Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.There's no question the debate will fester and foam for the next few years.
Are UNO and the five schools that are about to announce their upstart league going to destroy college hockey?
Will these six programs end up ruing the day they made such a monumental decision — a foolish and rash decision, if you're among the critics?
Are North Dakota, the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the three other WCHA teams making a giant mistake by breaking away from a conference with unmatched history and success?
And how many teams left behind in the WCHA and CCHA are going to be able to survive this unexpected body blow?
File all of it somewhere between legitimate concern and sky-is-falling rhetoric.
Right now, there's only one sure thing about everything that's happened: It's much better to be included, and not sitting on the outside looking in.
It's harsh to say it — maybe heartless, even. But name anything involving substantial money that isn't.
The bottom line enticed the Big Ten to announce in March — sooner than many believed the conference would — that it intended to start its own hockey league in 2013-14. That's when Minnesota and Wisconsin will end their affiliation with the WCHA, and when Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State will exit the CCHA. Those five will join forces with newcomer Penn State.
What was good for those schools looks good for the top remaining teams in the WCHA and CCHA, too. It became official on Saturday that UNO, North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College and Minnesota-Duluth all are going to depart the WCHA, while Miami University (Ohio) will say goodbye to the CCHA. Those six schools will create their own conference from scratch, and this new league also will hit the ice in 2013-14.
Lots of people who live and die with college hockey are wondering how and why this had to happen.
Anybody who cares about Mavs hockey — a program that didn't even exist 15 years ago — should be thanking their lucky stars that this happened when it did.
Imagine the NCAA's extreme makeover occurring in 2006. To say the UNO athletic department was a mess back then would be putting it mildly. The school was embroiled in controversy over former Chancellor Nancy Belck's misuse of athletic department funds, a scandal that eventually would cost A.D. David Herbster his job, too.
The Mavs' position wouldn't have been any stronger in 2008, when David Miller was in the middle of his brief, lackluster tenure as UNO's athletic director. When Miller left to take over at Upper Iowa University, he said he was looking forward to escaping the responsibility of overseeing a Division I pucks program. That's not exactly the guy you want in the driver's seat when the NCAA hockey landscape is ablaze from radical change.
It might not be well received in many local circles now to praise Athletic Director Trev Alberts, but he's the one who positioned UNO to be included in this potential blockbuster of a new conference. When he was hired in April 2009, Alberts said the success of the hockey program would be “non-negotiable.” His actions since — popular, unpopular and incendiary ones alike — have shown he wasn't joking.
Because of Alberts, former coach and current associate A.D. Mike Kemp still occupies a position of power with the Mavs, and Dean Blais, arguably the best college coach in the country, now stands on UNO's bench. With Alberts, Kemp and Blais all in the Mavs' corner, UNO is a program worthy of being included in a so-called super conference.
Before Alberts arrived, many were unsatisfied with the direction of UNO hockey, and Kemp was being spread too thin — and had too many responsibilities besides coaching and recruiting — in a mismanaged athletic department that appeared rudderless.
Timing can be everything, so credit UNO Chancellor John Christensen, too, for getting the Mavs' house in order when he did.
And to reiterate the point, it's better to be in than out.
The best hint that this thing could be big is that the NCAA's biggest hockey program — North Dakota — is involved. When you're charged with steering Sioux pucks, you're not allowed to make this big of a move without being convinced big things are ahead.
The six-team conference on its own has the potential to rival the Big Ten in many important ways — recruiting, attendance, facilities, etc. There also are rumblings that Versus, to be rebranded as NBC Sports, could be involved with televising UNO's new league.
That connection with NBC might make it a natural fit for Notre Dame and another school to join the fold, pushing league membership to eight. There's still a chance the Fighting Irish will skate off to Hockey East, of course. But if heavyweight Notre Dame does join the Mavs' new league, people won't be able to mock the idea that this is a college hockey super conference any longer.
Good or bad?
The league's a done deal, and that's a topic that will continue into the future.
In or out?
That's the only key matter this week for the non-Big Ten programs in the WCHA and CCHA.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1207, chad.purcell@owh.com
twitter.com/CPurcellOWH
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
RSS Feeds