(02-15-2017 08:18 PM)NoDak Wrote: Guess the Gophers and Badgers miss our fans. Have been conference mates with all the Big Ten hockey schools except Penn St (Ohio St is in our women's league).
Maybe even a conference tournament will return to the X in St Paul with fans.
Both would be great things, if it turns out to happen.
(02-15-2017 08:31 PM)NoDak Wrote: Notre Dame is not AAU, so a UND move wouldn't set a precedent.
There is no such hard requirement for joining the Big Ten.
(02-15-2017 08:51 PM)NoDak Wrote: The Big Ten needs eight for scheduling, not seven.
Then add Minn-Duluth, too. Another decent market (Duluth) that loves hockey, and has a lot of WCHA tradition with Minnesota and Wisconsin.
UConn would be a fine addition to the hockey conference, and the full conference one day in the future.
(02-16-2017 10:40 AM)NoDak Wrote: By some accounts, Minnesota's most intense rivalry is with us in hockey, not Iowa or Wisconsin in other sports.
Hockey is a separate universe.
Notre Dame is joining the Big Ten ... in hockey. That should tell you something, about hockey.
While no doubt that Minn-UND hockey was and will be intense, back in reality the U of Minn's peer in pretty much all things is the U of Wisc. They do more research, and are a higher regarded university overall. They're the U's chief rival, in all sports. (except baseball, as they dropped it).
On the other hand, Iowa is the university that Minn looks down upon. Pig farmers. Lower research. Etc. But usually entertaining games, and their fans come in droves and are annoying.
(02-16-2017 11:53 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: The more telling portion of this is how there aren't any Big Ten programs looking to upgrade ice hockey to D1 scale.
Seems like there would be lots of potential. Rutgers I could see. Illinois. Not sure about the Indiana schools or Iowa, though. Nebraska no because Omaha has it. NW I think it'd be too much of a drain for a private school, maybe not though. Maryland too southern, probably no interest.
(02-16-2017 03:02 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: The Illinois athletic department (which is a school that would be ripe for building a D-1 hockey program with a strong existing club team and a large talent pool in its backyard) has literally said that it would take a Penn State-sized donation (AKA around $100 million) for a hockey program to get started.
...
I can't emphasize this enough: it took the single largest donation in the history of Penn State for ANYTHING (including academics, football, etc.) to start up the hockey program there.
And at North Dakota, a similarly massive (> $100M) gift was given to the university (.... in a sense, it's a bit complicated) that resulted in the nicest hockey arena in the nation for college hockey.
That just doesn't happen at many places.