU. (This year's "home" game vs. Western might have been better, except that it was in Toledo during winter break.) The early Dec. series vs. league-leading Mankato was among the worst attended series of the season.
Clearly, what this shows is that fans here care more about seeing old rivals from Ohio and Michigan (whether big name or not-so-big-name) than new opponents from distant lands.
oh yeah, BTW...BG's avg. attendance was still better than Miami's this year. Sounds like the Redskinhawks could benefit from playing more in Ohio and Michigan too... ;)
 
Arafel said:
So you'd rather forgo teams like Tech and Minnesota State making the NCAA tournament than have a power conference? If North Dakota, Denver, St. Cloud, and Duluth were still in the WCHA, and Miami still in the CCHA, would Minnesota State or Michigan Tech have made the NCAA tournament last year? No, they wouldn't have.

Now those school have an additional recruiting tool: come play for us and have a chance to play in the NCAA tournament on the big stage.
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Yes
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

Superfly100 said:
Tipsy... Tipsy... Tipsy...

Deep down you know they didn't beat us. We beat ourselves. You know they were lucky to walk out of there with a win.
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Let me stop the chain of everyone ****ing up the quotes.

Does saying you beat yourselves make you feel better? If you are going to say St. Cloud was a team that didn't deserve to be in, how could the mighty Michigan Tech lose to them?
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

Tipsy McStagger said:
If you are going to say St. Cloud was a team that didn't deserve to be in, how could the mighty Michigan Tech lose to them?
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Because those two things are completely unrelated to each other. It's like saying Colorado College must be a tournament team this year because they were able to beat St. Cloud.
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

MaizeRage said:
Because those two things are completely unrelated to each other. It's like saying Colorado College must be a tournament team this year because they were able to beat St. Cloud.
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No it isn't because the one team actually made the tournament and proved they belonged by winning. CC beat St Cloud in a regular season game.
 
Tipsy McStagger said:
Let me stop the chain of everyone ****ing up the quotes.

Does saying you beat yourselves make you feel better? If you are going to say St. Cloud was a team that didn't deserve to be in, how could the mighty Michigan Tech lose to them?
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Nope, not better. Still stings like a b****. We should have had that one.

And, I didn't say SCSU didn't deserve to be in. I just find it ironic that when we were losing, it was because of our bad performance, but now that we've turned it around, it's not because our good performance but because we're lucky enough to not have to play the "top tier" schools.
 
Superfly100 said:
Nope, not better. Still stings like a b****. We should have had that one.

And, I didn't say SCSU didn't deserve to be in. I just find it ironic that when we were losing, it was because of our bad performance, but now that we've turned it around, it's not because our good performance but because we're lucky enough to not have to play the "top tier" schools.
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If you think that Michigan Tech and Mankato making the NCAA tournament on a somewhat regular basis now is in no way related to the fact that they are no longer in a conference with UND, Minnesota, Denver, Wisco, SCSU and UMD then I disagree.

And if they want to prove otherwise I guess they are going to have to start winning in the NCAA tournament.
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

Tipsy McStagger said:
No it isn't because the one team actually made the tournament and proved they belonged by winning. CC beat St Cloud in a regular season game.
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So if Colorado College was, somehow, place as the four seed in St. Paul in this weekend, it was be literally *impossible* that they beat St. Cloud because they don't belong in the tournament?
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

MaizeRage said:
So if Colorado College was, somehow, place as the four seed in St. Paul in this weekend, it was be literally *impossible* that they beat St. Cloud because they don't belong in the tournament?
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Can you please re-type this in English, please?

UMD is 18-15-5. If they beat Providence, does that not prove they belong in the tourney? Is that an impossible scenario? Isn't that a more similar situation than whatever ham-handed point you are trying to make with CC, who is 55th in the PWR and would under no circumstances make the tournament?
 
SJHovey said:
I guess my question is how do we know if college hockey has "changed for the better?" Is there some sort of tool we're using to measure that?

I noticed something interesting as I looked at the attendance statistics on USCHO for the 2012-13 season, compared with the current season. Out of 59 teams in Div. I hockey (ignored ASU), 24 teams have had their average attendance increase, while 35 saw it decrease. But what's more interesting is when you break the teams down by conference.

In Hockey East (I've included Conn and Notre Dame in HE), 5 went up in attendance, seven down. In the ECAC it was exactly the opposite, 7 up and 5 down. The AHA saw 5 go up and 6 go down. In the B1G it was 3-3.

In other words, in each conference about half the teams increased and half decreased.

This is where it got interesting.

In the WCHA, three went up (Mankato, Tech and BG) while 7 went down. In the NCHC, only North Dakota increased its attendance, with the other 7 showing declines.

What do I think this shows? Teams in the NCHC and WCHA counted on the attendance boosts brought on by the appearance of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan St. in their arenas. I don't think the creation of the NCHC had anything to do with shifts in attendance or interest at these western schools, either by increasing attendance at the NCHC schools or decreasing it at the WCHA schools.

I think that if we want to help college hockey, two things need to happen. First, each conference has to take a close look at whether a conference tournament makes sense financially, as opposed to playoff games on campus at the higher seeds.

Second, I think it's incumbent upon the "name" schools in college hockey (and I mean all of them) to make a conscious effort to be willing to schedule away non-conference games with many different programs, not just traditional rivals.
Click to expand...

I guess when I'm talking about viability, I'm talking about f8nances. Msu may have gone up in attendance, but ticket revenue likely went down as the price decreased by $2. Expenses went up due to additional travel costs. Judging by the comments from league commissioners seem to suggest that costs are rising significantly.

