Sambojangles

October 5th, 2011 at 3:29 PM ^

A little weird, but makes sense. ND has no connection to any of the NCHC teams except WMU and Miami from 20 years in the CCHA, and definitely doesn't want to be stuck in the WCHA. They want to market themselves to the East Coast, and it would be another way to rival BC.

psychomatt

October 5th, 2011 at 5:40 PM ^

ND's decision on football independence is not going to be driven by hockey. ND hockey will not even be joining HE until 2013 and who knows where football conference realignment will be by then.

ND needed to plan for 2013, when the CCHA will be ending, and it had limited options. The B10 never would let ND join for hockey only and independence comes with its own problems. Rumors are ND was close to joining NCHC, but that the two parties couldn't come to an agreement on TV rights for ND's home games (i.e., ND wanted their own separate deal with NBC rather than be part of an overall NCHC TV contract). Apparently, HE gave in to ND's demands (or gave them a better deal than NCHC), so the plan for now is that ND hockey will be joining HE in 2013. If at some later point in time ND decides it needs to join a conference for football and it picks the B10 to join, all of ND's other sports (including hockey) will follow.

lhglrkwg

October 5th, 2011 at 5:19 PM ^

but I don't know where else they'd end up. I know this will break the NCHC's heart but they are a complete no-name conference outside of the hockey community. (Honestly, WMU and Miami are probably the most well known). At least this gaves Notre Dame BC and BU