WCHA races ahead into unknown
For over 60 years, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association resembled a perfectly-tuned race car, speeding ahead of the pack with efficient precision, while compiling an impressive number of national championships that overwhelm all other college hockey leagues combined. The fact that UMD could rise up from a sputtering fourth-place finish in the WCHA to win its first NCAA title in 2011 is further evidence of the league’s domination.
Then came the Summer of 2011, and some WCHA member schools have willingly chosen to turn off the track in a new direction, swerving down two different avenues, which will either be wildly successful for themselves, or devastatingly harmful for college hockey. Or both.
And UMD is right in the middle of the turmoil.
College hockey interest is intense in Northern Minnesota, and has been cultivated for more than a full generation or two. The pinnacle came in April of 2011 when the UMD Bulldogs won the first NCAA Division 1 men’s hockey championship by any Minnesota team not named Gophers.
Hockey fans all have taken great pride in the WCHA, knowing it is the best college hockey league in the nation — not “one of the best,†as the ill-informed outsiders of the Duluth News-Tribune’s editorial board claimed. Despite defections and revisions over 60 years, the WCHA retained its lofty stature, with UMD becoming part of it. The WCHA will continue to be the best NCAA Division 1 hockey league, untouched, for the next two seasons. And then — the WCHA will be blown to bits.
The WCHA used to encompass all college hockey programs from Michigan west. It totally dominated through the 1970s, survived a major shakeup when Michigan led a withdrawal that also lured Michigan State, Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan out of the WCHA, in order to start the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. Teams have come and gone, but the status of the WCHA remained.
Flash forward, and status quo remains for the next two seasons, keeping intact all the colorful rivalries UMD, for example, enjoys with Minnesota, St. Cloud State, Michigan Tech, Bemidji State, North Dakota and the rest of the WCHA. But when hockey starts in the fall of 2013, the league will scatter in three different directions. Solid rivals UMD, Minnesota, and St. Cloud State will all be in different leagues — maybe still playing each other in nonconference games, which will have greatly reduced intensity; maybe not playing at all.
Reality followed rumors that the five current Big Ten teams currently in either the WCHA and CCHA would be joined by a startup program at Penn State, creating a new Big Ten hockey conference. It’s ironic that Michigan is pushing for the Big Ten rivalries, because Michigan kissed off those same heated rivalries with Minnesota and Wisconsin when it left the WCHA.
The reason for reuniting as a Big Ten hockey league may appear to be strictly for potential television revenue, because the Big Ten Network is doing right well broadcasting football and basketball every Saturday, but it would like something to broadcast on Friday nights, too. Hockey fills that bill, although we could make a bet that when Saturdays roll around, how many lousy Big Ten basketball games will ever be bounced off the air to show a great Big Ten hockey game.
Less understood is that the Big Ten strongly urges that any time as many as six Big Ten universities are involved in a sport, they should align in a Big Ten Conference in that sport. When Penn State announced it was starting a hockey program for both men and women, the Nittany Lions became the sixth Big Ten team with hockey. Minnesota, in fact, voted against the concept of a Big Ten hockey league, but had no real choice.
Two years from now, Minnesota and Wisconsin leave the WCHA, and Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State leave the CCHA, joining up with Penn State for a six-team Big Ten league. Four of the six — Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan State — have all been members of the NCAA hockey elite, but in reality, Minnesota and Michigan State have slipped over the last few years. A mass of early pro signings that included five underclassmen on defense caused a temporary slip by Wisconsin this past season, but we can assume Wisconsin will rise back to its previous stature. Questions continue to plague Minnesota and Michigan State returning to elite level. Regardless, Michigan is the only Big Ten school that has remained consistently elite. So the Big Ten hockey league won’t necessarily be an instant member of college hockey’s elite class.
Without Minnesota and Wisconsin two years from now, the WCHA could easily have retained its position as the best league in the nation. North Dakota has stayed at the elite level, and Denver has nearly matched the Fighting Sioux. Colorado College is usually there, and now Nebraska-Omaha has surged up to that status. UMD has risen to that level at least for the present, while St. Cloud State and Bemidji State are close behind, and Minnesota State-Mankato, Alaska-Anchorage and Michigan Tech hope to rise.
Right after the Big Ten formation became official, North Dakota seemed to panic a bit, wondering if its position as the No. 1 program in all of college hockey would hold up if the WCHA slipped in  stature by the Big Ten departures. Officials in Grand Forks overlooked the fact that North Dakota could be the lynchpin in assuring the WCHA’s continued prominence, and started examining alternatives to staying in the WCHA. They decided to start a new league, and Denver, CC, and Nebraska-Omaha jumped on board, which led to UMD trying to join, too. Forming a “super†league that would also include Miami of Ohio and, they hope, Notre Dame, became reality. UMD pursued the group and got on board, too. Officially, it will be called the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC).
NCHC teams all are claiming to be looking at the big picture, when in reality that may be their major shortcoming. In their zeal for me-too prominence, nobody seems to care a whit about what would remain as the WCHA, or about the future of NCAA hockey.
UMD, which has been striving for elite status for 50 years, and attained it for a few years in the mid-1980s, now has finally reached its peak by winning its first NCAA championship in men’s hockey this past April. We can only wonder how eager the other defecting WCHA powers, like North Dakota and Denver, would have been to welcome UMD if the Bulldogs hadn’t won their new title. A championship, even a fantastic championship, following a fourth-place finish, hardly chisels a team’s name into the elite category.
