How long does Big Ten hockey last?
Another year with pretty meh hockey overall in the Big Ten. Seeing as how Minnesota is the 4th best program in their own state at this point it appears the move to the Big Ten has probably been the worst for the Gophers.
Personally I miss playing the smaller schools from the CCHA. Also being basketball season at the same time gives you very limited amount of games on BTN, so what's the point?
It seems to me Big Ten hockey has helped the smaller schools. Maybe they're able to sell the fact that you'll be front and center of attention where at the bigger schools you'll take a backseat to basketball?
I don't know man, sure seems like a failure to me. Even with Michigan playing better this year it's still not the same as the CCHA days.
Not sure what you're getting at here. B1G hockey has its warts but it's not going away. And judging tournament results in a year when there was no non-conference play and then two of the B1G's participants got axed without playing a game due to COVID protocols is probably not wise.
big ten conference is not going away, but it still may ave been a bad decision to form it, especially if you can't broadcast most of the games on the bten network. They really should have really started with eight or seven and then add in ND. College sports is about rivalries and the big ten definitely ruined a lot of them, as OP mentioned. UM already had rivalries with Minn and Wisc so gaining PSU at the expense of losing LSSU, WMU et al was not good, imo.
Is it B1G Hockey to blame? Or the fact that Michigan hockey has been "meh" for the past few years?
Do you know how hockey recruiting works and how young (most) kids are when they commit? Recruiting (and general results) lagged in the late Red years, and when Mel took over there was always going to be a lag between when he could get the talent level back up to snuff.
Last year we were coming on strong late and could’ve made a run in the conference and ncaa tourneys. This year we were uber talented, but young and inconsistent. We were in the top 10 pretty much all year ffs and were a 2-seed.
Calling them meh makes it seem like you don’t understand the sport at all, and is consistent with your continually negative and flat out wrong takes on . . . well, pretty much everything.
Michigan wasn't meh this year, but it is completely fair to say that the B1G has been very "meh" in results since it began hockey play, and Michigan's mediocrity is a significant factor in that. As has been the mediocrity displayed by Minnesota and that downright putrid performances of Wisconsin and Michigan State in that time. All four of these programs have traditionally been college hockey powers and have won multiple national titles. To have all four encounter a protracted down period was... not good for the B1G's prospects.
But, Minnesota and Wisconsin's embarrassing losses aside, three of those programs are undergoing solid upswings.
Who knows what Michigan State is doing.
Cube and I spar, but over the life of the conference, he's not wrong here.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, and I’m not particularly happy with B1G hockey either (but that mostly stems from hating btn+ with the fire of 1000 suns). Still, he took a post about the conference as a whole and turned it into an (inane) shot at UM, when anyone who knows anything about hockey would understand why it took a little while for Mel to get rolling
Meh... they didn't win the Stanley Cup
I'll show myself out
Wait 'til Illinois joins. Iowa won't be far behind, and then we'll have a real hockey conference.
/S
Illinois already hung the conference championship banner for this year
Undefeated!
As long as it keeps on making more $$$ than any alternative (and given B1G rules, are there any alternatives?).
From what I read, three twenty-minute periods.
"There is no going back."
I give it one chance in three.
Overdramatic. B10 teams have underwhelmed (perhaps just whelmed?) since the conf started, but it's not going anywhere. OSU and PSU have been pretty solid until this year, M, W, and Minn are back to respectability (and beyond). ND is and will be solid under JJ. MSU's whole AD is a tire fire right now so don't worry about them.
There are good coaches in every conference and has been the case for the last 15 years, smaller schools are taking overagers while bigtime D1 schools are taking 17y/os with high draft statuses. And this is a COVID year so things are especially hard to project. Xfer market and the ECAC shutting down this year puts everything in flux.
TV is a good point however - I think if the B10 can get Fridays to be Hockey Night and if they can carve out some Sat or Sunday night timeslots from other sports (not just hoops) then TV opps could increase.
I miss LSSU et all too, but the fix to that is Brian's (who may have gotten it from someone else IDK) idea of a round robin MI Hockey Cup: M, MSU, FSU, LSSU , MTU, NMU, WMU. Would not leave a lot of room for other non-conf scheduling but this would be great IMO
Expand the GLI to those 7 + 1 outsider (BGSU, Miami OH, etc.)
At most you play 4 games.
I don't understand why it's okay to judge Juwan and the basketball program in a COVID year but it's not okay to judge the teams that underwhelmed in a COVID year (football and hockey).
Well, I'd say that COVID has exposed any existing, previously barely detectable (ignoreable?) fissures in programs and conversely has show which programs and coaching staffs are showing particular strength in the face of adversity (which doesn't build character and strength of will as much as it reveals them, IMO).
I'm judging all 3 programs at about 50% "judgement level" (for want of a better term/analogy) and finding football extremely wanting, basketball excelling and hockey about on par, perhaps slightly underperforming, but certainly getting a push in the post season here.
Hockey had an exteremely young team this year and Mann was a bit more inconsistent in goal compared to expectations. Wisc and Minn are simply a year ahead of M; Wisc already lost Caufiled (slam dunk Hobey winner) to the league. Minn and M will lose some more too - that's unavoidable these days. But they will be replaced with equal talent and any guys that do stay (Beniers please please please, Johnson I'd imagine, and Powers please please please) plus experienced and deep tending should lead to M being a co-favorite with Minn in '22.
What?
I don't think the Big Ten structure is the problem, but it's fair to say that it probably also isn't really the solution.
