WCHA Expanding (College Hockey)

[no97]

Just as the title says

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/24993/

SOURCES: Beavers headed to the WCHA; teleconference set for 5 p.m.

Sources have told the Duluth News Tribune that Bemidji State and Nebraska-Omaha will be officially welcomed into the Western Collegiate Hockey Association Friday afternoon.

News Tribune hockey writer Kevin Pates reported this morning that the Beavers and Mavericks will begin play in the league in 2010-11. A WCHA teleconference call is scheduled for 5 p.m.

Here is Kevin Pates' report:

Bemidji State and Nebraska-Omaha officially will be admitted to the Western Collegiate Hockey Association this afternoon and begin play in the league in 2010-11, sources have confirmed to the News Tribune. A WCHA teleconference call is scheduled for 5 p.m.

The decision to expand from 10 to 12 teams came Thursday night after two days of talks within the league, and with Omaha school officials. It's believed that WCHA athletic directors agreed in principle with terms negotiated between commissioner Bruce McLeod and the incoming schools, and an official vote on admission will be taken today by school faculty representatives. Eight of 10 votes is required for admission.

McLeod told the News Tribune on Thursday afternoon that there had been new developments in the situation and that an announcement was due as early as today.

It will mark the first WCHA expansion since Minnesota State-Mankato joined in 1999-2000.

Omaha currently is a member of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association and first approached the WCHA about membership 13 years ago as its hockey program began. Until Thursday, Bemidji State was the only school to apply to the WCHA since a moratorium on expansion was lifted in January. Bemidji State made a presentation during league meetings in April in Marco Island, Fla. Bemidji State's women's team is a member of the women's WCHA, while the men's team is a member of the four-team College Hockey America, which will disolve after the 2009-10 season because of dwindling member numbers.

McLeod talked with WCHA athletic directors by phone Wednesday night with an update on negotiations with Omaha school officials, receiving guidance on how to proceed. It's believed he continued discussions Thursday with new Omaha athletic director Trev Alberts and met later in the day, by phone, with the WCHA ADs.

It's believed that negotiations centered on three points -- a reduced fee to join the league, an immediate share of playoff revenue and competing in the WCHA by 2010-11

When Minnesota State-Mankato joined the WCHA, it paid the league $40,000 per year for three years, and didn't share in WCHA playoff revenue during that time, according to the Mankato Free Press. WCHA teams each earned about $91,000 from the 2009 league playoffs, said McLeod.

Bemidji State, in particular, was pushing to begin WCHA play as soon as possible. If incoming teams were asked to wait until 2011-12, it would've forced Bemidji State to play an independent and, likely, unattractive schedule, in 2010-11, the same season it moves into the new Bemidji Regional Events Center.

The Beavers, coached by Coleraine native Tom Serratore, won the 2009 College Hockey America regular season and playoff titles, and advanced to the Frozen Four for the first time, losing to Miami of Ohio in the semifinals. Bemidji State finished 20-16-1.

Omaha (15-17-8) tied for seventh in the CCHA in 2008-09. After the season, Alberts moved Duluth native Mike Kemp from coach to associate athletic director and hired former North Dakota coach Dean Blais. The International Falls native, hired two weeks ago, was 216-115-83 in 10 years in the WCHA with North Dakota through 2004.

Minnesota Duluth has played Bemidji State very year since the Beavers moved to Division I in 1999-2000. The Bulldogs hold a 13-7 mark during that period and are scheduled face Bemidji State next season, on Jan. 22-23, in a home-and-home series. UMD last met Nebraska-Omaha in October of 2001 in the Maverick Stampede, beating the Mavericks 5-2 in Omaha.

With Omaha leaving the CCHA, it's believed the league will replace the Mavericks with Alabama-Huntsville of College Hockey America. Huntsville has applied for CCHA membership and received a site visit by the league earlier this month.

[OnWis97]

Wow. The only concern I have is with scheduling. Teams will barely play anyone twice anymore. You'll probably see a lot of home and homes w/i Minnesota. Hopefully Minnesota and Wisconsin continue to play each other the full four games per year.

Congrats to BSU.

