I think y'all are selling Penn State short... They have this huge benefactor and no basketball program to speak of. Pennsylvania is not out of the national hockey footprint by any stretch, in fact you might say that they are in the middle of it. The Nittany Lions will be one of the stronger B1G teams sooner rather than later. They may be coming from nowhere, but they are coming in with more cash (and maybe more commitment) than any new program has for decades.
As for the breakup, I would rather that we went back to the old WCHA from the time I was at UND and that would be UND, UM, UW, Duluth, CC, Denver, Michigan, Michigan State, Michigan Tech and Notre Dame. THAT was a conference! We will never get back there again, so we have to move on. The B1G is one of the most recognizable conferences in college athletics and their members have deep pockets. We will mourn the passing of the old WCHA, some of us mourn the passing of the original version, but life will go on. It's kinda like missing the old rivalries of the NCC, but now preferring to build the new rivalries in the Big Sky.