GFG

Exactly. UND wouldn't go unless it was beneficial to them, and you can bet they would negotiate in that way. If they don't like the terms they won't go. Simple as that. Johns Hopkins doesn't want nor need the money from BTN. The benefit they received was that they get more opportunities to work with the B1G schools for research The ONLY reason Notre Dame isn't AAU is because they don't have a medical school, which is required for AAU membership. That's also why Nebraska's AAU status was taken away. They said the medical school was to far from their Lincoln campus.

I completely agree

Adding as a hockey only member would not expand the footprint. They need to be full members for that to happen. However, if you add a school like UND that's basically part of the footprint already and you know everybody will buy the B1G network to watch you can add a little more revenue there and have higher TV ratings than most of the games. Academics are literally the only thing UND can't compete with, but they can definitely make exceptions. The B1G always pulls a page out of Don Adams book and "makes s**t up" as they go. Personally I wouldn't consider their history "success". They had like 4 or 5 good seasons and have an extremely small fan base. I'd personally view it as a failure to add Miami to the conference if the B1G is trying to improve. They need to go big, and IMO UND's history and success more than makes up for their academics. If I had to guess I'd say it's going to either be a western team or an eastern team because they have enough going for the conference in the center of the footprint with the addition of Notre Dame. Penn State is happy as is, so it would probably be in their best interest to try and please Minnesota's fan base that they've completely pissed off at this point. I truly think the B1G hockey conference would be absolutely phenomenal with UND as an addition. It allows the rivalry between UND-UM to continue and gives us conference games against Michigan, a re-surging Wisconsin, Notre Dame, etc. Personally I'd love it.

I was just talking about it with my friend yesterday actually. I have a feeling REA will have the "ice" projection feature ready to go for the national title ceremony to open next season. It's a new technology that's just been utilized by most of those that are using it within the last couple of months. For some reason I think that it's going to be something they add to REA to up the "wow" factor next season. The scoreboard is definitely at the point of needing to be replaced if they want to keep up with a lot of the pro arenas, but overall it's still a very nice arena.

There were rumors about a month and a half ago that said ASU was for sure joining the WCHA. Maybe they were true.

Honestly...nobody? Like I said a long time ago, the word internally at the B1G was that they wanted UCONN for hockey only...they might be the only team that fits the academic and geographic location, but they certainly don't fit the success. UND meets 2 of the 3. Good enough for me

I completely agree. I do think the B1G hockey conference will be more than fine over time, but they expected fans to take to it much better. I think other schools are more in tune with the B1G "brand" than Minnesota fans. Outside of Iowa, Wisconsin and now Nebraska, we're huge outliers in the B1G footprint. It's much more of a "Mideast" kind of conference than a Midwest/northern conference, so when fans of a very niche sport get used to historically being in a conference with all of their geographical foes only to have it ripped away for more games against those further east teams they're going to be upset. I'm pretty sure the B1G didn't expect the amount of backlash they've received from Minnesota fans. It's something they should've (but didn't, of course) thought of before hand, because ripping the one team that didn't want to join your conference away from theirs when they're the biggest hockey fan base you've got isn't a good way to start your new conference successfully. It's reached the point now where I don't think Minnesota hockey fans will forgive the B1G unless UND is added. That was a special rivalry and the conference ruined it. Sure it'll be awesome to play the next couple of years, but with no regular season points on the line it's not going to be quite the same as it had been. I thought the games against Minnesota schools would remain the same like that, but it's just not true. They just don't feel as important now.

I get what you're saying now. Most of the alumni of big schools get more excited with bowl wins than they would losing in the hockey tournament, though, because football is a much bigger and more popular sport.The Pac12 has arguably been the deepest conference in college football for a few years now. Problem is they just haven't had anyone at the top of their conference that's been good enough to take it all. In reality, the power 5 conferences are a lot more similar in terms of strength than people like to think. Except the Big 12's defense. That's non-existant outside of TCU.

Also true. College basketball and football are huge all across the country and being in a major conference makes those sports more popular.

I actually enjoy bowl games...if you don't want to watch you don't have to, but I love watching college football and enjoy the bowl games. Some of the games with "undeserving" bowl games turn out to be some of the best football games you see all year.

Haha yes. Obviously the Vikings are astronomically more popular than Gophers hockey. Heck, even Gophers football is way more popular than Gophers hockey.

IIRC, 5 of Minnesota's losses came to teams ranked in the top 15 or 16 in the final regular season poll.

I beg to differ, considering EVERY bowl game blew out the NCAA Hockey championship game when you go by viewership numbers. College hockey is about the 12th most popular sport in college athletics (even that might be generous)...people just don't care outside of its traditional footprint. Heck, the overwhelming majority of people in the traditional footprint of college hockey don't even care. It's a tough pill to swallow being from the most hockey crazed region in the United States, but it's true.

It won't be the hottest ticket in town with a Vikings home game during the inaugural season of their new stadium. If not for the Vikings, though, I think you would be correct. This is a series both Gopher and UND fans have been craving for awhile so tickets will be at a premium

That was probably my tweet It's not a for sure, but I'd say it's probably a 90% chance that it's Friday-Sunday.

