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With ASU becoming the newest member of the D1 hockey family, and budget conscious programs looking to cut costs on travel for what already is an expensive sport, I think that we are due for some further realignment talk. Here are my ideas for realignment.

NCHC: Arizona State, Air Force, Colorado College, Denver, Neb-Omaha, North Dakota, UMD, St. Cloud State, Bemidji, and Minn. State. Basically all the Colorado and Minn schools together in one conference, along with solid programs in NDSU and Neb-Omaha; natural geographic rivalries and short travel times for a majority of the conference.

WCHA/CCHA 2.0: BG, Miami, Notre Dame, Western Mich, Ferris, LSSU, Northern Mich, Mich Tech, Robert Morris, Alaska Anch, Alaska Fairbanks, UAH. Scenario works best for BG, Miami, ND, and WMU; natural geographic rivalries, and short travel times for a majority of the conference. The Alaska schools and UAH don't necessarily gain or lose anything from realigning this conference. Getting Robert Morris to switch would be difficult since they are on the perimeter of this conference, and they would have at least 2 trips to Alaska each year, although I think that from a competition standpoint this would be beneficial because strength of schedule would be better.

Atlantic Hockey: Mercyhurst, Canisus, Niagra, RIT, American Int, Army, Sacred Heart, UConn, Holy Cross, Bentley. Only change is dropping RM and AFA, but still gives the conference an even number of teams, making scheduling easier, and no conference trips west of Buffalo.

ECAC: Princeton, Cornell, Yale, Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth, Quinnipiac, Colgate, Union, RPI, St. Lawrence, and Clarkson. No changes to an already decent hockey conference.

Hockey East: Maine, UNH, Vermont, Umass, Umass Lowel, Merrimack, NEastern, BU, BC, and Providence. No changes to a tradition rich conference.

B1G: Minn, Wisc, OSU, UM, MSU, and PSU.

All conferences have an equal number of teams, making scheduling easier; not sure of any other schools that may be making the jump to D1 in the near future, Syracuse, Pitt, ?.

What are your thoughts, changes, etc.

tvosra87 wrote:Atlantic Hockey: Mercyhurst, Canisus, Niagra, RIT, American Int, Army, Sacred Heart, UConn, Holy Cross, Bentley. Only change is dropping RM and AFA, but still gives the conference an even number of teams, making scheduling easier, and no conference trips west of Buffalo.

ECAC: Princeton, Cornell, Yale, Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth, Quinnipiac, Colgate, Union, RPI, St. Lawrence, and Clarkson. No changes to an already decent hockey conference.

What are your thoughts, changes, etc.

UConn is in HE, not the Atlantic. There is speculation that if Notre Dame leaves HE, Quinnipiac will jump to replace them. That would leave the scenario with odd numbers in both the ECAC and Atlantic Hockey.
Notre Dame will never join the WCHA/CCHA. AF is unlikely to split away from Army.

my money goes on Notre Dame and ASU going to the NCHC, and Quinnipiac to HE. The ECAC would then poach a team from AH, maybe RIT. That would leave even numbers in all conferences.

tvosra87's scenario is fatally flawed because it is based on the assumption that geography is (or should be) the primary factor is determining conference affiliations. NDak and Denver would NEVER consider going back to a conference where they have to share tv/tournament revenue with small fries like AirForce and Bemidji. Notre Dame couldn't wait to get out of the CCHA, and has ZERO interest in rekindling those old rivalries. I don't hear anybody at Miami or WMU crying about travel expenses in the NCHC.

I'm with poltergeist on this one. ASU and Notre Dame will end up in NCHC. HE will grab somebody from the ECAC (Q'Pac seems the logical choice) and ECAC will snag somebody from Atlantic. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the ECAC split up with the Ivy's forming their own 6 team conference.

I'd say WMU's scheduling of regular series with Ferris, BG and Notre Dame and their efforts to sign up Michigan State (http://www.mlive.com/broncos/index.ssf/ ... en_to.html) amounts to implied crying about travel expenses.

