(07-17-2020 10:15 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I too think we are going to see a geographic reshuffle in hockey that puts Miami and WMU in the CCHA while Minnesota St and Bemedji St go to the NCHC

I doubt it. It's not all about geography...

Miami and Western like the high level competition in the NCHC. Miami was one of the key founders of the NCHC, too, acting as the early treasurer, and their alumni were instrumental in the TV deal with CBS Sports Network, as well as providing current NCHC commissioner Josh Fenton, who came from Miami's athletic dept. Western wanted into the NCHC badly and lobbied hard for it, with Miami helping WMU as fellow MAC brothers. Both programs have made sizable investments in hockey, and want to play it in the best conference in the country.

One of the biggest reasons the NCHC was founded was precisely to get away from small schools in small markets with cost-containment mindsets, such as MSUM and Bemidji. Those two schools (along with a few others like Michigan Tech and UAA) made the WCHA a living hell for the more ambitious schools such as North Dakota, Denver, Omaha, etc., which led to the breakup of the WCHA.

Furthermore, BSU and MSUM are small market schools in a Minnesota market where there are three NCHC schools already - UMD, SCSU and North Dakota (Grand Forks straddles the Minnesota state line and has a big Minnesota presence). In other words, those two schools would bring little to the NCHC table beside more bus trips...Finally, both schools have a much better chance of making the NCAA tournament now by playing in the WCHA than they would playing the NCHC meat grinder.