The unofficial online home for fans of the Western Michigan University Broncos. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I think it is accurate to say that Ped State's arrival on the scene has played a huge part in the demise of UM and MSU as much as growing parity in college hockey. Ped State's mega bucks and glitzy arena made a huge splash. Union of all schools (note: No scholarships) won a national title a few years ago and once down trodden (and small private school) Providence has won one as well. This is why the Big 14 schools pushed lowering the maximum age for freshman so that smaller schools can't level the playing field by recruiting older players. The big "old money" schools no longer dominate. Kids have options.

About UM--Red is old and doesn't have the energy to pursue new recruiting avenues. His old tried and true recruiting ponds have dried up...or at least become smaller. They really need to push him out the door before he does serious damage to the program.

I believe the fact that hockey in the US has growen by leaps and bound's not only in numbers but in quality of players as well as more and more international players coming has helped even the field somewhat. you have to broaden your field out of more than the traditional places as far as recruiting goes. California Flordia Texas etc are producing strong players now a days, Andy has his Canadian root as well as roots in Europe , L.A. St Louis etc he needs to keep using those roots to keep finding the talent we need to compete in the NCHC which is by far the strongest in NCaa hockey. The one down fall we have is the facility, i know when Penn state was trying to recruit my kid the first thing they sent was video,s of there new arena workout facilities etc , UND , BC ,UMD, etc were using their facilities as one of their main recruting tools.They also use the strong players they have as tools to help recruit so if we keep doing well we need to do the same .

Well said. Players are coming from everywhere now. Texas, California, Florida, Arizona, you name it.