It's an old article, but I thought I'd share it during the "dry/ off season" season for football.
http://www.startribune.com/how-to-improve-big-ten-hockey/507393452/
http://www.startribune.com/how-to-improve-big-ten-hockey/507393452/
OT-How to improve BigTen Hockey
- Thread starter STPGopherfan
- Start date
Kick out Notre Dame.....they are NOT part of the Big 2(12).
Agree. Help Iowa or Illinois get a team.
What about the Nebraska-Omaha team. Isn't there some way that can be worked in?
Let them play hockey in their chosen conference, the ACC...oh, wait....
Notre Dame vexes me because people let them get away with this crap.
"Oh, we'll join the ACC, except for football"
"Oh, the ACC doesn't have hockey. We'll play hockey in the Big 10".
Eff off, Domers. Either join the ACC (or the Big10) for all sports, or don't.
Beat me to it. Show them the curb.
It would be very interesting if the B1G made it openly known that they wanted to expand to 12 teams for the 2020-2021 season how many teams would be interested (I am sure we would never know since it would be behind the scenes). Top 8 play in conference tourney, the lower 4 do not participate in the B1G tourney.
B1G must be willing to give up boarder protection and add schools like Miami, Robert Morris, UMD, Nebraska-Omaha. Otherwise they will wait until big donors like the Pegula's show up at other B1G schools.
Getting two more B1G schools participating and letting Notre Dame exit would be ideal. But don't kid yourselves, Notre Dame adds to the conference as it currently stands.
Illinois would be my first choice because of all the talent in Illinois. I think they'd be successful within a few seasons.
My second choice would be Rutgers because of their proximity to Penn State and is an easy road trip to make. But they don't have enough nickels to get their football team nice things, so they are not a likely candidate without a massive donation. New Jersey also puts out some talent.
My third choice would be Nebraska - Lincoln, but I believe they have an agreement with Omaha to stay out of hockey.
Fourth would be Northwestern, then Indiana, then Iowa, Maryland and Purdue.
Great point. I think they might be part of one of the conferences that came about when Minnesota and Wisconsin left the WCHA (oh wait, there's an internet. I can actually look it up...)
https://www.nchchockey.com/standings/show/4378484?subseason=535348
Anyway, It might be hard to pull them out of that conference. That is a very good hockey conference.
I think that depends on the agreement they have in place with UNL. If UNL wants to help the B1G, it could push UNO that direction with an ultimatum -- join the B1G or we're starting a program in Lincoln. But that could just be me wishful thinking out loud.
There is already a lot of junior hockey played in Iowa. You would think they could glom onto some suitable rink somewhere and add a team easily.
The closest decent arena is in Cedar Rapids and has a capacity of only 4,000 according to wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Hockey_League
Illinois on the other hand could start out playing in Bloomington's 7,000 seat arena until they got their own building on campus.
I read a couple of years ago that a rink with a capacity of about 6,000 was being proposed as part of a development five minutes from the Univ. of Iowa campus. After some googling, I found out said arena is currently under construction and will be finished in the summer or fall of 2020. What effect, if any, this has on the future of U of I hockey remains to be seen.
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Sounds like Illinois may make a decision soon per a USCHO article. Rutgers could make sense as well if they could get some donors to kick in like ASU did; they play club ACHA already and there seems to be interest per an article on a RU fan page. Also read that the NHL was helping fund feasibility studies for up to five schools, starting with Illinois (that was 2017... not sure about the other four).
Miami is in the best conference in the country. Why would they be interested? Tremendous hockey tradition there. New coach coming in and plenty of support.
The problem isn't necessarily the men's team. It's the even bigger money losing title IX team that gets zero return for the school.
Yes. Each program would have to add women's hockey (or equivalent). As a Gopher fan, it's great. They make the frozen four all of the time. They also sell out Ridder Arena, but I'm all but certain they don't make a profit.
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True, but the decisions are made by bureaucrats and what bureaucrats do is build empires. Nice not having to be accountable for anything.