Certainly, St. Cloud State, Mankato, Bemidji State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior State, the two Alaskas, Western Michigan, and Ferris State are far from rejects staying behind. While the Big Ten arrogantly says its winner will get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, so would the NCHC teams, and so will the collection of remaining western teams, whether they call it the WCHA or whatever. And who’s to say the winner of the remaining WCHA wouldn’t be just as good as the NCHC or Big Ten champ in any given year?
College hockey programs don’t seem to realize that with so few teams playing the sport, they are fortunate the NCAA allows them to have a national tournament. It’s also fortunate that the NCAA hockey tournament has become such a major financial success that the “show me the money†lads at the NCAA definitely won’t want to lose it. But some of these programs left behind by the new elite leagues might decide that it’s not worth the expense to keep playing, and if a few schools drop their programs, the future of the NCAA hockey tournament could indeed be jeopardized.
There is one other matter the new leagues haven’t considered. Eastern college hockey teams are clustered in either the ECAC or Hockey East, both of which have elite teams, middle teams, and poor teams, revolving to some extent with the roller-coasters of recruiting and returning crops. So does the WCHA and CCHA. A major reason why the top teams are the best is reflected in their records of usually beating the middle teams, and almost always beating the bottom ones.
Now that the NCHC has isolated six very strong programs, guess what? No matter how good all league teams might be, a couple will have good records up on top, a couple more will be about .500, and a couple others will have poor records at the bottom. A team such as UMD, or Colorado College, or any other in the NCHC, could be one of the 10 best teams in the country, and still finish 5-15 and at the bottom of the NCHC. Will an elite team in an elite league still be considered elite if it goes 5-15 against other elite teams in that league? More than that, a 5-15 team in the NCHC might be stronger than a St. Cloud State or Bemidji State that goes 16-4 to win what’s left of the WCHA, but will the NCAA selection computers discern that quality difference?
Last season, North Dakota, UMD, Nebraska-Omaha, Denver, Colorado College, and Miami of Ohio all were selected for the NCAA’s 16-team tournament field. Those six are all making up the NCHC. But when they all play each other in the same new league, without lowlier teams to fatten their records against, three or four of those teams might be bypassed for teams that aren’t as strong but have better records in less-elite leagues.
I’ve always thought that college hockey programs should be more focused on expanding rather than isolating top teams. They should actively campaign to get programs established at North Dakota State, maybe Minnesota State-Moorhead, which is interested in going D1, plus Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State, to begin with, and then head on down to some California colleges, Arizona State maybe, and even Montana and Wyoming. Minor league pro and/or Major junior hockey has given the sport a base in Seattle, Spokane, Portland and other cities in the Northwest, so college hockey could be easily established. Think what a great league it would be to have Denver, CC, the two Alaska-Anchorage, Alaska-Fairbanks, Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State combined into a competitive league, with more teams trying to get in.
Without that, and without the sly and possibly sinister way of abandoning honest and worthy rivalries in the WCHA, let’s look at what cooler heads might have sought:
Imagine keeping the WCHA and CCHA intact as they are, and arranging the schedules so that the Big Ten schools stay where they are right now, but all play each other in nonconference games, and then keeping a separate Big Ten standing. A team like Minnesota or Wisconsin could finish fourth or fifth in the WCHA, and still be the Big Ten champion. At playoff time, if they insist, the Big Ten teams could go off into their own Big Ten tournament for a playoff, and seek their own seeding for NCAA tournament entry.
Another scenario might have sent the Big Ten teams off to their own conference, while the remainder of the WCHA and CCHA could get together and form a new truly super league, with two 9-team divisions, and minimal disruption. The Eastern half might include, say, UMD, Bemidji State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior State, Western Michigan, Miami of Ohio, Ferris State, and Notre Dame; the Western half would be North Dakota, St. Cloud State, MSU-Mankato, Nebraska-Omaha, Denver, CC, the two Alaskas, and maybe Air Force Academy. The leagues could play interlocking, with either two or four games each against teams in their own division, and two each against teams from the other division.
Those would be full schedules, which might not leave room to play any of the departed Big Ten teams. Someone from Minnesota scoffed at that, saying all the other teams would still clamor to play the Gophers, proving that arrogance can remain even as quality dissipates. If might be good for Minnesota to learn that, never mind the size and self-absorbed prestige of Big Ten rivals, it will be a lot tougher to fill Mariucci Arena for Ohio State, Penn State and even Michigan State than for UMD, St. Cloud State or North Dakota. And when the Western division fills the centrally located Xcel Center, or large rinks in Omaha, Grand Forks, or Denver for its playoff, and the Eastern half does the same in Detroit, the Big Ten has chosen a higher-seed site for playoffs, which could leave its playoff final in 6,000-seat Yost Fieldhouse in Ann Arbor.
The idea of UMD joining North Dakota in starting their own super NCHC might seem exciting and promising short-term, and every regular season game in the new league will be exciting. But I worry most about the programs being left behind. Whatever transpires, the next two seasons of status-quo WCHA play should be very interesting, as well as highly competitive. The current rivalries might definitely intensify when the self-appointed “elite†teams take on the “castoffs†they’re leaving behind.
Two years from now, that efficient and precise race car speeding down the track, wearing WCHA colors, will change abruptly. The wheels will come off, it might spin out, and it could crash into a wall. If so, that impending crash would have to be attributed to “Driver error.”
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About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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