College hockey kind of exists in its own sphere, and if there were hopes that using the Big Ten name and branding could be used to develop a 'super conference' - that's mostly built on prestige acquired via football and basketball - then those hopes have mostly been disappointed.
Small schools and regional campuses can put together superior teams in a niche sport like hockey if that's their primary athletic focus and your big football/basketball fan base doesn't really help you beat them. That might seem like common sense, but it always felt like there was the hope that the 'big time' Big Ten would in time come to dominate the rest using its big commercial potential.
typically 60 minutes of game time, but can run as long as 151:42.....
I don’t think B1G hockey has helped the smaller schools at all actually. They simply don’t recruit the same type of players, and never have, so the move doesn’t change anything.
Schools like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan (as well as your other typical national powerhouse teams) tend to get the high level players at 18 years old that are on the radar or have been drafted by NHL teams. While smaller schools tend to favor grabbing the 20 year old guy who just finished his juniors eligibility and doesn’t have any real NHL prospects.
What those smaller schools do is load up on those 20 year olds and develop them into 23/24 year old juniors/seniors and they’re able to compete against the super talented 18 year olds teams like Michigan grab.
Minnesota is a team loaded with those NHL type prospects. Teams like St. Cloud St, Bemidji St and Minnesota-Duluth grab the overagers from juniors. Michigan is a team loaded with those NHL type prospects, while teams like LSSU, Ferris State, and Western Michigan grab the overagers from juniors.
See the trend? This has always been the way of college hockey recruiting and it’s why you’ll find small schools that are able to compete with the big time programs. They’re not even competing for the same kids.
I mean, Big Ten hockey isn't going away. I'd love to play in the CCHA again, but the Big Ten isn't going to disband hockey and then what? Force the other leagues to disband and get the old gang back together? Thinking about the implications for 2 seconds leads you to the obvious answer
Ah yes, because the one thing we've learned this year is that single-game elimination tournaments are always the best barometer for measuring conference strength. And that's doubly true for college hockey, one of the most consistently non-random sports in the world.
The obvious answer is for the Big 10 to let in some of the smaller, regional schools like Duluth, Western Mich, Northern Mich, etc. They do this in other sports, no idea why they don't consider it for hockey.
March 30th, 2021 at 11:24 AM ^
We already include a small, regional school in B1G hockey - Notre Dame
Creating Big10 hockey was only ever about more money for the Big10. It will last as long as it makes more money for the conference than disbanding would. That is to say, forever. The Big10 doesn't care about the quality of the hockey, the health of college hockey in general, old time rivalries, or anything other than how much money the conference can make hawking college hockey. Now, they aren't very good at that I don't imagine because the conference continues to think that most Big10 hockey games should be on BTN+ which I cannot imagine makes much because it is so crappy I can't imagine forking over actual $$$ for it. And the lack of advertising on BTN hockey games tells me that not many people are watching. As for Illinois and Iowa, I'll believe it when I see it. This whole covid thing has put a huge hole in university and athletic department budgets and hockey requires a big investment that pays off only with big attendance. Not sure Illinois, Iowa, or any other Big10 school will make that leap immediately post-Covid - whenever that ends up being.. So, things will probably stay pretty much as they are now - a pale comparison to the glory days of the past.
What annoys me is how easily fixed this is yet they won't do it. You add a few of the smaller programs and everyone wins - especially because two proper Big Ten teams have satellite campuses that are strong college hockey programs (Duluth and Omaha). Add Duluth and Omaha and then consider adding Miami and Western and call it a day.
Well, I miss the WCHA. Michigan's last year in the WCHA was 1981, the year before I moved to Colorado. We gave up playing Denver, Colorado College, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota in the WCHA for CCHA schools Ferris, Lake State, Miami (NTM), Western Michigan, and Bolling Green. Why? To save travel money. Sure we had MSU and OSU in the CCHA, but I think money was the main driver. To be fair, programs like Ferris and Lake State were up and coming at the time.
The real tragedy was the fact Michigan no longer made two trips a year to Colorado so I could go to the games!
Change happens.
Frustrating that there isn't more hockey on the BTN, or even picked up by some of the other "Fox sports" college channels that I have. There were several times this year when there were just reruns of old shows/games airing instead of Michigan hockey games. Maybe they were on BTN+ or whatever, but if they want to increase eyeballs/exposure, you've got to highlight the games better.
Three twenty-minute periods, usually taking about two hours and one-half to complete.
A better question is how long before the B1G and other large schools force much needed change to the collegiate playoff structure.
First of all, it’s a single elimination hockey tournament.
Second, here is a link to the roster for Minnesota State. Look at the birth years. This is a team of 22-24 year olds—men, in hockey terms. The Big Ten teams, as we all know, are mostly fronted by 18-20 year old drafted prospects. More talented in the longview of things, yes, but that’s often negated by the fact they’re not fully developed. To take one example, Kent Johnson will be a high points producer in the NHL at, say, 23 years old. But right now, he’s still small enough to be managed in a single game by a good defensive opponent. It’s not completely unfair, but that’s the reality.
Exactly. The small schools build their rosters this way so their more experienced and physically mature players can compete against the talent teams like Michigan get.
I went to a B1G Luncheon in Sarasota about 8 years ago and Ron Mason was the guest speaker. He speculated that the push for B1G hockey severely underestimated the value of the regional rivalries with smaller schools, and the spirited nature in which those games were played. He mentioned that once the initial excitement wore off, the unique nature of the CCHA would be better appreciated. I've never been a fan of what goes on in East Lansing, but that guy was all class and a real blessing for college hockey. RIP Coach.