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Conference realignment?


dakotadan

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this is going to happen one of these years so get prepared. oh well. things change with time. nothing ever stays the same in life. the scheduling is already unbalanced so it will just get a little more different. bsu is a wcha caliber team already talent wise. they would be a lower end team but have proven they can beat wcha teams yearly. thats besides the point, i know. i have no problem with change and especially that its going to happen if we like it or not

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I know they aren't asking me I am giving my opinion that's what we do here.I say bring in Bemidji St. and send Alaska Anchorage packing.

and... that's not going to happen. we are stuck with anchorage until they willingly leave and/or find another willing conference. with their new arena, bemidji makes sense in the wcha, and like sportsdoc said, we already play them every season, why not get points for it and open up for another non conference series? i know that playing um, uw, wisco, cc, etc. fewer times is not a pleasant thing, believe me i don't like it, but if they bring in bsu, they will try to bring in a 12th team. uno is a good program, also i think air force would be a good fit, especially with du and cc being right there. and if it happened soon, we could have the lamoureux bros. facing off :(

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Bemidji Pioneer: WCHA's first step to expansion could come next week

League commissioner Bruce McLeod confirmed Tuesday that the WCHA executive committee will decide next week if a vote to repeal the existing moratorium should be taken during the NCAA Convention on Jan. 14-17 in Washington, D.C. A simple favorable majority of the 10 league schools would rescind the ban on expansion, which has been in effect for 10 years. That would allow prospective members to make presentations at the WCHA
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It looks like another domino has fallen. It'll be interesting to see if they keep falling.

INCH notebook: Atlantic Hockey voted to suspend its moratorium on expansion

Atlantic Hockey voted to suspend its moratorium on expansion. Robert Morris and Niagara expressed interest in joining and AHA Commissioner Bob DeGregorio has visited both sites with the Niagara visit happening this past Friday when RIT was at Dwyer Arena.

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Doesn't sound like Minnesota is looking to jump to the Big 10 any time soon by the sounds of this article...

Star Tribune

Will the WCHA expand?

The University of Minnesota has made a request to the WCHA to lift the present moratorium on expansion. The 10-team conference's executive committee will decide today whether to make that request an action item at its January meeting at the NCAA convention.

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Oh goody - now that UMTC has exercised their divine right and issued their royal drecree ending the moratorium on expansion, we serfs can get busy implementing their regal desires.

That is kind of what I got out of the article too. :sad:

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No way I want to see any more teams added to the WCHA. It is already too large.

The problems I see:

1. Reducing the number of conferences is NOT the way to expand college hockey.

2. We already have an unbalanced scheduled, let's not make it worse. I do not want to trade games with Minn, Wisc, and Denver so we can play conference games with Bemidji and UNO.

3. I believe adding the CHA teams to existing conferences would greatly increase the chance of a Big 10 hockey conference.

An 8 team league is ideal, home and home series with each team, total of 28 games. They should never have expanded to 10 teams.

I agree 100%.

Not only is having fewer bloated leagues bad for UND, it is bad for college hockey. Expansion will be impossible after this move because there will be no conference for new teams to enter. And we all know that once you let a team into a conference, it's next to impossible to ask them to leave. So unless the Big Ten starts a hockey conference, there is zero possibility of teams leaving the WCHA and CCHA in the future to facilitate expansion.

I want to save the CHA teams, but the rational way to do it is to have teams leave the CCHA and/or WCHA to go to the CHA, keeping six conferences alive and allowing room in the conferences for future expansion. But nobody is going to volunteer to leave the CCHA or WCHA for the CHA, so it won't happen. Too bad there isn't a college hockey czar to make it happen.

There are more than enough college hockey teams to support six conferences. The death of one of the six conferences in college hockey is a travesty in my opinion and I can't believe the college hockey community is allowing it to happen.

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Syracuse fans don't see men's hockey being sponsored anytime soon. A women's program was relatively inexpensive with the existing small rink they have on campus.

Syracuse fans are presently occupied with worrying about whether the football program will ever get fixed. :) There is, however, some increased talk about hockey. That will most likely either heat up or cool down depending upon what type of success the women experience and how quickly it happens -- if it happens. Syracuse would probably have to add some additional women's teams for Title IX reasons before adding a men's hockey team -- golf, gymnastics, fencing, and skiing would seem likely candidates. SU's AD is a monster fundraiser so getting seed money might not be too big an issue, assuming the economy doesn't stay in the dumps too long. The AD has also been building a relationship with the Syracuse Crunch owner and the women have already played a game in the Crunch's home, which is actually closer to the main campus than the women's rink on south campus, so the men would probably have a short term home in the War Memorial.

If this were to happen in the next few years, SU would probably hope to join Hockey East (along with fellow Big East member UConn). Of course, there would be a significant number of SU fans who would rather see them join a conference comprised of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. :sad:

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Syracuse fans are presently occupied with worrying about whether the football program will ever get fixed. :) There is, however, some increased talk about hockey. That will most likely either heat up or cool down depending upon what type of success the women experience and how quickly it happens -- if it happens. Syracuse would probably have to add some additional women's teams for Title IX reasons before adding a men's hockey team -- golf, gymnastics, fencing, and skiing would seem likely candidates. SU's AD is a monster fundraiser so getting seed money might not be too big an issue, assuming the economy doesn't stay in the dumps too long. The AD has also been building a relationship with the Syracuse Crunch owner and the women have already played a game in the Crunch's home, which is actually closer to the main campus than the women's rink on south campus, so the men would probably have a short term home in the War Memorial.

If this were to happen in the next few years, SU would probably hope to join Hockey East (along with fellow Big East member UConn). Of course, there would be a significant number of SU fans who would rather see them join a conference comprised of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. :sad:

It would be awesome for college hockey if Syracuse added a men's team and UConn upgraded it's program!

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