Big Ten Hockey Conference

[css228]

http://www.uscho.com/2011/03/16/as-big-ten-prepares-to-announce-plan-ccha-wcha-commissioners-look-forward/
So what does that mean for us?

[adamw]

This has been a foregone conclusion for a while. We reported a few weeks ago that it was imminent. Haven't confirmed a Monday announcement yet - but could very well be.

What does it mean for Cornell/ECAC? Probably nothing, but who knows. Could set off a chain reaction.

[RatushnyFan]

I went to Michigan for grad school, watched them win a national championship in '96.  I think this stinks for the CCHA and the WCHA.  Boo.  Shame on everyone involved in this horrendous decision.

[Jim Hyla]

This USCHO article says nothing new. We knew this weeks ago. Now if they were to say they know this will be announced Monday and here is how it's going to be organized, then they are adding something new. Otherwise it's just another avenue for people to complain. And boy we needed that.

I went to Michigan for grad school, watched them win a national championship in '96.  I think this stinks for the CCHA and the WCHA.  Boo.  Shame on everyone involved in this horrendous decision.

What part is the horrendous, Penn State coming, a Big Ten Conference starting, having to drop out of the other conferences? There is a lot happening, but Penn State is coming. How the Big Ten organizes is another issue. With all the comments, I've not seen anyone try to show something that is better for the Big Ten schools. To just say this is terrible doesn't really solve anything. Let's see someone come up with an answer that helps everyone.

[RatushnyFan]

Let me rephrase - it would be horrendous for all the existing rivalries and it would be horrendous for the remaining pieces of the CCHA and WCHA if it happens.  It might mean more money for the Big Ten conference schools, but it would be disappointing in many ways.  What's so bad about the status quo?  I'm just voicing an opinion, but my solution would be to leave the conferences as they are and let mighty Penn State flounder around.  I don't care just about the Big Ten schools, I care about Division 1 NCAA hockey.

[ugarte]

This is the only logical result of 6 Big Ten teams fielding hockey teams.

[French Rage]

Let me rephrase - it would be horrendous for all the existing rivalries and it would be horrendous for the remaining pieces of the CCHA and WCHA if it happens.  It might mean more money for the Big Ten conference schools, but it would be disappointing in many ways.  What's so bad about the status quo?  I'm just voicing an opinion, but my solution would be to leave the conferences as they are and let mighty Penn State flounder around.  I don't care just about the Big Ten schools, I care about Division 1 NCAA hockey.

More specifically, it hurts the smaller schools in those conferences, many with great histories.  While those schools still have rabid fanbases that will hopefully keep them afloat, it is a financial hit to have big name (that is, big name in all sports, not just hockey, so they have more of a name brand) schools not part of the annual conference lineup.  Or at least that is the general sentiment over why it's bad for the sport overall.

[Scersk '97]

Re-form the old ECAC (or perhaps ECAC+) as a promotion/relegation two- (three-? four-?) division league.  Get the top division a steady TV contract and throw the bottom (2? 3?) divisions a few televised game bones every year.  Then there would be something in the east that would generate enough excitement to balance a BTHC.  (I.e., who wants to watch yet another game between BC and UNH?  Just like last year...)

For example (based on last year's KRACH for obvious reasons):

Premier        East           West           Development
========================================================
BC             Merrimack      Union          Holy Cross
UNH            Quinnipiac     SLU            Bentley
Vermont        RPI            Colgate        Connecticut
Cornell        Providence     Robert Morris  AIC
Maine          Princeton      Niagara        (Syracuse?)
BU             Brown          AL-Huntsville  (Navy?)
Mass-Lowell    Harvard        RIT             
Yale           Dartmouth      Clarkson
Northeastern   Air Force      Canisius
Mass-Amherst   Army           Mercyhurst

Home and homes vs. the other 9 teams in your division, which would, of course, leave the Ivies free to schedule ten of their "non-conference" games against the other Ivies if need be and come in under the 29-game limit.  (For example, we would have three "free" games available after playing the Ivy slackers in the East division in the scheme above.)

16-team tourney:  10 teams from the Premier and the top three from the East and West, three game series at home of higher seed.  Make the quarters?  You're in the Premier next year.  Get bounced?  You're in the second-chance/relegation tournament—8 teams for 2 spots.  Reseed.  Next round, best-of-three again at higher seed.  Semis and championships in Boston while, at campus sites, four teams engage in promotion/relegation matches.  To the pain!  Meanwhile there could be a flexible group of playoff games to determine who moves up from Development to the East or West divisions and who goes down, down, down!

Note, even if there were not some other autobids handed out in some way, it would still be possible for a team from the lower divisions to make a run at a national championship; indeed, with some judicious choices for out-of-conference and out-of-division games and a good run in the playoffs, I would think a lower division team might even be able to squeak out an at-large.

