Possible Hockey East Expansion Targets
by Brian Favat on May 20, 2011 2:48 PM EDT
in Boston College Hockey
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Hockey East Commissioner Joe Bertagna recently spoke with College Hockey News' Mike McMahon on the topic of possible Hockey East expansion. Here's what Bertagna had to say on the subject of expansion opportunities:
"I think we've always been open to (potentially expanding the league). The last time it happened was when Vermont came to us and they had a new president and wanted to talk to us and that was a seamless process as both sides saw value in the other. We're always looking to make our league even more than what it is but there is an awful lot that would have to happen in this current conversation. There are programs in the northeast, if we got to a point where we wanted to talk to other programs, but we've never approached anyone in another league, that's not appropriate, certainly not to initiate that conversation, but we're always open to improving what we already are."
Hockey East last expanded for the 2005-06 season with the addition of Vermont as the league's tenth member, but has maintained a steady, ten program association for the last six seasons. However, with the new Big Ten Hockey Conference plucking teams from both the WCHA and the CCHA in a few years, there will likely be some conference realignment that takes place with the remaining WCHA and CCHA programs.
So while the Commissioner shot down any notion that the conference would be proactive in any college hockey conference realignment talks, it's fun to play a game of 'what if' and think about which programs Hockey East should go after.
Below is a top five wish list of programs the HEA should take a long, hard look at if they ever wanted to expand to 12 teams:
[NOTE: The first teams that come to mind are traditionally strong ECAC programs like Dartmouth, Yale and Cornell, but the six Ivy League ECAC programs aren't going to leave each other's side, and a 16 team college hockey conference seems a bit untenable. Besides, the whole reason the Hockey East Association was created was to distance themselves from those programs in the first place.]
1. Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Sure, you might say that Notre Dame hardly qualifies as "East," but the Irish do play in the Big East for all other sports. And if there is any college sports conference that has broken from the conventions of its directional namesake, it's the Big East (which now calls locales such as Louisville, Milwaukee and Fort Worth home). Notre Dame may very well be in the market for a new conference depending on what comes of the CCHA in the coming years, and the conference prides itself on its football independence and national following. Instead of aligning itself with the remaining WCHA programs, why not come East and align themselves with college hockey's premier Eastern conference?
The Irish find themselves back East multiple times a year, anyhow, between trips to Storrs, Providence, Syracuse and the NY/NJ area. Notre Dame is a college hockey program on the rise and will be breaking in a brand new ice arena this season. I'm sure ND will be able many more tickets for games against BC, BU, New Hampshire and Maine than against Northern Michigan, Lake Superior State, Ferris State and Western Michigan. Plus Notre Dame would be joining more a conference with more 'like' programs like BC, Providence and Merrimack (private, Catholic universities).
Added bonus: all future Notre Dame hockey games to be broadcast nationally on NBC?
2. Miami RedHawks. Sticking with the geographical outlier theme, if Hockey East can successfully lure the Irish East, a big selling point could be providing them with a dancing partner in the Midwest portion of the country. Miami has been the best CCHA program for several years now and adding the RedHawks to the conference would give a significant boost to the conference's overall strength and cache. Besides, I'm sure Miami wants more cracks at Hockey East teams considering that the RedHawks have been bounced from the NCAAs by a Hockey East program for five consecutive years running, including an overtime heartbreaker to BU in the 2009 Title game.
If the MAC can extend all the way East to Philadelphia and Amherst, then why couldn't (shouldn't?) Hockey East expand to Oxford?
3. UConn Huskies. Notre Dame and Miami are the only two programs that I think Hockey East would make an exception for in terms of expanding the geographical footprint of the conference. Coming back to New England and a little closer to home, why not invite UConn to join the party? Now I have no idea whether UConn would ever consider elevating its hockey program and adding the additional scholarships needed to join Hockey East. But wouldn't it be fun to kick UConn around in another sport?
The UConn women are already a member of Hockey East so the transition would be fairly seamless.
4. Quinnipiac Bobcats. Quinnipiac has been an interesting program to watch over the past few years. Ten years ago, QU was playing in the now defunct MAAC. They've since jumped to Atlantic Hockey and now to the ECAC (replacing Vermont, who jumped to HEA), where the program is doing fairly well. QU was added to the ECAC in part due to their promise of building a new, multipurpose sports arena, which they delivered on when the school opened the new, 3,386-seat TD Bank Sports Center in 2007. While some might think that adding QU would water down the strength of Hockey East, I'm sure the Bobcats wouldn't fare any worse than Lowell or Providence have over the past ten years.
Also, if Hockey East wants a better television deal, adding QU would help the conference secure the Connecticut TV market and extend the conference's reach into the sixth and final New England state. Besides, Yale won't leave the ECAC, Sacred Heart is pretty 'meh' and again, not sure whether UConn is serious about fielding a competitive men's ice hockey team, so why not QU?
5. Holy Cross Crusaders. Maybe a pipe dream, but if Holy Cross decided to once again prioritize fielding winning sports programs, it would be cool to see regular BC-Holy Cross rivalry games in hockey. I think this would be a great way of rekindling what seems to be a lost rivalry between two Jesuit schools located just 40 miles apart.
