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March 19, 2011
Big Ten Hockey Announcement Expected Monday
By Inside College Hockey
Sources tell Inside College Hockey that on Monday the Big Ten will formally announce a six-team hockey conference, set to begin play in the 2013-14 season.

WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod would not confirm knowledge of the announcement, but said he anticipates the Big Ten will make it official early next week.

McLeod added that in preparation for a Big Ten conference, the WCHA has already spoken with athletic department officials from Minnesota and Wisconsin about some kind of schedule-sharing arrangement which would allow some of the league’s traditional rivalries with the Gophers and Badgers to continue. Nothing has been formally agreed upon yet.

“We’ve been proactive about it for quite a while now,” McLeod said, adding that he had a meeting with Gophers coach Don Lucia and Badgers coach Mike Eaves last September about an interlocking non-conference schedule between the Big Ten and WCHA.

A six-team Big Ten conference, made up of Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin, would mean 20 conference games, leaving plenty of room for non-conference scheduling. At least one former college player INCH spoke to on Saturday was exceedingly positive on the idea.

“I’m excited. I’ve heard about it for some time now through the alumni at Michigan and I’m really, really excited about it,” said Minnesota Wild forward John Madden, who played for the Wolverines. “It’s going to be fun to see Michigan play Minnesota a lot, and Wisconsin, the teams up this way. It’s going to be really fun.”
http://insidecollegehockey.com/inch/2011/03/19/bigten/

I hope not!

Not liking this very much...

Its better for our hockey team from a competition standpoint, but it's going to take a big part out of our attendence. Wouldn't be suprised to see some of the leftover CCHA schools drop hockey if attendence gets bad. Basically our only two decent home draws will be ND and Miami.

I'm not sold that this really hurts us at all. Although we draw well for Michigan and MSU, OSU hasn't been relevant for years, and MSU has been in the basement with us the last two seasons. You'll notice that the CCHA Championship this year is between Miami and WMU.... And the WCHA won't really be hurting, either. They still have ND, CC, DU, and UMD. The Big 10 may not want to play well with others, but I don't see them getting regularly getting more bids to the NCAA tournament out of this.

Edit: Miami beats Western 5-2. Yale is the overall #1 seed in the NCAA's.

I figure attendance will possibly be the biggest casualty. If we can keep the momentum going and improve over the next 2 years, the attendance problem should go away.

We're only talking about 3 or 4 home games a season here, so I'm not sure it'll hurt our attendance too much. Also, Michigan is the only B10 team in the Tournament this year.

Hopefully the CCHA can keep some of the games with the Big 10 schools as OOC games, but I would highly doubt them coming to BG, much as like football.

It may not hurt the competition level much, but losing B10 teams hurts the prestige of the league and that hurts recruiting.

Will this mean the death of the CCHA?

jpfalcon09 wrote:Hopefully the CCHA can keep some of the games with the Big 10 schools as OOC games, but I would highly doubt them coming to BG, much as like football.

Sorry, I totally disagree. The budgetary concerns for hosting is not at all comparable to football...not to mention we're talking about 30+ game seasons...not a mere 1 or 2 non-conference road games that the Big Number conferences play in football. Especially with only a hand-full of teams in the Big Number conference.

BrightStar wrote:Will this mean the death of the CCHA?

Not at all. It does however put Commissioner Anastos in an odd place with his MSU roots.

We'll see if his true colors emerge in the coming days...

Redwingtom wrote:

jpfalcon09 wrote:Hopefully the CCHA can keep some of the games with the Big 10 schools as OOC games, but I would highly doubt them coming to BG, much as like football.

Sorry, I totally disagree. The budgetary concerns for hosting is not at all comparable to football...not to mention we're talking about 30+ game seasons...not a mere 1 or 2 non-conference road games that the Big Number conferences play in football. Especially with only a hand-full of teams in the Big Number conference.

My comment wasn't so much about budgetary needs as the excuse the Big 10 schools will use that because they have their own conference they won't travel now to smaller schools. They hold no obligation now to play a CCHA team in their barn, that's all.

jpfalcon09 wrote:

Redwingtom wrote:

jpfalcon09 wrote:Hopefully the CCHA can keep some of the games with the Big 10 schools as OOC games, but I would highly doubt them coming to BG, much as like football.

Sorry, I totally disagree. The budgetary concerns for hosting is not at all comparable to football...not to mention we're talking about 30+ game seasons...not a mere 1 or 2 non-conference road games that the Big Number conferences play in football. Especially with only a hand-full of teams in the Big Number conference.

My comment wasn't so much about budgetary needs as the excuse the Big 10 schools will use that because they have their own conference they won't travel now to smaller schools. They hold no obligation now to play a CCHA team in their barn, that's all.

But still...with only a six-team league and having to fill a 30 game schedule they won't really have any choice but to play some CCHA teams...and that is where the financial aspects come in. It's not like football where these schools would forfiet a multi-million dollar pay day to play on the road.

Typically out-of-conference contracts are just home-and-home's where team's take turns playing a series at each other's barn. There isn't really a financial benefit when it comes to hockey out-of-conference games.