Big 12, Big East, WCHA? NCAA football and basketball realignment got nothing on hockey
September 29, 2011
Texas A&M to the SEC? Major news. Pittsburgh to the ACC? Pretty big deal.
Now, take it a step further. Imagine more than half the schools in the Big12 or Big East suddenly deciding to bolt their longtime conference and some ofthem doing so with hardly a hint of heads-up to the other teams in their league.
The focus on the NCAA’s recent realignment craze centers on football andbasketball – and deservedly so, considering the respective popularity andrevenue of those programs. But college hockey, a sport out of the mainstream butwith no less of a tradition for the select schools that participate, has its bigbrothers in the athletic department lapped when it comes to seismic-shiftinglandscapes.
Not long ago, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association was the envy of thecollege hockey community. This offseason, however, there weren’t many peopleeager to stand in commissioner Bruce McLeod’s shoes.
“I haven’t taken one day of vacation,” said McLeod, who may have given uphis weekends, too, if he could have found a way to keep his league together.
And what a league it is.
The WCHA is the most decorated conference in NCAA Division I hockey history,and, as evidenced by Minnesota-Duluth’s national title in April, it wasn’tshowing any signs of slowing down.
The quality of its resume is unquestioned. Back in 2006, Wisconsin claimedthe league’s fifth consecutive national championship. A year earlier, no teamfrom any other conference had even managed to crack the Frozen Four, putting avirtual reprise of the WCHA tournament on NCAA hockey’s biggest stage.
That modern dominance is backed up by more than a half-century of similarresults. The conference has claimed 37 NCAA championships since its formation asthe Midwest Collegiate Hockey League in 1951 – more than every other leaguecombined. The WCHA has also produced a long list of NHL stars, including currentBlackhawks captain Jonathan Toews (North Dakota), Chris Chelios (Wisconsin) andBrett Hull (Minnesota-Duluth).
McLeod played for Duluth in the 1960s and spent more than a decade as theschool’s athletic director, but his celebration of the Bulldogs title proved tobe short-lived.
“Obviously I was just euphoric about Duluth winning their firstchampionship,” McLeod said, “but at the same time, I knew what was coming downthe pike.”
That would be a tumultuous summer in college hockey, resulting in a dramaticexodus from the WCHA and a rapid and radical realignment slated for 2013 thatproved to mirror upcoming shifts in the NCAA conference structure for othersports.
It all started last September, when Penn State alum Terry Pegula, now theowner of the Buffalo Sabres, donated $88 million to build an arena and start aDivision I hockey program at his alma mater beginning in 2012.
The Nittany Lions will become the sixth Big Ten school to sponsor top-tierhockey, giving the league the minimum number to get an automatic bid to the NCAAtournament for its champion. So it was no surprise in March when the Big Ten -backed by its TV network – officially announced its plans to add hockey. As aresult, Minnesota and Wisconsin will leave the WCHA in 2013.
At the time, the WCHA seemed like it could remain an elite conferenceanchored by perennial powers North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College and Duluth.In fact, McLeod said he thought that was the plan after the league’s annualmeetings in early May.
“But apparently some people had some different ideas and didn’t share themwith us at that time,” McLeod said. “There wasn’t a whole lot of transparency toit.”
Instead, the four schools which were supposed to provide the backbone of theleague’s latest iteration – along with Nebraska-Omaha and later St. Cloud State- opted to become founding members of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference,forming a high-quality superconference to rival the Big Ten and leaving theirfellow members in the dust.
Just like that, the 12-team WCHA was down to just four of its bottom fivefinishers from 2010-11 still on board for 2013.
Yet its fate could have been even worse. The Central Collegiate HockeyAssociation, no slouch itself the last few decades with former WCHA membersMichigan and Michigan State leading the way, could be bound for extinction. TheWolverines and Spartans will head to the Big Ten along with Ohio State, whileMiami (Ohio) and Western Michigan will be part of the NCHC.
Several of the CCHA’s remaining members, including former NCAA championsLake Superior State and Northern Michigan, agreed to join the remnants of theWCHA after the conferences met in August and found common ground in theirdedication to Division I hockey.
McLeod said he’s still uncertain what motivated the non-Big Ten schools toleave the WCHA, but he doesn’t think revenues were a factor as the league hasbeen financially robust for the last decade.
“I think that there are a multitude of reasons,” Denver coach GeorgeGwozdecky said. “We recognized that the landscape of college hockey is changing.… Every school in the (NCHC) feels that the opportunity that this conference hasto blaze a new trail for college hockey nationally was the right thing to do.”
