Brian D Helland wrote:
 
> I have to make some comments on this whole debate over the future that
> small schools have in D-I Hockey.  I have been raising these concerns for
> the past couple of years, but I keep being told that I am overreacting or
> I'm "just paranoid".  Well, as a fan of a small school program (North
> Dakota), I believe that we small school fans have every right to fear such
> proposals as a Big Ten Hockey Conference, future involvement in the game
> by E$PN, and the elitist attitudes of some (and I emphasize SOME) big
> school fans towards our programs.  I have said many times that the
> proponents of a Big Ten Hockey Conference are NOT after an Ivy League type
> conference like they claim, but rather a full-fledged big media, big
> $$$$$ conference in the model of the Basketball/Football conferences.  If
> this happens, the Big Ten would become the "big time" and the small school
> programs will become the "small time", and will get garbage-type treatment
> by the media and the big schools.
 
I'm now reading e-mail at both work and home, which is the reason I'm responding to
posts out of order.  (I read this one at work Friday and am only now getting back
to it.)  But as a proponent of big 10 hockey, I think I ought to have a chance to
actually explain why I want to see it.  I have no idea what Brian means by an "Ivy
League type conference" that we are apparently claiming we want to be.  I'm also
not sure what the terms full-fledged and big media are meant to indicate either.
 
Why do I want to see a Big 10 hockey conference?  Because John Whelan isn't
entirely accurate when he says that hockey rivalries are different from those in
other sports.  Games against the other Big 10 schools are what I live for.  No
other match-ups get me as excited as when the Gophers play Wisconsin, Michigan or
Michigan State, even though the latter two are non-conference games.  And I can't
wait to get the chance to play Ohio State this year; we've got 'em in two tourneys
and if the pairings somehow work out that we don't play them, I'm going to be very
disappointed.  I just wish we'd had a chance to play them back when we knew we
could beat them; you know, give them a taste of how it feels to be a Minnesota
football fan.
 
The Big 10 schools are natural rivals.  It isn't just that we compete in all the
other sports to build this up.  With Northwestern being sort of the odd case, the
Big 10 schools are all of comparable size and mission.  They compete for students,
faculty and press in subjects far beyond the athletic field.  Some of the rivalries
between academic departments are as fierce as those between football teams.  ECAC
fans should be able to understand this; though the type of institution is very
different, they are very similar to each other and compete in many of the same
ways.
 
I want a Big 10 competition in hockey.  This has increasingly come to mean a Big 10
conference.  I would be happy with a system where the Big 10 teams stayed in their
current leagues and devoted non-conference games to establishing a Big 10 champion,
but even this has been greeted with dismay and angst from everyone else, so it
isn't going to happen; to produce a Big 10 title is going to require a Big 10
league.  I grant that this isn't ready to happen just yet; it'll take another
conference team, probably two.  I have a feeling, though, that this might happen in
the not too distant future.
 
Would this be bad for college hockey as a whole?  I don't know.  It has potential
upsides and downsides, many of which have been discussed here recently.  It would
depend a lot upon how exactly it came about and what the reaction of others, both
inside and outside college hockey, turned out to be.  If it did happen, I suspect
that the Big 10 would be a rather dominant conference, at least within western
hockey.  But this is happening already.  Take a look at the top of the standings in
the CCHA over the last few years; the Big 10 teams take two of the top three spots
pretty consistently and hit the trifecta last year.  The WCHA is looking like it'll
be more durable and balanced, but I wouldn't be too sure of it remaining that way.
 
Will big dollars follow the creation of a Big 10 hockey conference?  Maybe.  This
may be a motivation for the ADs of Big 10 schools to be looking at it, but it isn't
the sole reason.  I've known one of them (now an ex-AD) and heard discussions of
others; they are at least partially motivated by the same things I am.  Then again,
the small schools shouldn't get too carried away complaining about this; they
sometimes let decisions be affected by the demon lucre, too.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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