What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

Minnesota is going to play a large portion of it's non-conference schedule in-state, for good reason, so don't expect too may apologies for that. There is also a lot of pressure to get UND back on the schedule. The Gophers will be traveling to Notre Dame next season, and then to BC/BU/NU in the upcoming years. I'm sure they will continue to make trips out East (as Don Lucia has said that is a goal now with less conference games).

I'm just saying, it's really hard to take your complaints seriously when you pick and choose which programs to criticize.

I have absolutely no problem with you guys playing in state teams. You should. That's what NC is for. The complaints are not about WHO you play. It is about WHERE you play.

 

[mnstate0fhockey]

I have absolutely no problem with you guys playing in state teams. You should. That's what NC is for. The complaints are not about WHO you play. It is about WHERE you play.

And WHERE should the Gophers be playing where they aren't?

They are playing games out East. They are visiting other in-state teams. They did give up home games to play in the MN Cup. They are working to get long-time rival North Dakota back on the schedule and travel to Grand Forks.

Again though, hard to take this criticism seriously when you pick and choose which teams you want to criticize.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

And WHERE should the Gophers be playing where they aren't?

They are playing games out East. They are visiting other in-state teams. They did give up home games to play in the MN Cup. They are working to get long-time rival North Dakota back on the schedule and travel to Grand Forks.

Again though, hard to take this criticism seriously when you pick and choose which teams you want to criticize.

How many of those NC games with Minnesota teams are they traveling, and how many are they at home? Obviously we know about 2 at Xcel.

 

[Bale]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

How many of those NC games with Minnesota teams are they traveling, and how many are they at home? Obviously we know about 2 at Xcel.

2 at Xcel. 2 away. 4 at home.

EDIT: ie 4 home, 4 away/non-home

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

2 at Xcel. 2 away. 4 at home.

EDIT: ie 4 home, 4 away/non-home

Do we know about the other 8 yet? 2 I know are at home and constitute the IceBreaker, but for sake of argument we won't count those because they are exempt from the 34 limit.

 

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

And WHERE should the Gophers be playing where they aren't?

They are playing games out East. They are visiting other in-state teams. They did give up home games to play in the MN Cup. They are working to get long-time rival North Dakota back on the schedule and travel to Grand Forks.

Again though, hard to take this criticism seriously when you pick and choose which teams you want to criticize.

This gets at some of the phoniness in the way Appert did his counting. Tournament games? Those apparently don't count, even if you travel halfway across the country. (By that reasoning, BTW, neither BC nor Northeastern played any non-league road games, and Dartmouth had only 1, all the way to Boston).
But the big holes in his argument are distance, and the cost involved. For most of the old WCHA teams, there were no nearby non-league teams they could play, like a BC-Harvard, Brown-Providence, etc. Every non-conf game we would add to the schedule would require extensive travel costs on someone's part, and we were already spending way more on league travel than all the ECAC, HE, AH, or even CCHA teams. MSU-M, for instance, made conference trips to Alaska, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wisconsin last year. That's likely more conference miles traveled than all the ECAC teams combined. Then we're supposed to make long, costly non-conference trips as well? And to where? Before the conference realignment, the Minnesota schools only had one non-conf opponent even in the same time zone (UAH). Traveling for non-conference games just wasn't worth the cost. I suppose we'll do more of it now with realignment, just to play the same schools, but I'm not sure what Appert thinks is a fair solution.

 

[mnstate0fhockey]

How many of those NC games with Minnesota teams are they traveling, and how many are they at home? Obviously we know about 2 at Xcel.

18 home games (at Mariucci) including the Mariucci Classic and Ice Breaker. The rest on the road. Ten of those road games will be conference games, so the rest are non-conference. Includes 2 games at XCel, 2 at Bemidji, and 2 at Notre Dame. Those are the only ones I know of off the top of my head. Missing one series.

 

[mnstate0fhockey]

This gets at some of the phoniness in the way Appert did his counting. Tournament games? Those apparently don't count, even if you travel halfway across the country. (By that reasoning, BTW, neither BC nor Northeastern played any non-league road games, and Dartmouth had only 1, all the way to Boston).
But the big holes in his argument are distance, and the cost involved. For most of the old WCHA teams, there were no nearby non-league teams they could play, like a BC-Harvard, Brown-Providence, etc. Every non-conf game we would add to the schedule would require extensive travel costs on someone's part, and we were already spending way more on league travel than all the ECAC, HE, AH, or even CCHA teams. MSU-M, for instance, made conference trips to Alaska, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wisconsin last year. That's likely more conference miles traveled than all the ECAC teams combined. Then we're supposed to make long, costly non-conference trips as well? And to where? Before the conference realignment, the Minnesota schools only had one non-conf opponent even in the same time zone (UAH). Traveling for non-conference games just wasn't worth the cost. I suppose we'll do more of it now with realignment, just to play the same schools, but I'm not sure what Appert thinks is a fair solution.

