rams80

The rest of their sports are parked in the Summit League, which is the tier below the Horizon League. No. No. A Thousand times No.

Vandy's only in the SEC because they're a charter member (and its nice to have the Nashville presence, but seriously it's the charter member thing.)

Pioneer League-D3 matchups are fairly common tilts in non-COVID years. Probably because most Pioneer League programs are glorified D3 teams that have to play D1 because of NCAA bylaws.

2nd and 3rd with Va Tech being 2 (George Mason is bigger). Also huge difference between liberal arts flagship and full land grant vs "One school to rule them all" and HBCU that's 1/6th the size.

Va Tech ain't an HBCU in a former slave state.

Also on the earlier Delaware State to the Colonial spitballing, I'm pretty sure Delaware would put a brick on that idea.

Untangling IUPUI is considerably more complex than untangling Fort Wayne was.

Very. Nobody in their right mind would take Chicago State right now (not that a program that bailed on the Summit League because it was too hard to compete in would even consider signing on to the league that's a tier above from that.)

I mean that's just #DeltaLyfe

The irony is that the Blues at one point owned the franchise that played in Springfield for decades before moving to Worcester.

Restrictions on the use of veteran players mean that any pure Indy team would have difficulty icing a competitive squad. The last independent AHL team was an unmitigated disaster too, which helped drive the decision to not do this anymore. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/team_results.php?tid=305&sid=1995

They need to buy and move an existing team.

THE BLUES DON'T WANT TO/LACK THE FUNDS TO OWN AN AHL FRANCHISE. They owned a team at one point and then sold it for this very reason. The same ownership group in place then still owns the teams, so I doubt the financials have changed that much. Yes, the Wolves are an incredibly sub-optimal affiliate, but the Blues don't really have much of a choice in the matter given this situation on the ground. Also, I strongly suspect the Peoria Civic Center would be willing to work with the Blues again, since the Blues stripped the Civic Center's hockey facilities of everything that wasn't nailed down and a few things that were when they pulled out-many of which had actually been paid for by the Civic Center. Palm Springs brought the AHL to 32 teams.

Who owns the arena/master leases on the arena? If it is those organizations, why invite trouble? Anyway, the NHL/Junior model works because they can use junior teams to sponge up arena dates in large urban areas, and there's less of a demand for weekend dates by one org or another. AHL/Junior turns into a death match for Friday-Sunday spots very, very quickly. Reduced travel burdens help. Counterargument, the Flames just flat out suck at running minor league orgs and will kill even the most fertile markets by showing up there.

What part of "they need to buy an AHL franchise first" isn't registering here?

Good Lord, its damn near like clockwork for Calgary.

Bylaws forbid new teams from being independent, although the workaround anyway is the Wolves doing what they've always done, and well it sucks to be the team that lost the round of affiliate musical chairs. Anyway, the Blues aren't doing whatever the heck it is people suggest they do because they don't have the money and/or desire to own an AHL franchise, as evidenced by them SELLING the AHL franchise they owned earlier in the decade. So yeah, go Blues.

They functionally are their own league, complete with fewer games than the rest of the AHL. No need to foot the administrative bills.

What situation? Travel only gets worse in the ECHL and there is no way for an NHL parent to force the Wolves to sell their franchise or give their farm players ice time.

There aren't that many AHL teams left that would be easily purchased and moved. Nothing more than that.

Nah, just the functional death of it as a vehicle for anything besides skill training.

Big South has better brand awareness, accepts football tournament bids and has better football overall.

The Blues lack the money to own an AHL team.

Theology per se is less the hangup with BYU than the prohibition on Sunday competitions, especially given that Sunday is typically a heavy day for Pac 12 sports.

The B1G isn't pulling anybody from the MAC either. Its another P5 league or nothing.