(07-10-2017 09:49 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Wondering if you have a comment about the last part of my previous post: what are your thoughts on Duluth and St Cloud joining the Summit as DI move-ups (dropping football to finance the move)?

UMD and St. Cloud are both terrific hockey-first schools. Denver fans certainly respect both programs, and both school add a great deal to the NCHC with solid attendance and nice arenas. These programs play the game with passion and investment in their programs, and DU knows it's in a dogfight every time we play them in hockey.

That said, I wonder about the long term ability of either school to be able to step up and sustain a full D-I program financially even if they dropped football. D-I these days seems to be a about a $20-30 million annual athletic spend minimum to be viable. These two schools serve primarily a local community as commuter-centric schools with regional mandates. There isn't a large endowment at either school nor a rich alumni base to provide that high level of financial support beyond one flagship program. UMD is a branch campus of the U of M, which structurally, almost always presents financial and athletic limitations. Very few branch campus schools seem to do really well at the D-I level. St. Cloud is also quite limited in what it can spend for athletics, despite the great job AD Heather Weems is doing there (she is a former Denver athletic staffer). UMD and St. Cloud are also limited to small media markets and low recognition beyond hockey circles.

In all, I think DU fans would enjoy extending hockey rivalries into other sports if UMD and SCSU were to go D-I, but it's would not be quite the same pop as adding North Dakota to the league. UND is a state flagship school with the largest following in college hockey, and since DU has an intense hockey rivalry with UND, the excitement level here to play UND is far higher, especially given all the UND fans that live here in Denver.