Gopher Fan

At least Minnesota has teams in the competition, a couple of which are showing signs of significant improvement. North Dakota doesn't even have rumors of expansions possibilities. If women's hockey doesn't matter, why do you have a women's hockey team?

I never said they were won as part of the B1G hockey, I said they were won by schools who are currently members of B1G hockey. If I understand you correctly, nothing which happened before 2013 counts, B1G hockey has 0 titles, the NCHC has 1 title, and if the Gophers somehow manage to win a championship next season they will be even with North Dakota at one title each, and B1G hockey & the NCHC will be even as well???

Point taken, although the NFL championship was less than 50 years ago (the Vikings are one of 2 teams to win the NFL championship the same season they lost the Super Bowl before the NFL-AFL merger), but is Minnesota or North Dakota more likely to win a future World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, or NBA Title, or MLS Cup?

By your logic the WCHA has 37 national championships, even though only 4 of them were won by current WCHA teams while members of the WCHA.

B1G schools have 23 national championships, and the B1G hockey conference has 0 national championships. NCHC schools have 18 national championships, and the NCHC conference has 1 national championship.

Yes, North Dakota has 8 national titles for Men's hockey, Minnesota only has 5, and Michigan has 9. If you include women's hockey, Minnesota can add a few more titles, or is women's hockey not part of the "college hockey world"?

North Dakota & Denver don't meet the academic & research B1G requirements, Miami is borderline on these requirements even for an associate membership, and Boston U would only consider joining as a full member. The B1G had 11 full members for almost 2 decades, a few years at 7 hockey members doesn't seem that unlikely.

I never said Minnesota was elite, but Minnesota has 5 NBA titles, 2 World Series titles, an NFL championship, and has hosted 3 World Series, Multiple NBA finals, 2 Stanley Cup Championships, a Super Bowl, 3 MLB All-Star games, and 3 NCAA Basketball Final Fours. Probably a bit better than the Dakotas.

Since the B1G hockey conference started and the conferences realigned you are correct, the B1G is not the best hockey conference and North Dakota is the current National Champion. But since the NCAA started crowning national champions in 1948 only four schools were able to successfully defend their title and win consecutive championships. Minnesota & Michigan are 2 of them (Boston U & Denver are the other 2). B1G schools have won 23 national championships, and NCHC schools have won 18 national championships. Congratulations on your title, you have a decent chance to be the 5th school to repeat, but as to the B1G level of competition in hockey, lets see what happens in the next decade before we call B1G hockey a failure.

I don't think you have much worry about. There is 0% chance the B1G gives North Dakota a full member invite, and not much better chance they get an associate member hockey invite. My argument was if they did get an hockey associate member invite, they'd better off refusing the B1G (even though I personally would prefer they accept it) and staying in the NCHC, but they would jump at the chance for full B1G membership if it were offered.

Its not elitism, its simply the truth. People on both coast almost totally ignore both Dakotas among other states. Minnesota isn't regarded much better, but we can't be completely ignored with a power 5 university, multiple pro teams, and a top 15 TV market. Half the time when you start talking about Boston U, other people think your talking about Boston College. Being a member of the B1G would improve the status of either North Dakota or Boston U.

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking, but the B1G does not need to add any members full or associate. Financially they are doing quite well as they are now, and they are competitive in most sports. Adding a new member to any conference has to be mutually beneficial. If you are talking about adding either BU or North Dakota to the B1G as associate members for hockey, I'm not sure it would be beneficial to either BU or ND, other than to be grouped with Johns Hopkins & Notre Dame. But a full membership for either school would mean a huge increase in sports revenue, national name recognition, increased endowments, better recruiting options, and better scheduling options. North Dakota is located in a state half the country ignores, and BU lives in the shadow of Harvard, MIT, Boston College, & U Mass. I have to believe both would jump at the chance to improve their status if given the opportunity. And yes my last name is Clark.

You are correct. For more than a century the B1G did not sponsor hockey or lacrosse, or have any associate members, now they sponsor both hockey & lacrosse, and have 2 associate members. I know of no rule banning B1G non-football members. Since football is where most of the conference money comes from, any non-football school added would have to make substantial contributions in other ways to get a full membership invitation, and understand their share of conference funds would not include any football revenue. BU meets the B1G academic & research requirements, and would add a top 10 TV market, open up Massachusetts & New England for B1G recruiting, add a team to at least 6 B1G sports with less than 10 teams currently competing, and would make it possible to add B1G women's hockey (by also adding the Syracuse Orange [URA member & former AAU member like Nebraska] as an associate member who would need to move their home games to the 6,159 seat Oncenter War Memorial Arena [home of the AHL's Syracuse Crunch] just off of campus, instead of their own 350 seat Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion which they use currently). A member share of B1G revenue, even without any football money, would be far more than BU's current Patriot League money.

They are also decent at lacrosse and a few of the Olympic sports. As for basketball, the attendance would increase drastically just from B1G alumni. They currently play most of their games in their fieldhouse which seats about 1,500, but could play in the Agganis Arena they use for hockey. The Agganis Arena would seat about 7,200 for basketball, which would be the smallest basketball arena in the B1G, but not much smaller than either Rutgers (8,000) or Northwestern (8,117). And if the B1G only wanted competitive schools, would they have added Rutgers (Who has yet to win a B1G conference or tourament title in ANY sport)??

Also, if BU upgraded fencing from club to varsity status joining Ohio State, Penn State, & Northwestern, the B1G could add MIT & Johns Hopkins as fencing associate members (fencing only has one division) to begin sponsoring that sport as well like the ACC.