The WCHA doesn't.
They rejected the idea of expanding the league to 11 teams. Now the Bemidji State mens team is in need of some help. According to Dr. Goeb, the BSU athletic director, they are now trying to raise $2.5 Million by May 2008 to make sure they can operate the team for another 5 years. This 5 year window would then make it for BSU to try and get into a new league, or save the CHA.
The Bemidji State's men hockey team is in jeopardy, since the CHA is down to 5 teams in the league. Having 5 teams in the league, their automatic bid for the NCAA tournemant is most likely to get pulled. That means it will be highly unlikely that any team in the CHA will make the big show. The CHA has made a couple of good showing at the NCAA tourney. BSU took Denver there limit a couple of years ago, before Denver eventually won the NCAA title.
BSU getting into the WCHA makes sense, especially from a travel/distance approach. They are only 2-3 hours away from 5 WCHA teams. This would be nice for these 5 WCHA schools, they wouldn't take much to adjust there travel budgets.
The other thing would be if the WCHA, CCHA, CHA, would go into a new alignment. I have mentioned this before, the CCHA has 12 teams, the CHA has 5, and the WCHA has 10.
If 2 teams left the CCHA and the WCHA had 1 team move to the CHA, that would make for more even conferences, CCHA=10, WCHA=9, CHA=8. That would mean, there could be either more conference games or more non-conference games. I think every league would be improved by a realignment. This would also leave the WCHA and the CHA room for expansion in the future as well, by having less than 10 teams.
It has worked in the NFL, I remembered when they did it, at first I didn't like it, but give it time and before you know it, its hard to remember what it was like before the change. If college hockey doesn't change it will get passed by, and will suffer a loss, no sport wants to lose teams and go backwards.
I would be displeased to see a hockey team, such as BSU out in the cold due to snobbish politics among the universities. I don't know about others, by I like the Beavers, even being a extremely biased UND fan. They have had a good hockey progam for years and I hope they are able to continue their proud tradition and stay at the Division 1 level.
New alignment among all of the college hockey conferences would be a good move.
ReplyDeleteSaving the CHA as is probably doesn't work in the long run for the same reasons it is not working now, one reason being the distance between the member schools.
But their could be six good college conferences I think, and maybe more.
And I wish Bemidji would become part of the WCHA.
The NCAA voted this year to extend the autobid to the CHA, so thats no longer an issue.
ReplyDeleteThe fact of the matter is there are only 25 athletic departments out 300+ that actually make money. All of them are BCS football schools.
In the WCHA only Wisconsin is profitable. Bemidji will never get into the WCHA for this reason alone. The WCHA member schools need to protect their bottom line and Bemidji doesn't cut it.
Fans can complain all they want about the "Bemidji situation," buts its the Atheltic Departments all over the country that are in financial distress thats causing this problem.