Sounds crazy?  Sure.  Travel partnering might be tough (especially with Air Force and Huntsville), but perhaps some solution might be found through "unbalancing" the homes and aways.  (E.g., two-game sets against the outliers [Cornell, Air Force, and Huntsville, above] with assignments pulled out of a hat or something.  This would also change year to year.)  Encouraging BU and BC to dilute their recruiting advantages in this manner might take some work.  Maintaining some old rivalries might be difficult, but new ones might develop and some old ones would be rekindled.  The Ivies would find it difficult to schedule exotic out-of-conference games and tournaments, but I think the possibly better conference matchups might make those difficulties worthwhile.

In the end, I think eastern hockey is getting ossified.  If the ECAC and Hockey East sit still, the BTHC will start eating into members' recruiting.  Even BC and BU.

In any case, change is a-comin'.

[Forgot Sacred Heart.  (Easy to do.)  They would be in the East division and would push Army to "Development."]

[Cactus12]

One post on USCHO that got my attention mentioned a potential struggle for the remaining members of the CCHA. I agree that without Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio St, the conference could have a harder time recruiting (decreased interest, less scouting at games, etc.).
The bigger concern for me is that talented players who would otherwise go to remaining WCHA teams (UND, CC, Denver etc.) instead want to play for the Big Ten, which will likely have national TV deals and such.  That being said, could further consolidation of talent/recruiting power out west could put Cornell (and the ECAC) at a disadvantage come NCAA tournament time? Probably not too much, but it's tough enough already.

[css228]

Re-form the old ECAC (or perhaps ECAC+) as a promotion/relegation two- (three-? four-?) division league.  Get the top division a steady TV contract and throw the bottom (2? 3?) divisions a few televised game bones every year.  Then there would be something in the east that would generate enough excitement to balance a BTHC.  (I.e., who wants to watch yet another game between BC and UNH?  Just like last year...)

For example (based on last year's KRACH for obvious reasons):

Premier        East           West           Development
========================================================
BC             Merrimack      Union          Holy Cross
UNH            Quinnipiac     SLU            Bentley
Vermont        RPI            Colgate        Connecticut
Cornell        Providence     Robert Morris  AIC
Maine          Princeton      Niagara        (Syracuse?)
BU             Brown          AL-Huntsville  (Navy?)
Mass-Lowell    Harvard        RIT             
Yale           Dartmouth      Clarkson
Northeastern   Air Force      Canisius
Mass-Amherst   Army           Mercyhurst

Home and homes vs. the other 9 teams in your division, which would, of course, leave the Ivies free to schedule ten of their "non-conference" games against the other Ivies if need be and come in under the 29-game limit.  (For example, we would have three "free" games available after playing the Ivy slackers in the East division in the scheme above.)

16-team tourney:  10 teams from the Premier and the top three from the East and West, three game series at home of higher seed.  Make the quarters?  You're in the Premier next year.  Get bounced?  You're in the second-chance/relegation tournament—8 teams for 2 spots.  Reseed.  Next round, best-of-three again at higher seed.  Semis and championships in Boston while, at campus sites, four teams engage in promotion/relegation matches.  To the pain!  Meanwhile there could be a flexible group of playoff games to determine who moves up from Development to the East or West divisions and who goes down, down, down!

Note, even if there were not some other autobids handed out in some way, it would still be possible for a team from the lower divisions to make a run at a national championship; indeed, with some judicious choices for out-of-conference and out-of-division games and a good run in the playoffs, I would think a lower division team might even be able to squeak out an at-large.

Sounds crazy?  Sure.  Travel partnering might be tough (especially with Air Force and Huntsville), but perhaps some solution might be found through "unbalancing" the homes and aways.  (E.g., two-game sets against the outliers [Cornell, Air Force, and Huntsville, above] with assignments pulled out of a hat or something.  This would also change year to year.)  Encouraging BU and BC to dilute their recruiting advantages in this manner might take some work.  Maintaining some old rivalries might be difficult, but new ones might develop and some old ones would be rekindled.  The Ivies would find it difficult to schedule exotic out-of-conference games and tournaments, but I think the possibly better conference matchups might make those difficulties worthwhile.

In the end, I think eastern hockey is getting ossified.  If the ECAC and Hockey East sit still, the BTHC will start eating into members' recruiting.  Even BC and BU.

In any case, change is a-comin'.

If you're going to reform the ECAC, you reform the real ECAC as the Premier with Providence, BU, BC, UNH, Maine, and Northeastern, The Ivies, Union (replacing Army because their rivalry with RPI is great) RPI, Colgate, Vermont, SLU and Clarkson for histories sake. Also if that were to happen we'd need more NC games.

[ajh258]

If you're going to reform the ECAC, you reform the real ECAC as the Premier with Providence, BU, BC, UNH, Maine, and Northeastern, The Ivies, Union (replacing Army because their rivalry with RPI is great) RPI, Colgate, Vermont, SLU and Clarkson for histories sake. Also if that were to happen we'd need more NC games.