Gwozdecky, who guided the Pioneers to back-to-back national titles in2004-05 and played in the WCHA for Wisconsin, said he “certainly” believes thenew arrangement will be good for the relatively small and varied group of 58schools – 59 including Penn State – within Division I college hockey. Headmitted, however, that “there have been some people who feel the exactopposite.”
McLeod’s not sure.
“Obviously some people think it’s better for them as individualinstitutions,” he said, “but from collegiate hockey as a whole, especially inthe West here, I think that remains to be seen.”
Gwozdecky pointed out that the new arrangement might provide more paritywithin each conference, rather than having the same teams finishing near the topand bottom of the standings each season.
Some of the WCHA’s less successful programs in recent years, such asAlaska-Anchorage and Michigan Tech, might benefit from avoiding the powerhousesduring the conference schedule, while the juggernauts will face elitecompetition on a regular basis within the NCHC or the Big Ten.
“I look at schools in our conference right now who have rarely been to ourleague tournament, who have never been to a national tournament,” Gwozdeckysaid. “Two years from now, those types of schools will have a little bit betteropportunity to compete, maybe win league tournaments and get to the nationaltournament. I think that’s what it’s all about.”
The vast majority – if not all, pending a decision by Bowling Green – of thefuture WCHA also has something else in common: The schools compete in DivisionII in most other sports.
That group includes Bemidji State in Minnesota. Coach Tom Serratore hasturned the Beavers into one of the nation’s most improved programs in recentyears, leading them to a surprise Frozen Four berth in 2009 and an at-large bidto the NCAA tournament the next year out of the now-defunct College HockeyAmerica league.
Bemidji State joined the WCHA last season in a move Serratore called “thepinnacle” for his program.
“You take a look at the history of the WCHA, the success it’s had on thenational scale,” the coach said. “There’s no question we were getting rewardedfor a lot of our hard work.”
But the Beavers’ future looks a bit different after the events of thissummer. Serratore said he doesn’t think his recruiting will be drasticallyaffected, although he won’t be able to use annual conference games againstregional powers Minnesota and North Dakota as a draw.
It’s also unclear if he’ll still be able to offer the opportunity to play inthe Xcel Energy Center – home of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild. The Final Five, theculmination of the WCHA’s postseason tournament, has been held there for thelast decade, but the future is murky without the fan bases drawn by the league’straditional powers.
“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed, but you can’tworry about things that you can’t control,” Serratore said. “This is thechanging landscape of college sports in the new millennium. … We’re excited tobe part of this league, and to help build this league.”
McLeod admits to “a sadness about the whole thing,” and he’s hardly indenial about his league’s situation.
“Certainly you can’t lose a core group that are leaving the WCHA and expectto be the same,” McLeod said.
Still, he’s optimistic that the WCHA can successfully reinvent itself andget back to competing for national championships. His tone in a league statementafter the latest movement – St. Cloud State’s departure last week – was almostdefiant.
“We … want to reiterate in the strongest possible terms that the WesternCollegiate Hockey Association will persevere, soldier on and continue to dothings as we always have – in a first-class manner.”
Mike Lipka is an Editor at STATS LLC. Write to him at mlipka@stats.com.
W. Mich., St. Cloud State join new hockey league
September 22, 2011
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP)—Western Michigan University and St. CloudUniversity have accepted invitations to join the National Collegiate HockeyConference.
They are the seventh and eighth schools to join the NCAA Division I leaguethat starts play in 2013-14.
For the next two years, St. Cloud State will play in the Western CollegiateHockey Association and Western Michigan in the Central Collegiate HockeyAssociation.
Then, they’ll join founding members Colorado College, University of Denver,Miami University, Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha and North Dakota in the NCHC.The league was created in response to the Big Ten’s fledgling hockey leaguetaking Minnesota and Wisconsin from the WCHA.
New league invites St. Cloud St, Western Michigan
September 21, 2011
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP)—The National Collegiate Hockey Conference hasinvited St. Cloud State and Western Michigan to join the new Division I men’shockey conference when it starts play in 2013-14.
St. Cloud State is a member of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association andWestern Michigan is in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.
They would join founding members Colorado College, University of Denver,Miami University, Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha and North Dakota in the NCHC.
The league, which was born in response to the Big Ten’s fledgling hockeyleague taking Minnesota and Wisconsin from the WCHA, is conducting a nationalsearch for its first commissioner.
