ArchyAlum11

While I definitely prefer the world where you look a man in the eye and tell them the truth, my guess is they kept this quiet for legal reason, I'm also guess that is why they announced when the did. Deadlines and contractual agreements trump all.

So there are a few things to be considered here, first of it has to be acknowledged that the Hockey at the Alaska schools has been on a ventilator and steadily declining for a while now, at UAA this is way more pronounced UAA has always been at the bottom of the WCHA even after the realignment, at UAF however there was a chance that they could have rebounded in and rebuilt the program in the way the MNSU and MTU did, however when the NCAA decided to throw the book at UAF and then beat them to a bloody pulp with said book over a minor self-reported infraction that included a three year ban on recruiting, that stopped the team’s improvement dead in its tracks, then after the ban was lifted this same Governor tried to eliminate hockey at both schools, with the budget cuts this time its almost assured that hockey at least one of the schools, and likely both will be gone in two years anyway. It would be nice if there was some way to keep UAF alive until some of the Pacific northwest schools start to add hockey as the travel would be less burdensome from Seattle, Boise or Astoria then from MN and MI. But unfortunately, it looks like time has run out for the AK schools. So why are these seven schools looking to leave the what I think there are a few reasons. 1. To ditch the three teams that are consistently in the bottom 10 of the national pairwise and are the most far flung league. This not only improves the league in the pairwise it also frees up more money for the teams to spend on upgrading facilities, cost of attendance, scholarships and hiring more/better staff. I think the current commissioner is overly obsessed with the idea of expansion rather than trying to build up the teams they have, for example when UAH was added it may have helped even the numbers, but it created a league with too many bottom feeder teams. In the earlier days that was okay, most of the teams were focused on survival then MNSU, MTU and BGSU began to make serious efforts to build/rebuild there programs, New coaches were brought in, facilities were upgraded, and more money was put toward cost of attendance and the quality of hockey at all three schools shot up, then more recently some of the other smaller teams started to take similar approaches, NMU and LSSU both went out and hired new coaches and started to invest more money into their programs and what happened, NMU and LSSU both moved up in the overall standings and became a serious threat in the conference winning home ice advantage over much more storied programs. For these programs they see a real opportunity to have a chance to break into the top of the national pack and become a relevant player in the league, also possibly being able to get a sport without having to win the tournament championship. This is very hard to do when the three of the worst teams in the league are dragging down the conference record. 2. Force another round of realignment- So as has been discussed before, Miami and WMU are not always thrilled about the amount of long-distance travel required, Likewise Mankato and Bemidji are often less than thrilled about the long bus rides out to MI and OH. A big reason that WMU and Miami have not looked at moving into the new WCHA was the Alaska schools as well UAH, now with the AK schools like out of the Mix its entirely possible that WMU and Miami would look to reexamine their own conference membership, does this mean they will switch? Not necessarily, I imagine there will be a number of things they look into before switching, however without the Alaska schools I imagine it would be much more tempting, even if UAH was added to the new conference later to event out the numbers, that would still create just one long distance trip a year, and from a drag perspective would be only slightly worse that CC is on the NCHC. As to the NCHC it very likely that MNSU and BSU would both apply to be members and from a rankings perspective this would be at worst a lateral move for the NCHC MNSU has in the last few years ranked higher than WMU and even held the coveted no.1 spot several times both in the pairwise and pols, Bemidji has generally been with in a few places of Miami and is often in the receiving votes categories. So this move would ultimately compact the leagues geographically effectively recreating the old WCHA in the NCHC and the old CCHA in the new league, minus the Big10 and Alaska schools. 3. UAH as the 8th team, if you had asked me a few years ago which teams would survive realignment I wouldn’t have picked UAH over the Alaska schools, but fate can be a cruel mistress. UAH has a few key advantages over the AK schools. a. The most obvious is that it is in the same time zone and is a much shorter flight or a long bus ride, compared to a long haul flight for the AK schools. b. I has survived as an independent before, it was difficult but since it is much closer to the rest of the college hockey world than Alaska, it is easier to for them to schedule non-conference match-ups. c. Investment- UAH just proposed some major investment projects which includes a brand spanking new multipurpose facility, no word on if this is a facility that will include separate actual arena and basketball court or if its just one space that can be converted for hockey, if the latter then the Chargers would also need a dedicated practice facility to my guess is on the former. If these projects are approved then it would go a long ways toward demonstrating that the Chargers are making a commitment to raise there program up, now that doesn’t mean it will happen overnight but it could make there program more attractive to the kind of blue collar players that have there choice of being an occasional player at an elite program or a regular player a program looking to build. Ultimately, UAH has a lot of work to do if they want the other schools to over look the travel distance and poor record, but a good performance over the 2019 -2020 would go a long ways toward mitigating that. In any case it should be an interesting couple of years.

Meanwhile at the big ten's hockey department... "Hmmm North Dakota beat Wisconson and Minnesota State beat Minnesota... well that's not good for our conference strength, especially after Ohio lost to Bowling Green, but they are all at least good teams... I mean it's not like Michigan lost to Lake Superior State Big Ten be like

There is no reason UNLV could not have an NCAA hockey team, this arena is more than upto par with many of the other arenas in the NCAA and not to far from campus.