So basically bring the old ECAC back? Don't think that's going to happen unless BTHC's creation poses a significant threat to HE.

Our main problem is getting the Ivy League to expand on the number of games we are allowed to play and extending our practice time. If we can do that, I don't think we need to belong to another conference to get the breadth of NC games we need.

[Scersk '97]

If you're going to reform the ECAC, you reform the real ECAC as the Premier with Providence, BU, BC, UNH, Maine, and Northeastern, The Ivies, Union (replacing Army because their rivalry with RPI is great) RPI, Colgate, Vermont, SLU and Clarkson for histories sake. Also if that were to happen we'd need more NC games.

Yeah, sure, but that's history.  It's a history I understand and appreciate, but we're never going back there.

I mean, if you want to get really old-school, you wouldn't include Vermont or Maine, but I think we would all agree that those are two programs that should be in the mix.  How do we know there are no other programs (e.g., RIT) that deserve to be in the mix?  A huge, inclusive ECAC+ starts to sort all that out and leaves room for future developments (e.g., Syracuse and, say, Navy).

[Josh '99]

The bigger concern for me is that talented players who would otherwise go to remaining WCHA teams (UND, CC, Denver etc.) instead want to play for the Big Ten, which will likely have national TV deals and such.  That being said, could further consolidation of talent/recruiting power out west could put Cornell (and the ECAC) at a disadvantage come NCAA tournament time? Probably not too much, but it's tough enough already.

I don't know, what you're describing sounds like a shift of power away from UND, CC, Denver, Miami, etc., and towards UM and UMN and UW and (especially, since they're starting from zero) PSU.  I'm not sure how much this will eat away at the big New England schools' ability to recruit in their home region, as Scersk mentioned upthread, but if anything it seems like Cornell and the rest of the Ivies are in a better position to cope with this (assuming there isn't some domino effect that causes the ECAC to fall apart) than other schools because our sales pitch to a lot of recruits is different from what Minnesota offers in a fundamental way that BU's never will be.

[Trotsky]

Can't say it's good for the game overall, though it's a license to print money for the Big Ten schools and their obvious move.  Michigan and Michigan State are so important to the smaller CCHA schools for attendance and credibility that some of those schools could be in a lot of trouble.

[Aaron M. Griffin]

Let me rephrase - it would be horrendous for all the existing rivalries and it would be horrendous for the remaining pieces of the CCHA and WCHA if it happens. It might mean more money for the Big Ten conference schools, but it would be disappointing in many ways. What's so bad about the status quo? I'm just voicing an opinion, but my solution would be to leave the conferences as they are and let mighty Penn State flounder around. I don't care just about the Big Ten schools, I care about Division 1 NCAA hockey.

Penn State's addition of a Division I program is the challenge.  There is no questioning that.  However, I see no reason why "[letting] mighty Penn State flounder around" would be good for Division I hockey or for the advancement of the sport of hockey, particularly in the United States.  Penn State brings with it a devout fanbase, and its programs demand and receive national attention because of this audience.  That audience will bring immense publicity, greater understanding, and increased interest in hockey. A sport which we all profess to love.  The addition of Penn State will advance the sport and its interest to people and markets that might otherwise remain isolated from hockey.  Penn State's inclusion is good for the sport and for college hockey.  Interest in the sport among these potential new fans and media sources could quickly turn sour if it appears that the established universities and conferences are snubbing Penn State as a newcomer or upstart.  Forcing Penn State to meander like Alabama-Huntsville would not be soon forgotten and would harm the sport and its expansion.  You profess that you "don't care just about the Big Ten schools" but it appears that your view of Penn State's new program is tinged by your status as an alumnus from Michigan, a Big Ten rival of Penn State.

I think that the addition of hockey to the Big Ten may affect established rivalries between CCHA and WCHA, and teams that will be part of the Big Ten but the Big Ten Conference will be small.  It will have only six members at its inception.  That will allow significant latitude in scheduling.  Everything that I have read on the topic indicates that the Big Ten, CCHA, and WCHA are in talks to maintain the traditional rivalries that will be severed by conference realignments.

On another note, I do not see why the Big Ten could not award its championship title like the Ivy League does with its six members in the ECAC.  The overlapping members of the CCHA and WCHA could arrange all of their schedule openings to play one another each year and then award a Big Ten Champion based upon the overall record against other Big Ten teams.  It seems like this would be the least disruptive approach but I have not encountered it mentioned elsewhere.  Perhaps Big Ten schools do not want to follow the lead of an Ivy League regime.  I tend to think that the Big Ten is more interested in the revenue that will become available from media deals and championships if they become a full conference in their own right and that is why this possibility as been ignored or quashed.