Sources: Penn State Will Add Varsity Hockey

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Wow. Great find, Bleed.

That's some pretty huge news. First of all, it is great for college hockey. Great for the Big Ten conference, and the BTN.

I am still very mixed about having a BigTen hockey conference. I know that people think that if we have the six BigTen hockey schools (MN, wi, Mich, MSU, OSU, PSU) then we could just add Notre Dame and North Dakota as well just because they are big, rich, and successful. I don't see that happening though. I don't see the conference as a big proponent of having schools participate in some sports, but not others. You are either in or you are out.

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I really enjoy our rivalries with UMD, SCSU, and UND. Being in a bigger, more powerful conference could help the U's recruiting, i'll admit that. And having hockey on the BTN regularly will help the sport in the long run. People around the country need to see how awesome college hockey is. I don't know, I'm very mixed about it.
 



I think that leaving the WCHA would be a bad move in the end. You're blowing up all sorts of great traditions and rivalries to join either a six team conference or adding a bunch of teams who aren't even in the Big Ten. I just don't think its worth the price to get games on the BTN. Hockey is a regional sport. Wider distribution on the BTN isn't going to change that. Although it would be nice to get all games in HD.
 


I guess I dont consider CC, Denver, AK Anchorage rivalries nor regional. I would love a love an all Big Ten Hockey conference and have local regional tournies midyear with St Cloud, UMD, MSU, (Bemidji) and continue the long time rivalries gophers already have regionally.
 

I agree with you on AK. They are obviously the odd team out in the conference. However, Denver and CC are two of the top programs in the country. Obviously if you could swap those two teams out of the WCHA for Michigan and Michigan State it would be a pretty good trade, but I don't see that ever happening. In my view it just isn't worth it to join a conference with Mich. and MSU if it means you have to also add two bottom feeders like OSU and PSU. Sure, you are going to end up having to add some other teams to the mix but I don't see how it will put them in a better situation. There is no getting around the fact that there is a maximum of six Big Ten teams, which is not enough for a conference.
 

We would still play SCSU, ND, etc. There are lots of opportunities for non conference games if our conference only has 6-8 teams. Also, this would be HUGE for the BTN. They are already looking at adding a 2nd channel, and this is the kind of thing they need to make that viable. Live games are huge for them.
 

Section2 said:
We would still play SCSU, ND, etc. There are lots of opportunities for non conference games if our conference only has 6-8 teams. Also, this would be HUGE for the BTN. They are already looking at adding a 2nd channel, and this is the kind of thing they need to make that viable. Live games are huge for them.
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I think you hit the magic button here. The BTN could add a second channel. Thats a TON of extra revenue. Assuming the B10 can get BTN2 on the standard tier and avoid the sports tier you are going to basically double your revenue streams from the TV rights. I would think you are looking at least looking at an extra $5 million a year per school.

There would be more than enough evening/nightly programing to fill in the second channel in the fall you have volleyball and soccer, winter you have hockey and women's basketball, spring you have baseball and softball. Not to mention the rest of the Olympic sports. Daytime program would be a challenge like it is now but they would get though it.

And just one quick thought on the B10 hockey conference. With only 6 teams I would think you have to add a couple more just so you aren't play the same team every other week. Am I crazy in this thought process or would you go after North Dakota and Notre Dame?
 



mnboiler said:
And just one quick thought on the B10 hockey conference. With only 6 teams I would think you have to add a couple more just so you aren't play the same team every other week. Am I crazy in this thought process or would you go after North Dakota and Notre Dame?
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Well, I sort of see this as a major plus of having a small conference. We play the standard 2 home and 2 away for each team in the league (20 games). The smallish amount of conference games should make them each very important and intense. Then the remainder of the schedule can be filled with lots of traditional rivals like UND, UMD, SCSU, etc.

I hope that the conference does not accept affiliate members. If Notre Dame wants to join in hockey, they can join in football and everything else. And North Dakota is just too small to go D1 in all those sports.
 

There is no way that the Big Ten is going to be able to add a second channel filled with hockey, volleyball, field hockey, soccer and the likes and be able to get it on a standard tier with the same rate as the first channel. It just isn't going to happen because there aren't enough people that will want to watch it. There are segments of the population in three states that might be interested in this, and I don't even think there are that many people in MN that would want to pay extra for this. St. Cloud, Duluth, and Mankato fans aren't going to want this station so they can watch Gopher hockey. They will be busy watching their own teams. MNBoiler- Do you think that people in Indiana will all of the sudden become college hockey fans because it is on the BTN?

I am curious. How big of hockey fans are the posters on here that are for making a switch to the B10 conference in hockey? This isn't a rip on anyone, it just surprises me that people are willing to throw out the great tradition and rivalries we have in the WCHA for a new conference name.
 