6. Alabama-Huntsville Chargers. No, sorry. Just kidding, UAH. Didn't mean to get your hopes up.
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I think UND, B.C., BU, DU, C.C. UNO, ND Miami U, Maine andf UNH should form a college hockey conference. Could you imagine how exciting the match ups would be? Sell a lot of T.V. as well…
Keep it in New England
The revenues in hockey are not the same as BBall or FBall – better to keep it in driving distance, therefore UConn and Holy Cross are my votes to round it out to 12.
Agreed
I agree wholeheartedly, the beauty of HEA is the ability of the fanbases to travel to almost all programs within a couple hours. It’s hard to explain to midwesterners, etc, how cool it is to easily visit so many rinks in a season.
The way I see it, the likeliest are probably UConn (if they pony up) and Bentley (the league could use a new doormat), would love to see brandeis, SNHU, Tufts on basis of geography alone.
If Bentley joined up, would they want in on the Beanpot?
Would we have to modify the Beanpot so that Harvard and Bentley played in a 4 vs. 5 play-in game every year?
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FWIW
Notre Dame is supposedly playing us, BU, and NU all in hockey this year. They’ve played PC in years past as well (probably due to their Big East connection). Having a team that far away would make travel tricky…but hey the Alaska schools do it, and so does Air Force being in Atlantic Hockey. Expansion will make me miss the traditional home-and-home games though that seem to be a staple in Hockey East (other conferences don’t typically do home-and-home cause the teams are too spread out).
However, I do think Notre Dame and Miami would look to join the WCHA before they would join Hockey East. I mean do you really think Miami would want to have 6 automatic losses every year playing BC and BU? And I’m not even including potential matchups in the league tournament…
Miami might want to go the WCHA route, but I’m not so sure about Notre Dame.
Don’t underestimate the egos out in South Bend. I’m sure the Irish would want rather associate themselves with the bigger market back East over playing in smaller cities like Colorado Springs, Grand Forks, Duluth, Bemidji, St. Cloud and Anchorage.
All the Irish’s other sports programs play back East, too.
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Well the schools that are leaving their conference aren’t exactly in big cities either, even though they are big names. Detroit is the only big market in the current CCHA. And I’m sure the Irish will make sure to keep Michigan and Michigan State on their non-conf schedule, especially since the teams in the BTHC will have lots of room to play non-conf games. There isn’t much TV exposure to gain by joining Hockey East (it really just covers one market, Boston) especially considering Hockey East just televises one game per week on NESN. Heck, even NESN televised a Sox-Yanks spring training game over the regular season championship series opener between BC and UNH (which they relegated to NESNPlus).
Don’t forget Denver is in the WCHA and will continue to be (pretty big market, and they have their own TV deal with FSN Rocky Mountain). And even without the Gophs, NDak/Duluth/St. Cloud/Bemidji are close enough to the St. Paul/Minneapolis area to keep that market somewhat alive in the WCHA. Plus, Minnesota might be the most hockey crazy state in the country. College hockey gets just as much coverage there as the pros do.
The CCHA traditionally struggles with attendance anyway. Remove Michigan and Michigan State from the equation and there’s no shot Notre Dame sticks around to see how attendance dries up when the two biggest programs leave the conference.
Now does the school take its chances by replacing Michigan State and Michigan with schools like CC, Bemidji State, Duluth and North Dakota and hope that attendance stays up, or does it associate with BC, BU, UNH and the Eastern powers?
To me, Notre Dame heading East has a much better chance of happening than heading West. Not only does the school already have plenty of ties back East, but they’d be associated themselves with three Catholic schools — BC, Merrimack and Providence — and a huge Irish Catholic TV market in Boston.
Hockey East’s current TV deal sucks, but if you add Notre Dame and Miami to the equation, you might be able to get on the network formerly known as Versus, ESPNU or a regional sports network that actually cares about airing college hockey (unlike NESN, who would rather run replays of Sox and Bruins games instead of air more HEA games).
If I’m Bertagna, I go hard after ND and Miami. If I’m ND and Miami, I’d rather head East than West. To me, seems like a win-win.
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Also, heading East means no more costly trips to Anchorage or Fairbanks, so there’s that, too.
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Notre Dame-Providence
Big East connection AND religious affiliation.
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UConn has a hockey program? Well if they do, let’s keep them in obscurity like they deserve.
My vote ND and Miami Ohio, I love BC-ND anything, and they are a great (gulp I hate saying that) program. That certainly would load up Hockey East into becoming the SEC of college hockey.
If you want to add some bottom dwellers BC/BU/Vermont can pound on year in year out, please add Holy Cross and UConn.
Wild card
If Syracuse ever gets serious about adding men’s varsity hockey, adding Syracuse and say, RIT to the fold would be intriguing.
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expansion issues
While I would be more in favor of adding a northeast based team to HE than a team from the west, the difficulty would be finding a team that fit competitively.
UConn is a traditional doormat in Atlantic Hockey, and would be way out of their league in the ECAC, let alone HE. (though the same could probably be said for providence over the last decade)
Both Holy Cross and Quinnipiac could make the jump competitively, but would either really add anything to the conference? The catholic school argument could be a good one for Holy Cross.
Foraying into New York would be an exciting proposition with teams like RIT, Colgate, and Union putting up good teams, but as was suggested already, Syracuse would be the ideal if they do in fact add a team, which college hockey inc. has suggested they might.
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