Nanne wants Gophers to add Minnesota hockey tournament

This was in Shooter's column today, former University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and Minnesota North Stars player Lou Nanne comes up with a pretty decent idea for the Gophers to continue scheduling the Minnesota WCHA schools and still keeping the main rivalry games against DU, UMD and UND. Perusing the proposal from my seat, it looks like a pretty good idea, however, how often are the Big Ten Schools going to want to come to the REA, Amsoil or Magness Arena and get beat.

Charley Walters, pioneerpress.com ----- Lou Nanne, the former University of Minnesota All-American, said he likes that the Gophers will become part of an upstart Big Ten hockey conference in 2013-14 because of Big Ten Network exposure.

But, Nanne said this morning, he has an idea "that no one is talking about and that they should do. I would have a Minnesota tournament every year instead of that Christmas tournament they've got now with schools you've never heard of."

Such a holiday tournament would include St. Cloud State, Minnesota State Mankato and Bemidji State.

"That would give visibility and credibility to the Minnesota schools and build rivalries," he said. "Don't have Duluth in it, because Duluth would be on the non-conference schedule. I would maintain Duluth and North Dakota for two non-conference games a year. The (holiday tournament) would mean two more games for Minnesota.

"That would give you six (Gophers) games that should be a must. And they would, by far, draw better at the Christmas tournament. No one has thought about it, and they better start thinking about it."

Nanne, who owns four Gophers season tickets, intends to suggest the holiday tournament to Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi.

"I don't want to go watch the weaker schools from the East; I don't care about them," Nanne said. "I care about the Minnesota schools.

"That's what this is all about, maintaining Minnesota rivalries somehow. But I really hope that they work in traditional rivalries with North

Dakota and Duluth and Denver and Colorado. North Dakota and Duluth are the biggest rivalries we've had."

Color me less than impressed

One scenario that I can see is in the future, I think the Big Ten Schools are going to fill their schedules with teams that aren’t as hard to beat, shall we call them cupcakes because face it, their conference schedule is going to be tough in the Strength of Schedule department and they are going to need rack up some wins after beating the hell out of each other to possibly to make the NCAA tourney and might have to line their non conference schedule with less challenging opponents cupcakes that are looking to travel to the Big Ten teams arena's for a pay day.

One thing I would've liked to have seen when then Big Ten Schools made their big annoucement would've been for the WCHA and CCHA athletic directors to tell the Big Ten Schools to tell them, "don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." I would have liked to seen the Bruce McLeod tell the Big Ten Schools Minnesota and Wisconsin whatever and or nice knowing you and good luck. I would rather not have the commissioner falling all over himself. In the next breath as soon as possible I would have called for a meeting with the head of the CCHA Tom Anastos to set up discussion about forming a new super conference between the WCHA and the CCHA.

I mean seriously, what we are really doing here; the way I see it, college hockey is adding one college hockey team in PSU, this is a team who has never played a single friggen division one hockey game ever and we are now going to possibly sacrifice up to five CCHA teams, FSU, LSSU, WMU, BGSU and or NMU so the BTHC can have 40+ hockey games on their beloved BTN. I am not anti Big Ten but why not put a little more thought into it.