I missed that tweet

I wouldn't be surprised to see ASU in the NCHC. If they're not going B1G it'll be extremely interesting to see what the conference does for their next team...I know some people have said Omaha, but I'm not sure. I feel like if they've stopped going after ASU they're going to go after a big name program in the sport that Omaha just doesn't meet in my eyes. They wouldn't be a bad add to the conference, but at this point I feel like the only way they'll consider another affiliate is if it's a program well known in hockey. Notre Dame will be a full time B1G member soon IMO, considering some of the rumors about it that are out there (some rumors say as early as this summer along with 5 other big time ACC schools). The B1G's next TV deal (this does not even include BTN) is going to be big enough that every B1G school will be receiving money that dwarfs what Notre Dame makes from NBC. They each already make about $10million more per year than Notre Dame from BTN alone and that's about to increase big time, supposedly between $40-70million yearly for every B1G school...Notre Dame receives about $15million yearly. It's only a matter of time before Notre Dame gives in because they'll be getting more than double the TV money in the B1G that they get with NBC. ***Side note: If the rumors about Notre Dame, Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, Virginia and Georgia Tech joining the B1G in all sports turns out to be true I can't even begin to fathom the TV revenue the B2G conference will bring in. The rumor is that all of them could join the conference this summer, with FSU being first, due to them being upset with very small TV revenue and ESPN not starting up the ACC Network they promised for at least another 2 years due to the company hemorrhaging much money the last few years. I personally don't think it'll end up happening, but those are the rumors and they would really shake things up. Although maybe the extremely large and very short TV deal the conference is getting is due to them knowing something we don't know...

Friday-Sunday is certainly not out of the question. The game is against Purdue, though, meaning it could very likely be an 11am kickoff, which should leave just enough time to allow parking spots and congestion on the campus to clear up enough to allow the hockey game to continue. If the hockey game is still going to be played on Saturday plan accordingly, because it'll be a complete crap shoot there until any time between 4-6 (depending on how many people stay around campus to eat and/or watch the hockey game) and may be very difficult to find parking until that time. Light rail might be the best idea if you want to be down there early for food and drinks.

I know Schloss tweeted that the Minnesota-UND series is scheduled for November 4-5th, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that change to Friday and Sunday, so the 4th and 6th. Really crappy, but Minnesota has a home football game against Purdue scheduled for the 5th, and unless it's an 11am kickoff the Saturday hockey game will be moved to Sunday. Kind of a buzzkill, but if you've ever been there for a football game alone parking is a crap shoot. Trying to add a hockey game into the equation after that would be a complete disaster. It's not set in stone yet, but don't be surprised if it happens. Luckily the game is against Purdue, so it means there's a very good chance of an 11am kickoff. With an 11am kickoff they may keep the hockey game on Saturday. They should have the official day the hockey game will be played on with the official schedule release.

Dear God I hope not. I can't stand to cheer for another mediocre team

This is just sad...Mark Hollis has officially overtaken Barry Alvarez as the most anti-hockey athletic director in the B1G NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It would do nothing to UND. UND has a good coaching staff in place and the facilities in place to recruit just as good, if not better than anyone in the country. Of course the network only shows 2 games per night at best, do you want games to be at even more weird hours? Has CBS college sports ever aired more than 2 games per night? If a game isn't broadcast on BTN then someone else, like Midco, can televise it. It's not like UND would be locked into only having BTN games on TV. If BTN would rather air MSU vs OSU than UND vs UMD (which they would, because it's a conference game) either Midco or FSN can televise the UND-UMD game. There was no sales pitch sold to B1G schools. With 6 teams the B1G could finally have a conference and the schools essentially have no say in that because it's the conference that makes them insane amounts of money. With their new TV contract being negotiated right now it should easily be the highest revenue producing conference in the country again. When you're in a conference like that you can't say no to them unless everyone says no. It didn't play out like that. Minnesota was the only B1G school against it. The B1G teams biggest problems can be attributed to coaching and recruiting, which is part of coaching. That's about to change. Wisconsin will be back in no time with their new coaching staff, so that pairwise suck hole will be gone and help the entire conference. There are rumors that Lucia might be retiring (or less likely, taking another job) this off season as well, which I personally think may be a good thing. I appreciate everything he's done, but I think it's about time to move in a new direction. MSU really needs to make a coaching change. But as of now there should be 4 solid teams in the B1G most years. 5 when Notre Dame joins in a couple of years. 5 of 7 teams is pretty good. Could possibly get to 6 good/decent teams with a coaching change at MSU. I don't have any faith that OSU will ever be anything more than a middle of the pack or bottom feeder team in the conference. The conference is going to be better than it has been, I would bet money on it. Add UND into the B1G hockey conference with Notre Dame and some of the teams recovering a little bit (which they will) and you would easily have the premier conference in college hockey with both name brand recognition and overall history in the sport college hockey.

Hopefully he pans out within the next few years. Wild are starting to look like they need some more forward depth and scoring.

You're correct. He's graduating this summer so he decided to move on. Can't ever fault a guy for moving on when they get their degree.

Hockey is no higher than #3 in popularity at any B1G school, including Minnesota. Hockey is popular but isn't even close to football and basketball in popularity. The only B1G school that can probably claim hockey is their 2nd most popular sport is Penn State. Right now that's a for sure. If their basketball team improves it won't be true. That's just how it is. Football and basketball at B1G schools are marketed in arguably the top conference in college sports and those sports are televised to far larger audiences much more often than hockey.