bale31

A couple of other things to point out. Last year Mankato had a Saturday game against MN which is as big or bigger of a game for the locals along with BU being in town. Each year has it's own positives and negatives. Also, the beginning of the year is usually not nearly as well attended as the end of the year games. Realistically, hs football, the ag sector in that part of the state and more activities to do outside in the fall versus winter plays a big part. I would actually expect the attendance numbers to creep up a little bit more at the end of the year. By the way, SCSU does not come to Kato, that's part of the Mariucci Classic In any case, Mankato is bucking the trend of decreasing attendance that most of the nation and state are seeing. That's a good thing. I know that 275 or 355 doesn't seem like that much, but that is approximately 7% of the buildings capacity. In that context, that's a pretty impressive increase. If any team could increase their % of capacity by that much, I'm reasonably certain that any AD would be ecstatic.

You might be surprised just how bad those 3 teams have been in non-conference (which is what really drives the pairwise for all the conferences except the NCHC). So far this year, the WCHA is 20-27-6 in non-conference. Those 3 teams are 2-11-1...take them away and the conference is 18-16-5. Last year, the conference was 22-44-6.. Those 3 teams were 1-18-1...leaving the rest of the conference with a 21-26-5 record. I'm not saying I'm wanting them out of the conference necessarily. I'm just saying that, as much as piling up wins is fun, the conference makes it essential to not have an off game.

Not that it has to do with Cornell, but what sucks for MSU-Mankato is we have the toughest SOS to this point this year and have a 14-1-1 record. As the year goes on, our SOS will end up plummeting to the mid-20s as it always does. The conference penalizes us year after year (in the sense that we have little to no margin of error). If anyone wonders why fans of MSU and, to some extent, fans of other WCHA teams not in Alaska and Alabama dislike the current state of the conference, this is a prime example. While it is "easy" to pile up wins, a bad weekend can kill a team.

Yeah, I think McMahan is the exception. Typically, the kids MSU brings in have played 1-2 years of juniors and then come right in and play. One of the MTU guys over on USCHO did a study on the commitments of all the teams and their players. The oldest teams' players have the shortest average time between when they verbally commit and when they play. They truly are late bloomers in most cases. We've gotten lucky in that many of these older guys have turned out to be pretty darn good. It's certainly not the easiest route to being competitive, but this coaching staff does a pretty amazing job of getting the right kids for them and developing them into good players.

I sure hope so. I've seen a lot of wins in the.last 8 years since hastings has been here. We've also had a lot of heartbreak. If we can get that one win, I'm optimistic. That monkey is a tough one though.

Thoughts on the kneeing major? I thought it was a pretty questionable call, but I also have purple and gold glasses on.

I figured so, it was just worded in a way that I thought was funny. Yes, I finished soybeans on Friday night and started corn on Saturday. My second job gets quite exhausting at this time of year.....and gets in the way of seeing some of the best hockey series that we have all year.

Ha...no worries. I just thought the way it was put was funny. People are going to much worse to me than call me a troll to offend me. Honestly, I just need my fix of college hockey talk. I can only take so much on GPL of who the Gophers 4th line right winger should be against teams that are below .500 in the AHA. I just ignore that and come here. Of course, I ignore the stuff here that I don't find interesting too. I try not to be that !@#!$! that needs to tell everyone they are wrong. You're all probably just lucky that I was stuck in a combine all weekend and could go to the games. I may have had people sharpening the pitchforks otherwise.

Thanks....I think??

From an MSU perspective, I understand why people that don't get to see this ream regularly are skeptical. Yes, we have a gaudy record since Hastings got here, but only one season was in the old WCHA. The new WCHA isn't as good as the old one, obviously. It's also not as bad as it seems. The traditionally worst three teams, UAA, UAH, and UAF, are historically bad. I don't mean to take digs at them, but it's a fact. Last year the WCHA went a collective 22-44-6 out of conference. Those 3 teams went 1-22-1. When you take those three out, the rest of the conference is basically .500. That's still not great by any means, but it does put a little bit of a different spin on where the conference stands in comparison to the rest of the conferences. Now, that does also mean that MSU is playing 3 very bad teams quite often. The WCHA schedule is a grind with potentially 2 or 3 trips to Alaska and Alabama. There are very long bus rides as the only ones that MSU flies to are the Alaskas. That means 9-12 hour bus rides are the norm and the closest conference game is Bemidji at roughly 5 hour drive. The next closest is Houghton coming in at a paltry 7.5 hour drive. I don't say any of that to make excuses, but there is a travel factor that comes into play. As to the MSU record from 2000-2012 to judge MSU's 2019 team on....I mean, really? That just doesn't make sense. Back in 2012, Miami (OH) was good, Christian Ponder was the Vikings quarterback, Zach Parise just signed with the Wild for 13 years, and Barack Obama was just elected for his second term. That was a long time ago. MSU, both as a team and a program, has changed a ton since then. From the new locker rooms to the arena to the style of play to the financial support to the types of players that are coming through are a ton different. Admittedly, it all comes down to what we do when in crunch time. 2 years ago, we lost on a goal that our own guy blocked from going in with his butt to the eventual national champion. Last year we got put in a regional with as a 1 seed with a 4 seed 7 miles from their campus and blew a big lead. This team has that monkey on their back and they need to prevail or people will question them....maybe rightfully so. Are they a #1 or #2 seed? In my mind there is no doubt. MSU has done well in the non-conference the last 2 years and there is no reason they shouldn't be able to in the tournament. Now, they just need to show it. Will they do it? I sure hope so. I think so, but we will see.