I agree that Notre Dame has no interest in joining a CCHA 2.0. For them, travel expenses are not a factor. ND would much rather travel to Boston/East Coast and expose their brand to that heavily populated region and play likeminded private, expensive, catholic universities than fly to Alaska for games against UAH and/or UAA.

It does appear that former CCHA schools in the NCHC may be tired of the extra travel, as well as not being a conference power. Miami and Western Michigan are regional, public universities like BG and have incentives to keep costs low and play in the region they get most students from.

A new CCHA anchored by BG, Western, and Miami would be successful. Add Ferris St., NMU, and Michigan Tech would create a strong, regional conference. It seems RMU-PA is going to stay in Atlantic Hockey. Also their 84 Lumber Rink does not stack up to even BG or FSU. It looks like Mercyhurst may be investing to join a higher level conference, they just announced arena upgrades this week.

There's also the possibility, that no realignment happens from the addition of ASU. The NCHC is most likely to add the Sun Devils, but there's rumors that ASU is promoting hockey and trying to persuade more PAC-12 schools to add the sport. Depending on how those conversations are going, ASU could joining the NCHC temporarily or stay independent knowing that they'll easily fill a schedule with teams wanting a sunny break in AZ.

Mike Eidelbes stirs the CCHA pot, but the stir is about all he's got.

http://inchwriters.com/2015/02/24/realignment/" target="_blank

My guess is BG would jump at the chance of a more regional league, but I think it is going to be very difficult to restart a conference from the ground up.

The thing I miss the most from the old CCHA days is the ability to travel to away games and not have to drive 8+ hours to get to them, and to have a decent number of opposing team fans show up to BG home games, helps fill up the arena and draw some more ticket revenue with the increase in attendance. The OSU series this year is a good example, and I think the Miami series would have drawn a comparable crowd if it was mid season.

poltergeist wrote:Mike Eidelbes stirs the CCHA pot, but the stir is about all he's got.

http://inchwriters.com/2015/02/24/realignment/" target="_blank

It's got to be true. I read it on the internet.

Freddie wrote:

poltergeist wrote:Mike Eidelbes stirs the CCHA pot, but the stir is about all he's got.

http://inchwriters.com/2015/02/24/realignment/" target="_blank

It's got to be true. I read it on the internet.

Ah, but I've heard from a more reliable source that the possibility is more of a probability. Basically more of a when than an if. Don't ask me who it is because I won't answer. Suffice it to say that they do know of what they speak and that they are intimately close to the program.

Good thing we've got insiders like BGFan to give us the hard hitting, behind the scenes insight needed. Where else are we going to get that kind of info?

apollo wrote:Good thing we've got insiders like BGFan to give us the hard hitting, behind the scenes insight needed. Where else are we going to get that kind of info?

Believe what you want but I know what I'm talking about.

In the CCHA we had home and home series with WMU, Miami, OSU, UM, and Notre Dame. Basically that means no overnight stays for those series and thus a much cheaper travel budget. This year we had 2 of those with Miami and OSU, both of which were out of conference so they only happen once in a season as opposed to twice. On top of that we have TWO trips to Alaska this season, each trip of which cost in excess of $30,000 per trip even with the stipend we get from those schools. The travel budget has sky rocketed and it's much worse for WMU and Miami who have to fly to a very large number of their away games. So, given the huge athletic deficits that WMU, Miami, and BG are running, what do you think is going to happen? Business as usual, or another realignment that makes more geographic sense?

I'm all for a rebirth of the CCHA, as long as we don't have Girl Reporter writing about us on USCHO.

But don't you want her grandmother's cookie recipe?

BGFan wrote:

Freddie wrote:

poltergeist wrote:Mike Eidelbes stirs the CCHA pot, but the stir is about all he's got.

http://inchwriters.com/2015/02/24/realignment/" target="_blank

It's got to be true. I read it on the internet.

Ah, but I've heard from a more reliable source that the possibility is more of a probability. Basically more of a when than an if. Don't ask me who it is because I won't answer. Suffice it to say that they do know of what they speak and that they are intimately close to the program.

Sooooo... who is it?