An Example of Comedy Gold

First, I am not a proponent of UND trying to join the Big Ten Conference in Hockey. I see it thrown around from time-to-time as mere speculation. I am of the mindset that it's a pipe dream of some and just not interesting to me. Not one bit.

Outside of UND playing Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan two-to-four times a year, the thought of being a member of the B1G bores me. I wouldn't want to see UND playing MSU or OSU on a regular basis. The games this past year against MSU were at best boring. Sure UND won, but I would rather see UND play someone else.

What I find even more entertaining is watching Gopher fans lecture UND fans on why adding UND to the B1G is really no benefit to the league. Because, they league only cares about football and basketball. Yeah, because UMN is really good in football and basketball, right? Well, maybe basketball. Here's an entertaining example of this mind set.

Sure, North Dakota hockey would improve the BTHC....but that's where the benefit for the conference AS A WHOLE ends. Keep in mind, hockey is (and always will be...) an afterthought for the Big 10. The primary revenue drivers are football and basketball. Hockey is viewed as something mildly interesting that fills the hours of Big 10 network programming that can't otherwise be filled with football, men's basketball, women's basketball, talking about football and basketball, playing reruns of classic football and basketball games, and, recently lacrosse.

North Dakota has NO tradition of success in football or basketball that it can point to as beneficial for the Big 10. Additionally, it doesn't bring a measurable TV market; and, let's be honest here, isn't the "ND" people think of when they are thinking about schools that have a truly national following.

WCHA Promoting B1G Hockey Tourney

I touched on this subject back in March, after the Press Conference,  before the championship game of the Final Five. Looks like the WCHA marketing plan is coming to fruition. Here's a screen shot of the WCHA's webpage. 

Rachel Blount asked, “Can you explain exactly how the Big Ten and the WCHA will be working together and what kinds of things you will be working together on and how you will be partnered?”

Jennifer Heppel responded back with this, “What we have done so far is again the WCHA and the Xcel Energy Center since the time the facility has opened has really built a tradition with the fan base here. We recognize the support the fans in this area have given to college hockey. We have for the last month made available the opportunity to purchase tickets in advance for those fans in this area that supported the WCHA tournament. Tickets for the general public go on sale on Monday. We wanted to extend that opportunity. We worked out some initial joint marketing efforts and we will continue to do that. Again, this community has a lot of fans of specific schools, but you also have just incredible support for hockey and college hockey.  The WCHA and the Big Ten want it to be a seamless transition from year-to-year for those that support college hockey and the “X” has been on that same page, and they don’t want there to be any drop-off in the tradition that has been created.”

So after Jennifer Heppel gave us her canned answer, WCHA Commissioner Bruce McLeod jumped in and said this.

“Rachel… we set a record this year in our packages [tickets]," McLeod said . "We sold pre-tournament wise, I would have to check, almost 13,000 [tickets]. I think. That was a record for us. All of those ticket bases; those email addresses have been shared with the Big Ten people, and hopefully as Jen said the end result is, everyone benefits.  We’re working on the same, you know, kind of the same [fan] base, and sharing all of those names, and I think the basic idea of what Jen says if we can provide, I don’t know what you’re going to call it eventually, the collegiate hockey weekend, or something like that. One year it’s the Big Ten Hockey weekend, the next year it’s the WCHA. The more we can get that across, the better off we’re going to be.”

You got that? Those people that bought tickets to the Red Baron Final Five will get a first crack at next year’s Big Ten Hockey tourney.  So the Big Ten is hoping that you will decide to not go to the WCHA conference tourney in Grand Rapids and instead go the Xcel next season.

That’s absolutely brilliant.

Related articles

• UND Hockey: Remembering the 'Old Ralph' Engelstad Arena (thehockeywriters.com)
• NCAA Hockey: Dog Days of Summer (thehockeywriters.com)