Some highlights from MSU's last series for anyone that may be interested. Friday- https://youtu.be/l5HPw2z6kng Saturday- https://youtu.be/A8NSWIiVcPA

You like teams that lose.... a lot?

I've got a nice one with a bull on the front that I could loan you for about 3 hours.

That's gone. Bww is gone. Downtown, you have rounders, blue bricks, loose moose (which is connected with mettlers) and pub 500 for bars with food. Pagliai's and ummies for food that will also serve some beer. Number 4 is the steakhouse down there. And there are a bunch of bars down there as well.

I 100% get that. I don't necessarily blame you all. We didn't exactly set the world on fire when we previously were conference mates. My only point is that the exciting and sexy thing probably isn't the most realistic. College presidents and athletic directors don't have the luxury of doing the exciting thing over the thing that's going to make them money. In my opinion, the NCHC was a great idea in theory (for those in the conference, maybe not so much for the rest of the college hockey), but that theory kind of got blown up as soon as Notre Dame was who they've always been and got a big head about themselves and the conference ended up with St Cloud instead. The landscape changed when that happened and now the exciting idea isn't necessarily realistic.

I guess, my point is being missed here. I'm gonna bow out.

You say that, but my question would be why? This idea that bigger is better was disproven by the Big Ten. Name recognition in a niche sport doesn't change that it's a niche sport. What does ASU add other than name recognition? Being the "National" conference is good in theory, but it's not necessarily realistic to think it leads to anything productive. I acknowledge that ASU's rink was what caused everything to follow up. That does change everything, but things have changed in the last 4 years. ASU has to WANT to be part of the conference too. I'm not convinced they want to be part of anything other than the Big Ten or a new PAC-12 conference.

Admittedly, I'm looking at this through purple and gold colored glasses, but I'm not sure that ASU really makes the most sense for the NCHC. I mean, the "big name school for tv purposes" theory has kind of been blown out of the water by the Big Ten, hasn't it? Everyone thought they would dominate the TV ratings because no one wanted to watch the little schools, but instead BTN has pulled back their programming. Do the big name schools make sense? From all I've heard, MSU was shocked when the NCHC didn't accept them. I've also heard that it had nothing to do with MSU and everything with ASU. If there had been a viable second school, MSU was a shoe in. It seems to me that UST and Mankato coming in to the NCHC make a lot more sense. In fact, I think it makes more sense than UST going to the WCHA. Just my two cents.

Well, this certainly isn't good. Hockey in Alaska may not happen this year, let alone in 2 years. https://www.webcenter11.com/content/news/University-of-Alaska-Considers-Declaring-Financial-Exigency-512618201.html

Very much so.

This is a question that has been batted around for years. I won't say it's impossible, but it's very unlikely that Mankato would go FCS in near future. And probably not in the long-term either. From a financial perspective, it's just not a good idea. There is too much Gopher loyalty in the area to expect that any of our teams would draw nearly well enough to make it financially viable. It's been difficult enough to pull hockey fans away from the Gophers when we were competing at the highest level let alone if we aren't in FBS. Add that to the way that the state budgets work just doesn't lend itself to and MnSCU school going D1 in all sports. The way it's set up is that MnSCU is the governing body of the the state colleges and universities (so Mankato and St. Cloud have nothing to do with the U of M) and the U of M system controls Duluth, Crookston, Morris and Rochester. The entire MnSCU budget is $2.0 billion (in 2019) for 30 state colleges and 7 state universities. Mankato's budget was $241 million in 2017. Meanwhile the U of M budget was $3.8 billion in 2017. Admittedly, I know there is a lot more that goes into the U of M like the hospital and research facilities, but their athletic department's budget was $114 million. That's 47% of the total budget or Mankato's entire university. The state government just isn't set up to allow for anyone else to jump up to D1. I suspect that St. Cloud is in the same boat and Duluth is always going to be having to get the blessing of the Twin Cities campus.

