According to MSUM AD Peters, MSU Moorhead is pushing towards starting up a DI Men's and Women's Hockey program and has just under half of the money raised to start it up (They say they have $15 million of the required $37 million). They have been exploring starting up DI hockey since 2009.
It's interesting to me that they are exploring this given the state of affairs in Minnesota education financially. The hockey program already has no plans to be funded institutionally, which means it has to be funded privately. How do they plan to raise and maintain such a commitment? Will the WCHA be willing to take on this type of a risky partnership? What if MSU Moorhead decides to go for the program and ends up not being able to get the $37 million? Or worse, what if they manage to successfully start up the program and then run out of funds within the first 5 years of their existence?
To make matters more complicated, there's NCAA Legislation (2010-100) that may not even allow MSU Moorhead to even compete in the manner in which they do. Here is the Proposal 2010-100 (which, by the way, passed legislation and is now set to become NCAA Policy):
In August 2007, the Board placed a four-year moratorium on consideration of new members that expires in August 2011 when the legislation would take effect, if it is adopted. The moratorium was prompted by the presidents’ view that the division should assess the impact of membership migration and develop updated expectations and requirements for membership.
The Leadership Council constructed the new standards were constructed over a period of 18 months. The recommendations include:
- A requirement that all new Division I members first spend at least five years as active members in Division II.
- New Division I members must have a bona fide offer of membership from a Division I multisport voting conference.
- A four-year reclassification process would be created for new members.
- An application fee would be established commensurate with the estimated annual average value of direct benefits of Division I membership through distributions and championships (approximately $1.3 million currently).
- No school subject to a historically based penalty under the Academic Performance Program would be elected to active membership.
- Preliminary certification would be required in the first year of reclassification, and a full compliance review would be required before election to active membership.
- New members would be eligible for revenue distributions related to sport sponsorship and grants-in-aid after three years as an active member. Institutions would qualify immediately for Student-Athlete Opportunity, Special Assistance and Academic Enhancement Funds, as well as basketball grant funds as determined by its conference.
- The practice of allowing schools to sponsor a single sport in a different division would be eliminated, except in sports where no championship is conducted in its division. Divisions II and III schools currently taking advantage of this opportunity would not affected unless they fail to conduct the sport in Division I for any ensuing year.
- The Administration Cabinet would be responsible for review of the reclassification process and appropriate benchmarks.
- The Board would vote to elect institutions to active membership (not the Leadership Council).
Leadership Council members believe – and Board members agree – that the recommendations consider a variety of factors, including allowing student-athletes access to championships (by requiring five years of Division II membership before reclassifying) and protecting the Division I “brand” (by requiring compliance with some Division I standards earlier in the reclassification process and tying the application fee to benefits derived from membership).
I bolded the important part of the proposal. What this means is that, though SCSU, MTU, and MSUM fall under the same situation (Hockey is their only DI sport), they've been a part of a DI conference since 2009-2010 (before that, but that's the line stated in the proposal). MSU Moorhead will not have had such a history. So the question is, if they do decide to go DI in hockey, how do they do it? They will have to act faster, unless I misinterpret the moratorium placed in 2007, than the 3 months their AD has defined.
In the end, it might've been better for a school like Concordia College of Moorhead to jump to DI because they've already established a DIII hockey team. But they're not interested, or haven't shown that they were anyhow.
Who knows what they'll do and if they'd be even allowed to do it. Throw in the finances and I feel that this is very much a long shot.