I agree that many schools were depending on the larger schools. That's kinda how sports work. You depend on some teams to support the rest. Every major professional sport does it. They all have revenue sharing for a reason. Sports aren't lime the free market where it's every man/company for itself. Sports need to have multiple teams strong and weak. And they need to work together. The p5 conferences are turning that idea on its head. My opinion is that they are taking college athletics down a bad rabbit hole that is going to have some serious ramifications on those other schools that have.little to nothing to do with them.
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

Tipsy, give it a REST!. geesh. And I agree with bale, however one additional point. the B1g teams want 2 for 1's and offer a fee to those teams coming in. However the fee is not really enough to offset the loss of revenue that the small schools experience by not having a home game. So to me the b1g needs to up the fee if they want to continue the 2 for 1 bs. ( which I think will end soon anyway) and even if they do, the small schools are suffering.

And one other thing. it might be that the b1g Wants the small schools to suffer as a way to start winning games. Witness the lucia rules change proposal and the ASU stuff. the big schools believe that the small schools don't deserve to be on the same field with them and are using the financial clout they have to make sure of it.
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

Bale said:
I guess when I'm talking about viability, I'm talking about f8nances. Msu may have gone up in attendance, but ticket revenue likely went down as the price decreased by $2. Expenses went up due to additional travel costs. Judging by the comments from league commissioners seem to suggest that costs are rising significantly.

I agree that many schools were depending on the larger schools. That's kinda how sports work. You depend on some teams to support the rest. Every major professional sport does it. They all have revenue sharing for a reason. Sports aren't lime the free market where it's every man/company for itself. Sports need to have multiple teams strong and weak. And they need to work together. The p5 conferences are turning that idea on its head. My opinion is that they are taking college athletics down a bad rabbit hole that is going to have some serious ramifications on those other schools that have.little to nothing to do with them.
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Though it may sound like Bernie, the major league teams have some sort of socialism. What that does is lift all the teams up which makes everyone a winner $$$. Don't see that in college athletics, it's more I got mine.
 
giwan said:
Though it may sound like Bernie, the major league teams have some sort of socialism. What that does is lift all the teams up which makes everyone a winner $$$. Don't see that in college athletics, it's more I got mine.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Except I'd argue that it's not socialism at all, although that's what people do believe. The major leagues understand that in essense, they are one business that provides a single product. Take the nfl for example. We can all look at the Cowboys and say they are a great single business that creates a ton of revenue on their own. But do they? Can the Cowboys exist without the other 31 teams that make up the nfl? Can they sell themselves as a tour that goes out and does exhibitions against themselves? Of course not. There is a reason that the nfl continually has and continually talks about expansion. It's because they understand that by growing the pie, they all make more money. But if they consolidate that power and other teams shrink, they all suffer.

The ncaa has glazed over that. They all lok at each other as their own separate business, when it's really not. It's a unique structure for sure. To me, this seems like a weird path for them to go down.

EDIT: sorry, that came off very know-it-allish. Not my intent.
 
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Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
The arena could've literally been empty, and it still probably would've made more money than the other two tournaments.
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This is a false assumption, thinking that the BTN would make up the revenue for the conference. The only BTN revenue you can contribute to hockey is that revenue received in excess of airing the usual tOSU/Michigan highlight reel from 1975 or so. Then you need to subtract the added cost of the crew required to run the live broadcast over the meager costs of an engineer running simple highlight reel. Given that college hockey doesn't exactly pull in huge numbers, the ad revenue probably didn't spike. The network's subscriber revenue has already been received and doesn't increase because of the hockey games. With the high costs associated of renting out the Xcel Center, and the mere 472 fans that found seats in the arena, the B16's tournament was a likely money loser for the conference. They'd be better off using a campus rink and not airing the games on TV.
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

St. Clown said:
This is a false assumption, thinking that the BTN would make up the revenue for the conference. The only BTN revenue you can contribute to hockey is that revenue received in excess of airing the usual tOSU/Michigan highlight reel from 1975 or so. Then you need to subtract the added cost of the crew required to run the live broadcast over the meager costs of an engineer running simple highlight reel. Given that college hockey doesn't exactly pull in huge numbers, the ad revenue probably didn't spike. The network's subscriber revenue has already been received and doesn't increase because of the hockey games. With the high costs associated of renting out the Xcel Center, and the mere 472 fans that found seats in the arena, the B16's tournament was a likely money loser for the conference. They'd be better off using a campus rink and not airing the games on TV.
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Don't even bother. People have been trying to tell the Gopher fans this for the past three years to no avail.
 
Re: WCHA Pushing To Team With Big Ten, NCHC For Conference Tournaments

geezer said:
This is easy to assume, but not provable. Tech had a good team last year, and beat some top ten teams which is why they had the #1 ranking for a while. They played one of the toughest schedules in the country.
Similar story for Mankato. Remember that both teams made the tournament on their merits last year.
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I'd say both Tech and Mankato would have made the tournament last year BUT had they been in the oWCHA, they aren't top seeds. Replace their sweeps against the lower level nWCHA teams with splits at best against UND, UMD, SCSU, UNO, Denver, and Minnesota and they are different seeds. Mankato split with both UNO and UMD and took 4 of 5 from Tech. Think the logic plays out there.

All that being said, still think the positive out of the realignment has been the opportunity for tourney slots for teams that wouldn't have likely seen them under the old setup. And as far as conference tourneys, I think campus sites is something that needs to be looked at. Think one of the UND posters called it out pretty well.
 
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