Hockey could come to the Big Ten one year ahead of schedule
Hockey could be a Big Ten sport sooner than expected.
Athletic directors from Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State announced in a joint statement today they would recommend to the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancelors in June that hockey become a conference sport for the 2013-14 season.
When Penn State announced its intention to become a Division I program back in September, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said that a Big Ten conference championship would not take place until the 2014-15 season.
The six athletic directors will recommend that timeline be expedited.
Michigan along with Michigan State and Ohio State currently compete in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, which would be reduced to eight members should the plans go forward, while Minnesota and Wisconsin’s departure would leave the Western Collegiate Hockey Association membership at 10 schools.
Under the planned format, each Big Ten team would have a 20-game conference schedule with home and away two-game series with each member school, and an end of the season conference tournament. The format would leave room for traditional rivalries to remain intact. Michigan played Ohio State, Wisconsin, MIchigan State and Minnesota this season.
“The Big Ten’s men’s ice hockey programs will continue to proactively work to maintain a strong schedule of non-conference competition with the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) and Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA),” Big Ten assistant commissioner of communications Scott Chipman said in a press release.
Michigan coach Red Berenson isn’t bothering to read up on or worry about the details of future conference affiliation just yet. He’s more concerned with his team’s upcoming matchup with Nebraska-Omaha in the NCAA Tournament and didn’t want the Michigan players addressing the issue either.
“I really don’t want to worry about it right now. It’s two years away,” Berenson said on Monday. “I haven’t even read the statement yet, so it is what it is.”
The addition of men’s ice hockey would even the amount of sports offered to men and women in the Big Ten. The conference currently offers 13 women’s and 12 men’s sports. The last sport to added to the conference was women’s rowing before the 1999-2000 school year.
Comments
a2roots
Mon, Mar 21, 2011 : 10:04 p.m.
@DavidVB...Michigan is the only team of the B1G that has made the NCAA tourney this year. So, it is unlikely the new set up will create the best league any time soon. It will only deplete the other two. This was bound to happen but it may not be smart. Why not throw PSU into Hockey East?
David Vande Bunte
Mon, Mar 21, 2011 : 8:33 p.m.
I will miss all of the rivalries in the CCHA, but I think it would be fantastic for NCAA hockey in general. Its maddening that teams like Michigan and Michigan State aren't in the same conference as Wisconsin and Minnesota, when we are all B1G in everything else. It might mean Michigan's hockey team has a tougher schedule every year, but I think uniting all of the true B1G teams in one conference is a good idea. What is this going to do for automatic bids into the NCAA Hockey Tournament though? Would the B1G only get the automatic conference winner, and then fight for at-larges, or because the B1G will easily be the toughest conference out there, would they broker some kind of deal where they automatically grab one of the at-larges as well, similar to the Notre Dame/BCS arrangement?