Big10 Hockey

Well, Penn State does want to get their program up and running with several years of recruits I'd imagine before they join a BTHC. I doubt they'd want to be a bottom feeder while building their program. But you might be right, so we'll see what happens. I think it's up to Penn State to decide when they think they'll be competitive enough in order to create a BTHC.

One thing is for certain though. They're spending $90M or so of their boosters' money to create a hockey program and it's not so they can play against Bowling Green State or Lake Superior State. My guess is that there's an implicit understanding that there will be a BTHC for Penn State to join within a few years. No one spends $90M to create an expensive sports program without the understanding that they'll be getting lots of visits from the marquee Big Ten programs, so there has to be an under the table agreement of some sort on the BTHC.

 
Wolvie3758 said:
zeek said:
I would highly doubt that ND gets added as a hockey-only affiliate to the Big Ten.

The BTHC is likely to materialize within the next 5 years after Penn State's program is fully operational and has a bit of experience under its belt, but the Big Ten's presidents were hesitant in the past to add hockey-only affiliates and could never agree on whether to create a BTHC with the 5 other hockey members and ND or a mix of Miami (Ohio) and others...

They decided to push off the decision based on tradition, since unlike the Pac-10, which has affiliate members for sports such as the Olympic sports, the Big Ten presidents have never been able to reach agreement on allowing affiliate members; several of the members are extremely hesitant due to tradition-based reasons.

Now that Penn State will be a potential 6th member, enough for a BTHC, I'd expect the presidents to simply bypass that contentious issue and create a 6 member BTHC that allows enough non-conference games to allow the CCHA and WCHA to continue to receive visits from the marquee Big Ten teams.

Finally, a BTHC will possibly put pressure on Notre Dame to eventually consider it to be a major plus to joining the Big Ten. Notre Dame is building a brand new, expensive arena that has a much higher capacity, so they will need visits from the Big Ten teams in order to sell their season ticket package. Obviously, a CCHA devoid of Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State may play a secondary role in convincing Notre Dame to eventually join the Big Ten, since their hockey program may struggle without it, and hockey is perhaps the 3rd most important program there even though it is a distant 3rd...
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Zeek, I agree with much of what you say EXCEPT the time Line..I think it will be Much sooner...say 2 MAYBE 3 yrs max
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I agree with most of this too but think it would suck to lose Minnesota and Wisc out of the WCHA. Best conference in College hockey.

 
I think it would be a great idea, but I have no idea what a time-line for this would be. I would think UNL would want to compete in all different areas just like most if not all the Big 10.

 
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