I'm going to be honest, I really don't know all that much about college hockey, except for who have been the traditional powers and right now the Gophers are not that great. I will watch a good college hockey game on the BTN over any NBA game or a bad CBB game though.

I was simply looking at the B10 hockey conference in terms of dollars and cents, I would have a hard time believing that the WCHA is more profitable than a B10 hockey conference would be. One of the biggest cases I have heard against B10 Hockey is that is will be bad for college hockey in general. While that may be true Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc shouldn't be required to sustain college hockey and I would argue that those teams should look out for themselves first both in terms of on the ice success and fiscally.

As for the BTN2 you are right, they likely wouldn't be able to get it on the standard tier of programing, but that is what they said about the BTN in the first place. I also think the B10 has a lot of power right now when it comes to TV rights. If they do create a BTN2(which I think they will sooner rather than later) I think you would have enough quality sporting events to make it work. I would watch my Boilers play volleyball, baseball, or hockey and I would guess you would watch the Gophers.

As for hockey in Indiana, the answer is no people won't start caring, but here basketball is king(except for Peyton Manning) and there is nothing that will ever change that(hell, the Lafayette area is the only B10 town without a ice rink, crazy I know). I think Illinois or Ohio would be a better example and the answer there is some more people would care.
 

Ron Johnson Super Fan said:
I am curious. How big of hockey fans are the posters on here that are for making a switch to the B10 conference in hockey? This isn't a rip on anyone, it just surprises me that people are willing to throw out the great tradition and rivalries we have in the WCHA for a new conference name.
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I was against forming a Big Ten hockey conference until only recently. Maybe it's the conference realignment of the past 4-5 months in college football, and the addition of Nebraska to the Big Ten, that warmed me to the idea of Big Ten hockey, but I'm in favor of it now.

We'll still play UMD, SCSU and Sue in the non-conference, so the rivalries will stay alive. Although I believe college hockey will always be a regional sport, the Big Ten will become THE most recognizable thing in college hockey on a national scale, with Minnesota right at the forefront.
 



Maturi on his conference call a couple weeks ago was asked about this. He only sees a big ten conference at this point with other schools involved, like North Dakota and others. He doesn't think a six team Big Ten Hockey conference would be good for hockey. Said that PAC 10 wrestling has other non-conference schools in it.

I think if they get to 8 Big Ten schools with hockey, like a Purdue and NW or Ill, they would form a Big Ten only school conference.
 


I don't think the Big Ten bylaws allow adding teams for just one sport. If you extend north dakota an invitation, it would probably have to be for all sports, which of course is laughable.

Notre Dame would be a different story obviously.

Rumor is that Indiana and Illinois are considering adding hockey.
 

year of the gopher said:
I don't think the Big Ten bylaws allow adding teams for just one sport. If you extend north dakota an invitation, it would probably have to be for all sports, which of course is laughable.

Notre Dame would be a different story obviously.

Rumor is that Indiana and Illinois are considering adding hockey.
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For the record, I'm generally opposed to the big ten hockey conference. I think it would hurt college hockey more than it would help.
 

year of the gopher said:
For the record, I'm generally opposed to the big ten hockey conference. I think it would hurt college hockey more than it would help.
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My first thought also but not so sure. It's expanding into western Penn. Add Nebraska and Illinois, and it'll expand not only in the Midwest but you'd get more interest in Chicago also.

I thought of the tradition of the WCHA but that league is constantly evolving so I'm not sure how valuable tradition is. The WCHA is a weird league if you look at it. What sense does it make to travel to Alaska on a regular basis or for a Big Ten school to be in the same league as a Michigan Tech?

If it happens, imagine the Yahoos in Grand Forks greeting the Gophers after they get the news.
 


year of the gopher said:
Rumor is that Indiana and Illinois are considering adding hockey.
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From my observations during visits to both campuses for Gopher football games, I would say it's very likely Indiana and Illinois are at least strongly considering the addition of hockey. Illinois has a strong club team, and I was surprised by the amount of interest in Indiana's club team.
 

mnboiler said:
One of the biggest cases I have heard against B10 Hockey is that is will be bad for college hockey in general. While that may be true Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc shouldn't be required to sustain college hockey and I would argue that those teams should look out for themselves first both in terms of on the ice success and fiscally.
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I would say to a point they should look out for themselves. But if the actions they take hurts college hockey as a whole, that could eventually hurt the Minnesota's, Wisconsin's, etc. If their actions cause more programs to fold and the popularity of college hockey becomes even less, then that would be bad for everyone.

