This has certainly been an eventful off-season in the college hockey world with nine head coaching positions available, the creation of the Big Ten Conference and now the expected announcement of a "super league" comprised of the remaining powerhouses from the WCHA and CCHA.
I'll start first with the head coach carousel.
Tim Army resigned as head coach at Providence and the Friars hired Nate Leaman, who won the Spencer Penrose Award as Coach of the Year as the head coach at Union who, in turn, promoted assistant coach Rick Bennet to fill the void.
Blaise MacDonald resigned at UMass Lowell who later hired former Riverhawk Norm Bazin who was previously the head coach at Hamilton College (D-III).
Jamie Russell resigned at Michigan Tech who hired longtime assistant at Michigan, Mel Pearson.
Rick Comley announced earlier in the season that he would be retiring as head coach at Michigan State leaving a vacancy that would later be filled by former commissioner of the CCHA, Tom Anastos.
Clarkson fired their head coach George Roll and hired former associate head coach at Cornell, Casey Jones.
Guy Gadowsky took the head coaching position at Penn State leaving a vacancy at Princeton who filled it with former associate coach at St Lawrence Bob Prier.
Three weeks ago, Greg Cronin took a position as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs leaving an unfilled position at Northeastern and today it was announced that Jeff Blashill, who extended his contract through 2015-16 just two months ago, will leave Western Michigan after just one season with the Broncos to be Mike Babcock's assistant in Detroit.
As for the conference realignment, Penn State announced in September their intentions to start both a men's and women's D-I program and as the sixth Big Ten school to sponsor a D-I program, which is the minimum number for a conference to have an automatic bid into the national tournament, the announcement of a Big Ten Conference was inevitable. In two years (2013-14), Penn State will join Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State from the CCHA and Minnesota and Wicsonsin from the WCHA to form the Big Ten Conference which will fill a Friday night void on the Big Ten Network.
This change in the college hockey landscape forced schools to reassess their positioning. While it was expected that the WCHA could not only survive, but continue to thrive without the Gophers and the Badgers, most of the focus was on Miami and Notre Dame and what they might do after the departure of the Spartans, Wolverines and Buckeyes from the CCHA. There was large speculation the they would either petition for acceptance in either the WCHA or Hockey East giving either conference 12 programs under their umbrella.
There was also talk of a possible "super league" comprised of North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College, Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha and Miami leaving both the WCHA and the CCHA in the lurch. Yesterday, reports were rampant that this new conference would be announced next Wednesday in Colorado Springs with the possibility that Notre Dame and Western Michigan could join them by the end of the summer.
Should that happen, the WCHA and CCHA would be left with five teams apiece and therefore ineligible for the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Alabama-Huntsville, who remains without a conference, could join either of them to give them the required six teams. Or, the remaining teams could merge and possibly accept UAH as well or some combination of that with some schools joining the Atlantic Hockey Association whose scholarship requirements aren't as stringent. One thing is for sure…the landscape of college hockey will be drastically different starting with the 2013-14 season.
I've long been in favor of smaller conferences, so count me as someone excited by these developments. For the record, I'm also in favor of the Ivy League schools defecting from the ECAC and for Atlantic Hockey splitting in half as well. As conferences have grown, a team's schedule has gotten more and more restricted allowing for fewer non-conference games. While developing rivalries is nice, variety is the spice of life!!
Kevin Pates of the Duluth News Tribune posted
this article about the new league that included this quote from WCHA commissioner, Bruce McLeod:
“I don’t know what these five schools are gaining by leaving the WCHA. What is better for them in a new league? From a common sense standpoint, I don’t know why you would want to do this. Why would they want to give up good conference relationships that they’ve formed?"
The simple answer is scheduling…they want a more competitive schedule! With the pending defections of the Big Ten schools the remaining powerhouse programs will be left with a schedule mostly comprised of teams that haven't done much of anything on the national level in decades.
Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald broke it down in
his column today….
Since moving to Division I, Alaska Anchorage, St. Cloud State and Minnesota State-Mankato have combined for zero conference titles and one NCAA tournament victory. Michigan Tech hasn’t won a conference title since 1976 and hasn’t made the NCAA tournament since 1981.
The teams left back in the CCHA have traditionally been bottom-feeders, too.
Northern Michigan’s last conference title came in 1991. Lake Superior State’s last conference title and NCAA appearance came in 1996. Ferris State has one conference title since it joined Division I in 1979. Bowling Green hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament in 21 years and Alaska (Fairbanks) has one NCAA trip in program history.
The "super league" teams just want to make sure their schedules remain largely competitive. That's not to say that they won't include weekend series against their soon-to-be former conference members, they just don't want to have to play most of their games against them. A competitive schedule is imperative if you want a good standing in the pairwise (the system used to determine the teams invited to participate in the national tournament).
Because these new conferences are smaller, even if they played each other four times each that's only 20 conference games, which means they need at least 16 more non-conference games to fill out their schedules. Multiple that by 12-14 and that's about 200 non-conference games to divvy up. Of course, we'll see them play other top tier schools, but there's enough non-conference games to go around and fill out everyone's schedules.
On the flip side, like Schlossman mentioned in his column, I think this could be a great opportunity for teams like St Cloud and Alaska and Northern Michigan to break through and earn some national recognition through conference championships and national tournament appearances that have proven difficult to achieve in their current conferences which will therefore increase general interest and ticket sales.
Conferences should be comprised of programs that share the same level of commitment to long-term success. If you don't have the facilities, coaching staff and financial resources to compete with the big boys should you really be in a conference with them where all they do is beat up on you? Or....should you be in a conference with like-minded institutions with whom you can be competitive with and string together more than one or two winning seasons?
In the long run, this shift in conference alignment could be a win-win-win across the board.
Julie
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@JulieRobenhymer
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