In the various discussions on this subject, you miss the major point - the
CCHA and WCHA have sweetheart deals with the Alaska schools. They pay
nothing for transportation to Alaska (do pay an extra day's room/board) and,
for the cost of two/three days of board/room, get to play two extra home
games. This is a BIG deal, money wise, especially for the bigger schools.
 
For the Alaska schools, that particular expense INCREASED $79 per ticket (or
$17,775 for the nine home stands) this year. Thus, this 'conference
arrangement' cost (overall) approximately an extra $80,000 in travel costs
for UAA to fund the travel of the nine teams traveling to Alaska (versus all
other Conference games where they pay there own travel costs).
 
So, you rearrange the conferences, first, you immediately increase the
conference teams overall travel costs and second, you reduce the number of
games played (usually at home) by two (or, say a couple of hundred thousand
in revenue for a University like Minnesota).
 
Realistically, I think a far more likely scenario is that one or both Alaska
schools will announce dropping Division I hockey either in the next or the
following year. Right now, UAA has 'lost' approximately 40,000 annual
attendance at there games and will likely lose another 15,000 this coming
year or, nearly $500,000 in revenue. The bottom line, if you can not field a
playoff level competitive team one doesn't belong in a conference
(especially with travel costs that the Alaska schools incur for EVERY game).
Little is going to change with the current Athletic Director and thus, it
will shortly become a matter of economic necessity to terminate these
programs as a 'failed' effort.
 
This will be messy, take a little time to play out and, of course, could
change. But, for sure, neither of the Alaska schools would join a new
conference nor would such teams be willing to cover travel costs to Alaska.
Thus, that's a dead issue and it's far more conceivable that the existing
conferences will have slots for Mankato State and Neb.-Omaha in the near
future.
 
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