CCHA Expansion-- no seriously

Submitted by Wolverine In Exile on

I know, I know, you're thinking about the Board posting about Big 10/11 expansion. This is slightly more serious and fact based.

USCHO.com today has an article referencing the WCHA voting to lift its expansion moratorium, likely to ease the path for Bemidji St to join the rest of its Minnesota brethren in the conference once the CHA craps out. Now the interesting thing in the article is that one of the commenters remarked that the WCHA wouldn't want to go to 11 teams.. they'd want to add a 12th for scheduling purposes. The commenter postulates that WCHA would try to poach UNO from the CCHA.

Two items in my mind:

1- Obviously UNO makes sense from a geographic standpoint in that Omaha fits in well as a bridge between the Minnesota teams and the Colorado teams in the conference, but would UNO want to leave the CCHA? Also why not go after Alaska instead of UNO? Is a two weekend roadtrip too long for member schools once every two years?

2- Lets say that UNO leaves for the WCHA. Would the CCHA try and poach Michigan Tech? (IMO not likely since Mich Tech is closer to Minnesota and Wisconsin than UM and MSU) Or would we try to absorb a team or two from the CHA leftovers? (UAH makes the most sense to me as they can have a natural redneck rivalry with tOSU- zinger!) Or would we get creative and try to entice one of the good club teams (Penn St, Wright St, Wayne St again) to jump to Div I?

What say you blogville?

Comments

WildcardBitches

January 26th, 2009 at 1:54 PM ^

Then cause war and get Wisconsin and Minnesota, and make the CCHA and Big Ten Network exclusive to one another.

Well one can dream anyway.

UAH will probably be in the CCHA, and I could see Tech too.

Yinka Double Dare

January 26th, 2009 at 1:58 PM ^

UNO has apparently made it pretty clear that they're not interested in leaving the CCHA. The blog Western College Hockey has been on this expansion thing pretty well, check some of their recent posts.

wooderson

January 26th, 2009 at 2:07 PM ^

I agree UNO probably leaves. As far as Tech goes I know the fans want them to stay in the WCHA but I could see them switching over for publicity reasons. I'm sure Tech is in the same bind as Northern in terms of attracting students, so I'd imagine their administration would like to get their hockey team (their only D-I sport) down to the lower penninsula as much as possible. They have so much history with the WCHA though that it probably won't happen. Alaska definitely won't switch, those two are in different conferences for a reason.

MMBhorn

January 26th, 2009 at 2:19 PM ^

Personally, I'd like to see MTech in the CCHA, but I'm biased. I grew up in Marquette, and it'd be nice to see Tech again. Also, this would put all three UP teams in the same conference.

dw2927

January 26th, 2009 at 5:14 PM ^

I saw in a recent college hockey blog that UNO would not defect from the CCHA as they wanted to keep up bringing in ND, UM, MSU and the Buckeyes as "name" schools that would attract the average fan to the home tilts. the reasoning (I suppose) was that if they switched to the WCHA, they would lose these names with real or imagined football cachet in a largely football-driven state. Also some of the other CCHA schools are MAC teams that would be at least recognizable by the casual fan.

Seems a bit weak to me as UMN and Wisc carry some recognition and i would think there would be some regional rivalries to sprout as well. Many WCHA schools, CC, DU, Tech SCSU, MN st Mankato, Anchorage and to some extent UND are known almost solely for hockey.

As far as MTU coming into the CCHA, they were in the league in the early 80's and then left. On many levels it would make sense, but it would be hard to see them change their mind again.

I think WCHA should add UNO and Bemidji and CCHA would absorb UAH. I would guess that the other CHA refugees, Robert Morris and Niagara would go to Atlantic Hockey. I have to agree that Niagara would be a good pickup. No offense to UAH, but I can't see them helping the CCHA or really any league with extra travel due to their isolation

One to watch i think is Oakland U, their club hockey has been very good and if they could get a facility on campus, maybe they would take a shot, in a few years, of going to the CCHA and to some extent filling the WSU void for Div I hockey in the Detroit area.

Syyk

January 26th, 2009 at 5:26 PM ^

I do play by play for ACHA (club) hockey at U of M-Dearborn, so I know a bit about it. As far as Oakland is concerned, I doubt they are ready to jump to the next level anytime soon. They are a decent team, but just moved up to Div. I ACHA last year. Penn State and Illinois both have club teams that I think would be a lot more likely to move up to the NCAA, but even if they decided to do so now, it would certainly take a few years to get all the logistics together.

DeuceInTheDeuce

January 26th, 2009 at 7:26 PM ^

A Big 10-like conference.

Teams are:
Mich
MSU
OSU
Ill
Wisc
Minn
Penn St.
ND

And a MAC/GLIAC-like conference
Teams are:
Northern Mi
LSSU
Michigan Tech
Ferris
Western
Wayne State
Bowling Green
Miami

UNO, Colorado schools, Alaska schools, and Remaining Minnesota schools in another conference.

The geography is nice and there is room to expand these conferences.

Alaska Hokie

January 27th, 2009 at 5:48 AM ^

Let me just say that being in the CCHA is awesome from the standpoint of playing teams that you want to see on television. UAF is a Division II school in most other sports, so it's a wonderful change to see the Nanooks play recognizable teams like Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, etc. It's really tough to get fired up about teams like Western Oregon et al.