Moorhead Next in Line?

A week after many considered the WCHA dead, one school has stepped up to continue the league, while another looks to boost membership. Northern Michigan returns to the conference after a 16 year absence in time for the "great shift" in 2013, while MSU-Moorhead made the rather bold statement Friday of announcing they'd hopefully be ready for the 2013-14 season as they would be fielding a Division I team if they raised $37 million for an endowment to fund the program. According to Moorhead president Edna Szymanski, the university is about 40 percent towards the endowment. If realized, the Dragons would play out of Fargo's Scheels Arena, with a capacity of 5,000, just a smudge smaller than the Verizon Wireless Center which seats 5,280.

 I am of the opinion that any growth for the sport is good growth, especially in a market like Fargo-Moorhead where the Force of the USHL has started to build a following and their attendance has grown every season they have been in the league. While the support for hockey is there, is the money? Not every college who wants to start a D-I program is as fortunate as Penn State was, where a check for $88 million from a billionaire alumnus to fund the program and the arena lands on the doorstep. While Moorhead may have the heart, will, desire, and MNSCU support to add D-I hockey, the money, especially in the economy, may not be there, and that would be a shame for not only F-M who would lose on getting D-1 hockey to the area, but also the WCHA would also lose out for adding another hockey rabid market in Fargo-Moorhead.
-Andy Sorensen, CHW Blogger

Ding Dong the WCHA Is Dead

If the WCHA were to have a tombstone, it'd read something like this:
WCHA
1951-2013
"Money Kills"

In the end, it was the almighty dollar that killed the West's premier collegiate hockey conference. The first symptoms were the Gophers and Badgers in step with their Big 10 (Now 12) brethren who play hockey in their own conference and what will give the six teams in that conference a captive television platform come the 2013-14 season. The money illness then spread to Colorado, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Ohio as teams from those states picked up their sticks for their premier conference, called the Collegiate Hockey Conference, and left their conferences en masse to end the conference and put the CCHA in jeopardy.


As a college hockey and WCHA fan and blogger, I'm split on this issue. While the obvious feelings of sadness and anger of slamming the door on the remaining schools is there, I also can't blame the schools for doing what they did. After all, we live in America where capitalism is king and the want to up the ante with the CHC I get. Why play programs in your conference like Michigan Tech, Mankato, or Bemidji that do get some people in the house while programs like UND, UMD and Denver have RABID fan bases, travel well and fill the building weekend after weekend?

This doesn't excuse the reports in Friday's edition of the Anchorage Daily News where the members of the CHC outright lied to the rest of the WCHA of the plans saying nothing was going on. If the CHC was in the works, they could have been outright with their plans and given the leftover schools time to figure out their own plans. Instead, these schools and those in the CCHA who have been left behind are left to wonder where they'll play come 2013-14 if at all. Thanks CHC, you and your greed have made the world of college hockey more uncertain than Brett Favre's football season!

-Andy Sorensen, CHW Blogger

CCHA, meet the WCHA (and Huntsville and Robert Morris)

It's another day, another super league rumor, this time from the Duluth News Tribune and Omaha World Herald. Both are reporting that the seven or eight team league is set to be announced either this month or by Labor Day and would start play in the 2013-14 season.

The conference?
UMD
UND
Denver
CC
UNO
Miami (OH)-from CCHA
Notre Dame-from CCHA
Western Michigan-from CCHA

This is not only bad news for those who remain in a very skeleton WCHA, but for our brethren in the CCHA as well. If Western Michigan makes the jump, each conference would be left with 5 teams each, one below the 6 minimum for the NCAA to recognize you as an official conference. Before we try to put together this very delicate puzzle, let's see what we have.

CCHA remainders:
Alaska-Fairbanks
Bowling Green
Ferris State
Lake Superior
Northern Michigan

WCHA remainders:
Alaska-Anchorage
Bemidji
Michigan Tech
Mankato
St. Cloud

Independent:
Alabama-Huntsville

The solution is simple: Merge the CCHA and the WCHA into two, name TBD. The divisions, named the East and West divisions (Not that creative but in my estimation it beats “Legends” and “Leaders” out behind the woodshed). The only exception in the naming would be the Alaskan schools being split up so that all schools can take advantage of the rewards the Last Frontier reaps (Namely, road games in Alaska don’t count against the number of games you can play in a regular season among others). To make things everything round and even at 12 teams, let’s bring Robert Morris into the picture. This brings the rabid hockey market of Pittsburgh into things and gives RMU another shot at full scholarship hockey.

