Rumor: Arizona State to the B1G for hockey

Submitted by DISCUSS Man on

i'm a regular over at uscho and the Arizona State Hockey thread has been getting a lot of buzz lately as multiple people are claiming that the rumors of ASU to the B1G for hockey are true.

one post-

ASU will be joining the Big 10. Expect an announcement soon. They've already begun notifying their recruits.

Also, from a Michigan poster-

Take it FWIW, but I'm a donor to Michigan's program and I've heard through the grapevine recently that Arizona State is in fact going to be added to the B1G as an affiliate member for hockey. There were discussions on group trips for alumni/donors to AZ for games. The same scenario where Johns Hopkins was added as an affiliate member to create the B1G's sponsorship of lacrosse.

Also that another full-time B1G member school is seriously looking to add hockey now that they have a facility that's in the works.

thread: http://board.uscho.com/showthread.php?111266-Arizona-State-Moving-To-D1…

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tlo2485

September 25th, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^

lots of reasons jhu made sense. established power, needed 6th team for conference, rival with maryland, they are not affiliated with another power 5 conference... and they're in the footprint considering B1G lacrosse is all East teams ... Arizona doesn't bring any of these things to the table let's get current teams to step it up in hockey, because we do need more teams

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Playing The Field

September 25th, 2015 at 1:55 PM ^

Hockey is my niche so I'll throw some of my input in here about this. First ASU is going to be extremely competitve extremely quick. They will have no problem attracting top recruits to play there....who wouldn't want to live there year round along with the other benefits. It would be good for them to join the BIG as the other teams in conference are national brands similar to the rest of the BIG teams which will be a lot better attraction to non-hockey people who may not know anything about at team like Colorado College or St Cloud State in the NCHC. Same goes for the BIG adding them. As far as Nebraska goes, it would make total sense for them to add hockey. Their USHL team already plays in a 5,000 seat arena right on campus and has sold out for years. 0% chacne that if Nebraska had a team that they wouldn't support it. And there is a 7000 seat arena being built just outside of Iowa City so I would imagine they will have a team in the next few years as well. 

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BornInA2

September 25th, 2015 at 2:58 PM ^

How sadly ironic that this thread is now adjacent to the "Delany: No regrets about adding Rutgers..." thread. Because when a dumbass dumasses the most sensible thing is to dumbass some more.

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goblue16

September 25th, 2015 at 3:18 PM ^

Doesn't Colorado college, Air Force and Denver all have hockey teams? Why don't they just make a west coast conference?

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gwkrlghl

September 25th, 2015 at 4:29 PM ^

1) It's still 11+ hours to Colorado. That's still a flight

2) No one wants to start a conference with only 4 teams because no auto-bid
2a) So roping in teams like NoDak and UNO - even if they wanted to - still gets you about as much travel as joining the B1G. Not an order of magnitude less certainly
2b) Air Force is in a different conference from CC and Denver right now

3) Joining the B1G is mutually beneficial. For ASU, it gives their program immediate credibility amongst recruits and their own fans. ASU fans likely won't recognize anyone in D1 hockey but the Power 5 teams which is pretty much the Big Ten. Plus BTN money son. For the B1G, access to fans, recruits, and TV sets in the west

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tlo2485

September 25th, 2015 at 5:00 PM ^

isn't point 3 exactly why everyone regrets Rutgers and Maryland? why are we suddenly the saints of college sports, helping random schools elevate to what we have spent a century creating for not much in return?

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umbig11

September 25th, 2015 at 3:53 PM ^

Illinois and NW are lloking to make the move. Illinois appears to be further along and ASU has been a discussion topic, but this news seems like they are close.

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