My opinion is that this would kill programs like UND, CC, and Denver who have been very good small-school programs. Sure they'll get to play the likes of MN and Wisconsin once in awhile, but I don't think they would be able to schedule them every year. There just isn't enough non-conference openings. I could see it maybe working if they created a bunch of 8-team conferences. As it is now, if you're in a conference with 10-12 teams, you have maybe 6-8 non-conference games and that's it.
 

Maturi was not dismissive of it on the radio yesterday like he has been in the past. As a gopher fan I like it, as a college hockey fan, I don't. I think it would really hurt the WCHA to not have the big buildings at MN and WI contributing to conf. revenue.
 

I don't think that Hockey will become a Big Ten sport. If it did, the bylaws would probably be amended to allow hockey-only members, although that would be galling if these schools tried to pass themselves off as Big Ten members.

I do wonder if these conferences are overly large. It doesn't leave room for new teams to add hockey. For a school like Penn State, they will be welcomed in, of course, but for many schools finding a conference is a barrier to adding hockey. I'm glad BSU is going to the WCHA, but the demise of the CHA means that it's hard for schools to find a conference.
 

Short term it would be terrible, tradition and old rivalries would be gone. Recreating those would not happen over night. In time you probably would never even notice the difference. It would take some time though, 10-15 years.

Even without Minnesota and Wisconsin I think the WCHA would do fine. There is quite a legacy that has been developed that wouldn't be going anywhere.

The other benefit is that it would probably help the expansion of college hockey. The Big Ten would be the logical conference to do this. Change is never easy.
 

RodentRampage said:
I don't think that Hockey will become a Big Ten sport. If it did, the bylaws would probably be amended to allow hockey-only members, although that would be galling if these schools tried to pass themselves off as Big Ten members.

I do wonder if these conferences are overly large. It doesn't leave room for new teams to add hockey. For a school like Penn State, they will be welcomed in, of course, but for many schools finding a conference is a barrier to adding hockey. I'm glad BSU is going to the WCHA, but the demise of the CHA means that it's hard for schools to find a conference.
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I have my doubts about the BigTen adding associate members just for hockey. Remember that the Big Ten is a much more academic conference than any other in the country. Things like that won't be taken lightly. North Dakota falls way short. And Notre Dame isn't AAU (although that may be overlooked).

If the BigTen were interested in adding associate members for a specific sport, you might have seen a lot of talk about the BigTen adding Nebraska in football alone. After all, football was really the only reason expansion happened at all. But the conference prides itself in being a "all or nothing" league.
 

MrGopher said:
I have my doubts about the BigTen adding associate members just for hockey. Remember that the Big Ten is a much more academic conference than any other in the country. Things like that won't be taken lightly. North Dakota falls way short. And Notre Dame isn't AAU (although that may be overlooked).

If the BigTen were interested in adding associate members for a specific sport, you might have seen a lot of talk about the BigTen adding Nebraska in football alone. After all, football was really the only reason expansion happened at all. But the conference prides itself in being a "all or nothing" league.
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Agreed. And as stated above, it would be a surprise if two other Big Ten schools don't add hockey at some point in the not-too-distant future, bringing the hockey conference to eight teams.
 

Associate members aren't real members of the conference. You just let them play a sport in your conference. You don't even need to give them a vote if you don't want to. Big Ten Hockey isn't likely to happen, but the hockey schools would probably vote to add associate members, while the non-hockey schools would not.
 

RodentRampage said:
Big Ten Hockey isn't likely to happen
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Everything I am hearing, including the direct comments out of the mouths of people like Lucia and Barry Alvarez sound like a Big 10 Hockey conference is well on its way. The comments aren't even filtered by many 'if' statements.

One thing I was wondering... What is the latest with the North Dakota nickname debate/struggle? I haven't really been keeping up on it but I seem to remember the school officials deciding to finally get rid of the Souix nickname, but then heard something about they were getting local tribes to vote on it again. I lost touch with the current situation. The reason I bring this up is because I thought the UofM has a policy about not playing teams with indian nicknames unless they are within conference or it is part of a tournament. In other words... if ND keeps their nickname and MN joins the Big 10, would that mean no regular season games could be scheduled?
 

I believe this is the final year of the Sioux nickname.

Now I hate UND hockey more than any other team in any sport. I'd love to see a BT hockey conference, because with the BT network and increased coverage, it would likely hurt UND hockey as much as any other program. All the fancy facilities aren't going to help recruiting nearly as much as a major TV contract will.
 

discochris said:
I believe this is the final year of the Sioux nickname.

Now I hate UND hockey more than any other team in any sport. I'd love to see a BT hockey conference, because with the BT network and increased coverage, it would likely hurt UND hockey as much as any other program. All the fancy facilities aren't going to help recruiting nearly as much as a major TV contract will.
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Nothing like hating the rivals at any cost...

... Welcome to the 'Hole!!
 

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