East Division

Alaska-Fairbanks
Bowling Green
Ferris State
Lake Superior
Northern Michigan
Robert Morris

West Division

Alaska-Anchorage

Alabama-Huntsville

Bemidji
Mankato
Michigan Tech
St. Cloud

Teams would play two series (one home and one away) against their divisional opponents putting things at 24 games, 22 games against your 34 games if you leave the Alaskan trip out of the equation. Additionally, you would play two games against an intra-divisional “rival”. With 10 games to work with, this gives you two non-conference series, which sets the stage for the conference tournament. The tournament would take the format that both conferences are familiar with: a best of three series at the higher seed, top 6 teams earn home ice. The 6 winners advance to a neutral site (My bet? Grand Rapids’ Van Andel Arena) to see who earns the NCAA’s automatic berth. The real question that is left to be answered though is if there will be any casualties by the shakeups. I tried to make the divisions as travel friendly as possible, but I find it very likely that a school or two may drop because they don't have or want the money to keep up with the Joneses of college hockey.

-Andy Sorensen, CHW Blogger

Charging For the Future: WCHA realignment

According to Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald, the Fighting Sioux are the latest team to explore leaving the WCHA. The Sioux would not become the 7th member of the Big 10 but instead be an anchor member of a "power hockey conference" mixing teams from both the CCHA and WCHA. Link

While details of who would join this conference are unknown, the two big prizes up for grabs are Miami University and Notre Dame. Both the Redhawks and Fighting Irish are current members of the CCHA, another conference hurt by the Big 10's raiding as Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State bid adieu after the 2012-13 season. Both the Redhawks and Irish have sparked interest from the WCHA, but if both programs were to join the WCHA, plans for the conference would be off the table.

If the WCHA can score both programs, it would be a major coup for the conference. Both schools have strong programs with great history and tradition. Notre Dame also opens the door to the Chicago market, which is in the heart of the Big 10. Miami would extend the conference's footprint from Alaska to Ohio, covering nine states and 12 schools.

Adding Miami and Notre Dame are fine well and good when it comes to raking in the money like autumn leaves. However, money isn't always the biggest priority in life, and that's the case here. Instead of going after two major programs, the WCHA should turn its attention southward to Alabama and the University of Alabama-Huntsville Chargers. The Chargers are by far college hockey's southernmost program, and in my belief, hold the key to expanding the college game into non-traditional markets. Since being displaced in the aftermath of the breakup of the CHA and being denied membership into the CCHA, the Chargers have been relegated to being an independent team and have struggled both on and off the ice.

It is my belief that if the WCHA can come into Huntsville, it can do great things not only for the Charger program, but also for college hockey's future in the Southeast. If you attach the UAH program to the WCHA, one of college hockey's premier conferences, the recruits and fans will start to come. Much like Rome wasn't built in a day, hockey won't be a sport kids in the Southeast will gravitate to immediately, but it can (and does) happen, as in the case of Chris Kamal, Anchorage's starting goalie and a native of suburban Atlanta. 

While Gary Bettman may be slammed for his Sun Belt expansions in the 90's, it has helped lead to a growth in the youth hockey numbers in the Southeast and successes in the markets as well. This past season, five youth hockey teams from the Southeast advanced to the USA Hockey National Championship Tournaments. Four got second place in their tournaments. The other team, the Richmond (VA) Royals, won the Tier-II 18-Under 2A championship. If these programs can keep these successes coming, I can envision UAH becoming a regional hub for college hockey for players in the Southeast. Unfortunately, when the time comes for realignment, I doubt the WCHA will do what's best for the game and instead money will talk bringing the Fighting Irish and Redhawks into the WCHA and leaving the Chargers out in the cold once more.   
-Andy Sorensen, CHW Blogger