I don't know if you guys are tired of reading about the debate between the various developmental paths to the NHL, but I do know that I'm tired of writing about it! I'm sure we'll resume this debate in late December as we usually do during the World Junior Championships ;)
Usually, this time of year is when I have an open-ended Q&A blog where I answer any and all questions you have for me (You can post in the comments, via twitter, facebook or email...ps - I'm quite partial to mathematical word problems), and while I'll still do that if you'd like, seems like most of your questions for me lately have been worthy of a stand alone blog.
This morning,
@gfmorris asked me to "write about how the rumor of Penn State going varsity again has the CCHA screwing UAH."
Geof...it would be my pleasure!!
To provide some background for those of you not up to speed. The University of Alabama-Huntsville is the only DI hockey program below the Mason-Dixon line and is currently without a conference to call home.
UAH was a member of College Hockey America from it's inception in 1999 until it was dissolved at the end of last season. While most leagues are contained within a certain geographical area, the CHA's footprint stretched from Colorado, to Minnesota to Alabama to New York. Comprised of smaller programs forced to make the jump to DI when the NCAA eliminated DII hockey, the financial burden of travel alone caused teams to either switch to a more geographically friendly conference or drop the program all together.
With only four teams left - Niagara, Robert Morris, Bemidji State and UAH - the conferece was still viable under NCAA rules and still earned an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament for their conference champion. But then in January 2009, Niagara and Robert Morris announced that they too would be leaving for the Atlantic Hockey Association in 2010. That left only two teams in the conference and per NCAA rules the conference would have to dissolve.
That spring, Bemidji State, after earning an automatic bid to the National Tournament by winning the CHA Championship, shocked everyone but themselves by making it all the way to the Frozen Four upsetting top ranked Notre Dame and Cornell along the way. Located in Minnesota, they applied later that summer for acceptance into the Western Collegiate Hockey Association which was eventually granted. The WCHA wanted to keep an even number of teams and convinced Nebraska-Omaha (also in the WCHA's geographical footprint) to come over from the Central Collegiate Hockey Association to bring their total to 12 teams.
Alabama-Huntsville, still without a conference to call home, applied to the CCHA, which was now left with 11 teams for the 2010 season with UNO's defection. Everyone in the college hockey world knew the CCHA would do their due diligance and check out the facilities and the quality of the program before accepting UAH, but most thought the program would be accepted especially since most concerns were over travel and the distance between UNO and UAH were nearly identical and was therefore a moot point.
In the end, the CCHA denied their application. Rumors were rampant that they were holding a place for Penn State who had been researching the possibility of turning their club team into a varsity program. UAH, who won the CHA Championship in March and earned a berth into the National Tournament will operate this coming season on an independant schedule.
That took a little longer than I thought, but now your up to speed!
The UAH hockey program started as a club team in 1979 and was wildly successful in the 80's winning the National Club Championships in 1982, 1983, 1984 and were runner ups in 1985. Their quick success encouraged them to make the jump to DII in 1986. Unfortunately, the NCAA eliminated DII hockey the following season forcing the Chargers to jump even further to DI.
For the next five years, they would operate as an independant team losing boatloads of money in the process as they struggled to find a conference to join. In 1992, the NCAA reinstated DII and UAH, unable to join a DI conference, dropped back.
They were once again a dominant force, making it to the the DII National Championship game in 1994, winning it in 1996, finishing as runner up again in 1997 and reclaiming their national title in 1998. Their success at that level and the fact that the NCAA again eliminated the DII level encouraged them to once again make the jump to DI, this time, more confidently.
They won the CHA regular season in 2001 and 2003 and were tournament champions in 2007 and 2010 earning a berth into the National Tournament each time.
Last year, I traveled to Huntsville to see what the deal was and if this program truely deserved to be at the DI level or if it should drop to DIII, club or dropped entirely. My verdict then and still is that the Alabama-Huntsville hockey program is the pride of their university and they have done everything in their power to make sure it thrives.
They currently call the Von Braun Center in Huntsville home, but are in the process of raising funds to build an arena on campus to make it more easily accessible to the local community and provide better training facilities for it's student-athletes.
Through the connections of their former coach Danton Cole, who left the program to persue an opportunity with the US National Team Development Program, they have secured an extremely competitive schedule for next season with games against Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan State, Cornell, Bemidji State and Colorado College to name a few. They also received an invitation to participate in Rensselear's tournament over Thanksgiving weekend and will play Merrimack in January at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
The only thing left for this team to do is win. It is their only way to play in the National Tournament and be competitive in the national landscape of college hockey in hopes of being accepted into the CCHA.
To get back to the CCHA, many of you might be wondering why they'd hold a spot for Penn State's program that might not even make the jump to DI anytime soon. The answer is the Big Ten. Currently, the Big Ten has five schools playing DI hockey - Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio State. Add in Penn State and you've got yourself a pretty good looking conference!
Should the Big Ten force the other schools to leave the WCHA and CCHA and form a Big Ten conference for hockey, the only major DI sport it doesn't have a conference for, it would be absolutely disasterous to the WCHA and CCHA. The schools have come out publicly and said they'd be agaisnt such a move as they have strong rivalries in hockey with programs like Denver, North Dakota and Miami and wouldn't want to give those up, but the threat is still there.
So, if Penn State does make the jump and there isn't a conference for them to join it will be further ammunition for the Big Ten to make waves and insist those teams jump ship. In an effort to prevent that from happening, the CCHA is keeping a spot for them just incase.
The ideal solution to all of this is to support DIII and club teams in the south to make the very large jump to DI. That way Penn State can join the CCHA and UAH will have a new home in a conference that is more geographically friendly. If I were a multi-millionaire, I'd pump boatloads of money into these DIII and club programs to make it happen. Schools like Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Kentucky, and Tennessee all have successful club or DIII programs.
There are programs like this all across the country - USC, Texas, Oklahoma State, Oregon, etc. - and while many of them have explored the option of making the jump to DI there are three things holding them back.
1) Money - Between the ice rental (or even maintaining their own facility), training facilities, equipment, coaching staff, not to mention travel...a DI hockey program isn't cheap!
2) Conference - If UAH is having a hard time finding a league, who would accept a school that's even further away like USC?! The only way for these teams to make the jump is to do it together and form their own conferece which is a huge undertaking in and of itself.
3) Title IX - It's a law in the United States that requires colleges and universities to have the same number of female student-athletes as male student-athletes, which means if they want to add a men's hockey team, they'd have to add another varsity program for females.
In regards to Penn State, Title IX isn't an issue for them because they also have a successful woman's hockey program that could make the jump. Thanks to the CCHA and possibly the Big Ten, they don't have to worry about a conference and that leaves us with money as their only obstacle and from all reports they've got a billionaire alumnus who's ready to build them a brand spanking new state-of-the-art facility to house the hockey programs.
But until all that happens, the CCHA is still operating with 11 teams and UAH is still without a conference to call home.
You can offically consider yourself caught up!
Julie
[email protected]
@JulieRobenhymer
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