Not that it really matters at this point and, frankly, it's splitting hairs, but the NCHC schools were never really dragged down by others. There was a fear that they would be, but they never played in a conference that didn't have MN and WI in their voting bloc. By all means, all indications are that it was headed that way though. I'm not sure that there is anyone outside of Penn State and, maybe, Michigan and Michigan State would say that things are better off now than they were 10 years ago. Personally, I think if everyone would have just taken a few deep breaths and taken their time in making decisions, things would be much better off for everyone right now. Maybe we would have ended up in the same place, but there would have been a lot less scrambling. Maybe this newest round of changes has been talked about a lot more than we know, but this seems to be more of the same. Hastily made decisions that seem to be driven out of panic rarely turn into good things.

You're right, Alaska is subsidizing travel, but not like they used to. Now, they subsidize travel so that it's the same amount as the next most expensive trip in the conference. I agree that the Alaska teams have it worse, but that's not a reason to not take action. As for the extra games for Alaska travel, that all sounds great, but with having both the Alaska schools in conference, it doesn't do a whole lot of good. On one hand, if you're taking two trips to Alaska, you need to fit in some extra rest for your players. While it is possible to do (as the Alaska schools prove), it's not real helpful to keeping your players healthy. Secondly, it's proven to be almost impossible for schools to schedule another home series with a non-conference opponent. In general, you need to schedule a return trip to the extra school you're playing. At some point, that catches up to your team and you have to have a more away non-conference games in a given season. Essentially, you end up with a really unbalanced schedule after a while and you're not gaining the extra revenue from those extra home games. Many of the schools in the WCHA are now forgoing those extra games that they can schedule because there is little to no advantage for them to do that. They end up scheduling an extra bye weekend instead.

Is that really relevant? If it were so easy and not such a big deal, why didn't the NCHC schools just stop complaining and live with what they had? Again, the one thing that was made readily apparent during the last conference shuffle is that every school has the right and, maybe, obligation to think of themselves first and every other school be damned. By the way, I'm not even saying the NCHC schools should have just been satisfied, but I'm not sure it's wise to have an expectation of other schools when not everyone is held to those same standards. Besides, I'm not sure that the travel is the schools biggest issue. While the Alaska schools are subsidizing things, one really has to question whether they are really committed to making hockey work. Not just exist, but actually work. Ponder this: UAA announced in May that they were moving from their current arena (Sullivan) which holds 6500 people to their arena on campus that hold 750. They were doing it because of financial reasons, but then said they were going to expand it to 2500. My question is, how are they going to pay for that expansion? If they can't afford to be in an arena that's already there....how can they possibly afford construction to expand a different one? Now, look at UAF, they announced this spring that they were going to stay in their current arena (the Carlson Center) for this year, but were looking to move back on campus that is already built because the current one needs a new ice plant. The one on campus (the Patty) has a capacity of 1,047....they don't plan on expanding it even though the league REQUIRES a 2500 seat facility. There are now rumors that they didn't go to the member schools to get approval for this and only went to the league office to say that's what they were going to do. Now, on Friday, the Alaska governor announced that he was vetoing the state's budget and forcing the U of A system to cut $130 million from their budget. This after the hockey programs were on the chopping block last year from the last budget cycle. The rumor I've seen is that adding all of these things up is what caused the other 7 schools to act in the manner that they did. It was the last straw for them and they needed to give notice by July 1 so as to not break the league bylaws. Again, certainly not ideal, but I get the feeling that there is a lot more that's been going on beneath the surface than previously thought. In fact, if the frustration has been building as long as it seems, I'm surprised there haven't been more leaks of dissatisfaction. You've also got the Alabama Board of Regents who not even 5 years ago tried to kill the Huntsville program. Now, there is a proposal to build a new arena for hockey, but the Board of Regents has proven time and again that Alabama football gets the money and everyone else gets the crumbs that fall off the table. So, add all of those things up, and you've got a few schools that are concerned about the stability of at least two and, seemingly three schools, that they are supposed to be partnering with. If we all put ourselves in the shoes of the administrators, what are they to do? Are they supposed to just trust the government of Alaska that they are going to come through and fund programs that they seem to want to kill? And do we trust the the Alabama Board of Regents to come through? Or do we act to sink an already sinking ship instead of waiting to drown along with it? It is a horrible position for all 10 schools. I'm just not sure why anyone thought it would end in anything other than this. All the low budget schools were put in the same conference (because it was really the only option) that has the highest expenses, told to figure it out and not to complain about it. It just wasn't and isn't realistic.

I'll make sure to pull out my thesaurus more often when I'm posting in such a high class establishment if this is the kind of reception I get.