Well said.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

This gets at some of the phoniness in the way Appert did his counting. Tournament games? Those apparently don't count, even if you travel halfway across the country. (By that reasoning, BTW, neither BC nor Northeastern played any non-league road games, and Dartmouth had only 1, all the way to Boston).
But the big holes in his argument are distance, and the cost involved. For most of the old WCHA teams, there were no nearby non-league teams they could play, like a BC-Harvard, Brown-Providence, etc. Every non-conf game we would add to the schedule would require extensive travel costs on someone's part, and we were already spending way more on league travel than all the ECAC, HE, AH, or even CCHA teams. MSU-M, for instance, made conference trips to Alaska, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wisconsin last year. That's likely more conference miles traveled than all the ECAC teams combined. Then we're supposed to make long, costly non-conference trips as well? And to where? Before the conference realignment, the Minnesota schools only had one non-conf opponent even in the same time zone (UAH). Traveling for non-conference games just wasn't worth the cost. I suppose we'll do more of it now with realignment, just to play the same schools, but I'm not sure what Appert thinks is a fair solution.

Why not try a two-year NC series? One at one location, the second at the other. Plenty of teams do it, such as St. Cloud, Ferris, Mankato, LSSU, I think UNO a few times. The Big Ten used to do it back in the day, but certainly not anymore, at least on the men's side (the women's side does it).

 

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

Why not try a two-year NC series? One at one location, the second at the other. Plenty of teams do it, such as St. Cloud, Ferris, Mankato, LSSU, I think UNO a few times. The Big Ten used to do it back in the day, but certainly not anymore, at least on the men's side (the women's side does it).

I agree that those are fun things. Really enjoyed seeing RPI and Providence come into Mankato this year, and the players seem to like the occasional Eastern trip, like RPI last year and Providence next year. But too many of these trips just put a real strain on budgets and time. My point was more directed at Appert's comments about the WCHA, which seemed to be saying: 1. WCHA teams don't travel, thus 2. They have a real Pairwise advantage. My response would be 1. We travel A LOT, way more miles than Eastern teams, and 2. I'm not sure any non-conference advantage has been gained by the WCHA (See some of the commenters below).

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

I agree that those are fun things. Really enjoyed seeing RPI and Providence come into Mankato this year, and the players seem to like the occasional Eastern trip, like RPI last year and Providence next year. But too many of these trips just put a real strain on budgets and time. My point was more directed at Appert's comments about the WCHA, which seemed to be saying: 1. WCHA teams don't travel, thus 2. They have a real Pairwise advantage. My response would be 1. We travel A LOT, way more miles than Eastern teams, and 2. I'm not sure any non-conference advantage has been gained by the WCHA (See some of the commenters below).

I have oldest post up top, but that's beside the point. It certainly was nice to FINALLY play you guys, as I believe these past two years were the first time we've ever played each other in history. My point has never been with regards to who plays, as that truly is way too much to ask. Although it's nice to see an opponent from every league (and credit to SA and his connections for making that happen with RPI), I wouldn't be disappointed if we had to play more of our former Hockey East rivals out of cost containment. Hopefully with more non-conference games in the upcoming years, we will see less IMBA when it comes to the location of games, as I can understand some of it being attributed to the number of games you had to play in-conference. As for advantage, I'm going to let the number of bids by league to the national tournament speak for itself.

 

[Onion Man]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

UNH will be very competitive in 2013-2014. If Umile doesn't get to holy grail with this crew it is without a doubt time to retire. This is his last shot .....

? UNH doesn't have BC or Minnesota-level talent. I think a realistic goal is the tournament and go from there.

 

[sterlippo1]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

Don't get me started on BC or BU only having 5 NC games (they use one of the other two to play each other in the beanpot championship, as well as the other game in that tourney).

shall they just dump the Beanpot then? but it's a mute point now anyway with the expanded NC schedule due to ND's arrival in HE

 

[Mike Rane]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

Ylae

 

[Jon]

West good. East bad.

Why complicate things?

I'm a big fan of you work!

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

shall they just dump the Beanpot then? but it's a mute point now anyway with the expanded NC schedule due to ND's arrival in HE

Or they could have done what UCONN does, and the two league opponents that play on the first night have that game be their third conference game. You are correct, though, that now they'll have 12 NC games (14 this year), no issues.

 

[Mike Rane]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

Or they could have done what UCONN does, and the two league opponents that play on the first night have that game be their third conference game. You are correct, though, that now they'll have 12 NC games (14 this year), no issues.

The Wizard of Gwoz will figure it out...

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: What teams will be strong in 2013-2014?

The Wizard of Gwoz will figure it out...

You know where the puns thread is, right? Like I said, though, it no longer matters.