[logodawg]

Wow. The only concern I have is with scheduling. Teams will barely play anyone twice anymore. You'll probably see a lot of home and homes w/i Minnesota. Hopefully Minnesota and Wisconsin continue to play each other the full four games per year.

Congrats to BSU.

Not true, CCHA has been able to have anyone play at least twice with a 12 team league, so I don't see the WCHA having an issue.

[Bmac]

YAY! UNO! Now if they would just see my concept...

[no97]

I'll be listening in to the teleconference @ 5 pm (we're broadcasting it on the SportsRadio station I'm Sports Director of here in Bemidj), and will post any details I can at that time.

Moose

[DelayedPenalty]

Congrats to Bemidji! Their NCAA tournament run was very impressive this past season, making it to the Frozen Four is quite an accomplishment for a relatively unknown school.

[illwauk]

I always figured it was only a matter of time for this to happen. UNO being in a conference with Michigan and Ohio teams instead of one with teams a state it actually borders never made any sense to me. And Bemidji would naturally try to move to the conference with all the other Minnesota teams.

[spyboy1]

Since the WCHA already has two teams named "Huskies" and will now have two teams named "Mavericks", perhaps Bemidji State could have sped the process up if they had changed their team name to "Fighting Sioux".

UNO's addition certainly makes sense geographically. I wonder how these two additions will fit in competitively. The WCHA has enough doormats as it is.

[stolilv87]

UNO usually held up pretty well in the CCHA the past few years and the WCHA and CCHA are pretty close in terms of the strengths of teams, i'm not saying they'll win the conference but they won't be a doormat.

It looks like Hockey East (10 members) will be the only conference with less than 12 members as Niagara and Robert Morris are heading to Atlantic Hockey and Alabama-Huntsville is petitioning CCHA for membership.

Any chance that the NCAA will expand the national tournament?

[no97]

Any chance that the NCAA will expand the national tournament?

Um, why? It's not like there are any more teams, just a conference re-alignment here. In fact, over the last six years, you've had: Wayne State, Findlay, Fairfield, and Iona drop D-I hockey, with only the addition of Robert Morris in that span...

If BSU (and more importintly, Alabama-Huntsville - who hopefully will go into UNO's CCHA spot) aren't saved, the NCAA has a legitimate reason to drop back to a 12-team tourney. The NCAA has a regulation on how many teams can make the tournament in any given sport - 25% of the participating schools. Since there are currently 58 D-I schools, that works out to 14.5 teams in the NCAA tourney. Hockey had to get a waiver to expand when they moved to a 16-team tourney (before the net loss of three teams), and if any more schools would drop the sport, you could certainly see the NCAA stepping in and saying that they would pull that waiver...

Moose

[Viper]

Wow. The only concern I have is with scheduling. Teams will barely play anyone twice anymore. You'll probably see a lot of home and homes w/i Minnesota. Hopefully Minnesota and Wisconsin continue to play each other the full four games per year.

Congrats to BSU.

Not true, CCHA has been able to have anyone play at least twice with a 12 team league, so I don't see the WCHA having an issue.

The WCHA is much more spread-out geographically than the CCHA though - including one team in freaking Alaska - so travel costs and logistical concerns might lead the conference to cancel out the added games by cutting back on home-and-homes between distant rivals (e.g. Alaska-Anchorage vs. Michigan Tech). What we could end up with is an informal divisional arrangement, where the WCHA is officially still one single unit but design their schedule as though they have two or even three geographical divisions, with the schedule weighted toward intra-"divisional" play of course.

Another thing to consider is how the expansion will affect the WCHA postseason. One possibility is that it will go on basically as before, only with the championship round going from the "Final Five" to the "Super Six" or something to that effect. On the other hand, they could take the opportunity to tinker with the format. Personally what I'd like to see them do is give the top four teams a first-round bye and let the #5 through #12 seeds play their way into the championship round at Xcel which would now have eight teams - essentially the Minnesota state high school tournament format (minus the consolation round), transplanted to the WCHA.

[zmspartans]

Wow. The only concern I have is with scheduling. Teams will barely play anyone twice anymore. You'll probably see a lot of home and homes w/i Minnesota. Hopefully Minnesota and Wisconsin continue to play each other the full four games per year.