I don't remember UND students setting fire to cars and jumping on cop cars in Grand Forks when we won the national tourney... besides they do that every time they make the frozen four.

What do you expect its the star trib. They seem to forget this...

Is there still 5 dollar lobster? PLEASE tell me there is still 5 dollar lobster!

There was a big push to drop black from the color pallete for the uniforms this year, also the are doing 50 years of hockey - not D1 just orginized hockey in general- so I think the wanted to go with a more retro look, maybe I'm in the minority but I think they should have used the orignal logo on the road uniforms. Personally I wish the Sioux had kept the old typeface and not swtiched to the new typeface on there uniforms. The old one looked classy, the new just looks kind of cheesy.

Not sure that Hastings will be leaving Minnesota State anytime soon, he just signed a 10 year contract last year that included a pretty hefty raise and a lot more money for the program, also I've heard there is pretty hefty finders fee clause in there too to help keep other schools from trying to poach him, but I haven't found confirmation on that just rumors. http://www.mankatofreepress.com/sports/contract-shows-minnesota-state-s-commitment-to-hockey-mike-hastings/article_39cfffaa-aee6-11e7-bbef-8f4aafbda142.html

I'm not sure about that, There are three Minnesota Schools that could move up but I think there would be too much political push back from the U of M toward adding a 2nd D1 university in Minnesota. Minnesota State is perhaps the Best choice, its one of the few schools where its sports budgets currently breaks even (with a modest gain), St. Cloud and UMD also are in this category but have had to cut programs in fairly recent history to maintain that. UMD also has the disadvantage of being under the thumb of the U of M Twin Cities Campus, which is why it is unlikely that, even though it would make some sense to have a D-1 school in Minnesota's 4th largest metro area. Minnesota State would need to have either a new Football Stadium or a major renovation and expansion of Blakelsee stadium, Saint Cloud would require an expansion of the football stadium and a new basketball stadium.

Why? One of the major reasons we left the Big Sky was the insane travel costs, IF Augustana did move up to D1, they would be a stones throw away in Sioux Falls.

Notre Dame ties Mercyhurst 6-6 Western Michigan beats Ferris State 4-3 Minn State beats BU 4-3 Duluth beats Michigan Tech 2-1 WMU beats Ferris 4-3 CC beats UAH 1-0 SCSU and UAF tied after the 1st 1-1

Waste of $30,000.

Larger definitely, better performing is a stretch, as someone who has worked in a university setting I can tell you that really about the only ACT, SAT and GRE scores will tell you, in the long run, is how well students take standardized tests. I have seen plenty of the students that you classify as poorer performing, go on to thrive and graduate with honors, and likewise, I have seen plenty of "higher" performing students that crash and burn or graduate with middling grades. The reality is that the people who love standardized tests are admissions officers who have the herculean task of deciding who gets admitted to the university each year, and standardized test scores are a good way to cut out big swaths of applicants and discourage some from even applying. I can't argue with you on higher profile or weather though. But saying its better school based on act scores just shows how many applicants that school needs to cut back on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn20oXFrxxg

Kennedy pretty much ran out of goodwill when it came out that he's already looking for a new job at a "better" university. I could see people being a little more forgiving if he had been on the job for a longer period of time, but given that its been less than 5 years it just looks bad for him.

I couldn't help myself.

major difference - one was designed by a professional firm that took $50,000 for a logo that bore a striking to a distinct existing logo, the other was done by a fan for shits and giggles which bears a tangential resemblance to the Nazi eagle, but would also bear the same general resemblance to the US eagle, Prussian eagle, Russian eagle, polish eagle.... the list goes on. That said nice job going the Nazi reference, that's what to goofer fans were doing after the f'hawks name won the lottery. Although... adopting the nazi eagle symbol would piss off all the gender, ethnic, and Starbucks studies majors that make up the future Starbucks workforce, who knows maybe they'll transfer out of UND and we can actually enjoy our university again.

Guess we gotta change this now too.

Actually, its based on the Plains Indians Symbol for the Thunder Bird, the Birds that would often be seen prior to a storm. But Hey I guess Godwin's law still applies. Still, why worry anymore, anyone who right of Marx is seen as a Nazi these days so may as well just use the Nazi eagle anyways.

That was part of the thing that got me about the initial unveiling of the Postal Hawk logo, I was expecting A primary and Secondary logo, When is saw the current logo I thought it was just a secondary logo. Now functionally speaking whether you think its a good or bad logo, it works for most sports, but for hockey, it only really works as a secondary logo worn on the shoulder patch. However, if you tried to put that logo on the front of Jersey I don't think it would look good at all. I would like to see them try something like this, though no doubt the hordes of PC worthless studies majors that infest most campuses would throw a shitfit screaming about cultural appropriation because the design looks too native, cause god forbid anyone's sensibilities should be hurt.

I'm betting its just a rumor, whatever he thinks of the logo the fact of the matter is they just spent 50,000 on is another 38,000 on the stupid fur-suit. I'm guessing they need to get a few more years out of it before redesigning it.

Great then the NCHC can be just as geographically spread out as the WCHA. I mean don't get me wrong its cool that more schools are interested though I worry about college hockey become too much like college basketball. But still, UND just switched conferences in all the other sports to decrease costs, adding Louisville would only up travel costs for the league as a whole.

Okay kids, just copy Jay and Silent Bob.