Congrats to BSU.

Not true, CCHA has been able to have anyone play at least twice with a 12 team league, so I don't see the WCHA having an issue.

The WCHA is much more spread-out geographically than the CCHA though - including one team in freaking Alaska - so travel costs and logistical concerns might lead the conference to cancel out the added games by cutting back on home-and-homes between distant rivals (e.g. Alaska-Anchorage vs. Michigan Tech). What we could end up with is an informal divisional arrangement, where the WCHA is officially still one single unit but design their schedule as though they have two or even three geographical divisions, with the schedule weighted toward intra-"divisional" play of course.

Another thing to consider is how the expansion will affect the WCHA postseason. One possibility is that it will go on basically as before, only with the championship round going from the "Final Five" to the "Super Six" or something to that effect. On the other hand, they could take the opportunity to tinker with the format. Personally what I'd like to see them do is give the top four teams a first-round bye and let the #5 through #12 seeds play their way into the championship round at Xcel which would now have eight teams - essentially the Minnesota state high school tournament format (minus the consolation round), transplanted to the WCHA.

Actually the CCHA has a team in Alaska too, Alaska Fairbanks.

[Seadragon76]

True, but the geography of the WCHA members are better spread out and the farthest UNO would have to go is Alaska (Which is just the same as in the CCHA). So, in a sense, UNO would feel more comfortable in the WCHA.

As for UNO themselves, the Mavs can be good when they want to be good. They only have one NCAA tourny berth under their belt, so maybe this might result in some more good news.

[Sport]

Fun story: Nebraska Omaha was in town for the preliminary round of the CCHA tournament around what I want to say was 2004. UNO had found some ice at my high school's home rink. They were just finishing up a 2 hour skate-around when we were supposed to take the same ice for our practice. The guys asked if they could stay on with us. We ended up scrimmaging a division 1 college hockey for the whole time. They weren't trying as hard as we were and they were clearly much bigger, stronger, faster, and more talented, but it was still really cool. It almost made me feel bad when Ohio State beat them in that tournament. Had it not been for their place in the CCHA that wouldn't have happened.

[spyboy1]

Another thing to consider is how the expansion will affect the WCHA postseason. One possibility is that it will go on basically as before, only with the championship round going from the "Final Five" to the "Super Six" or something to that effect. On the other hand, they could take the opportunity to tinker with the format. Personally what I'd like to see them do is give the top four teams a first-round bye and let the #5 through #12 seeds play their way into the championship round at Xcel which would now have eight teams - essentially the Minnesota state high school tournament format (minus the consolation round), transplanted to the WCHA.

I see them going with a six team format, with the top two getting byes. An 8 team format means four games on the first day and I'm not sure that would be workable from a fan demand/cost format. Six teams would give you two games Thursday, two Friday and two Saturday, assuming a third place game. It's July and I can't remember if there is one!

They'll likely call it "Super Six", but seeing that there's only 12 teams, that's a bit hard to swallow...

One thing about UNO's jerseys, they have the first four color numbers I've ever seen, but in their black, white, red, silver color scheme, it's not obnoxious at all.

[no97]

While not finalized, they did mention in the teleconference that the post-season would likely go to a six-team format. A couple reasons for this: First off, they could add an extra home-series (from the current five home sites to six), and that would maximize revenue. The format is, first round games as well as the Final Five are all treated as the "WCHA Play-offs," and thus, the schools must turn over all ticket revenue for those home play-off games to the league. Adding an additional first round game adds money to the pot for revenue shairing. Second, the WCHA has expressed interest in dropping the third place game at the Final Five. This would keep the tourney at five games (two "play-in" games on Thursday, two semi-finals on Friday, and a championship game on Saturday).

As to the name, Super Six is kind-of already taken:

Actually, that's the former name of the CCHA Tourney. They've changed to just calling it the CCHA Championship:

since going to their final four format (and the previously mentioned four teams getting a bye, then 5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, etc. Then a second week of home playoffs w/ 1 vs. lowest remining, 2 vs. 2nd lowest, etc. before the Championship final 4). The nice thing about this format is eight home series, but you only get three or four games at the championship. Also, you have increased travel costs for two rounds of home play-offs...

Moose