BLOG: Welcome to the Next Chapter of Conference Realignment

Turns out the next chapter of college hockey realignment began, not with a shot across the bow, but with a Friday afternoon news dump.

There was no massive declaration. Instead, it took a six-paragraph press release put out at the latest possible time to watch the whole idea of western conference stability disappear.

Seven like-minded WCHA teams - Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State, and Northern Michigan - are exploring forming a new men's hockey conference beginning in 2021-22.

Each would be leaving at the expense of the conference's two Alaska schools and Alabama Huntsville, all of whom were surprised to find out they were not on the Midwest cool list despite years hanging out together. So was longtime parent WCHA. All four have been left with questions of their future.

Honestly, the same can be said about the departing group of 7. With this newest realignment saga, all is new and up in the air. Yet it feels like history has repeated itself. Schools not happy with the direction of the conference leaving the WCHA to form an elite hockey conference, letting the smaller ones fend for themselves.

This wouldn't be the first time some of the schools in Friday's group snubbed Alabama Huntsville.

A decade ago, the Chargers applied to join the CCHA as its 12th team in the wake of UAH's College Hockey America conference dissolving. Each of the other remaining CHA teams found a conference. Alabama Huntsville, like former conference mate Wayne State before it, was denied. Like Wayne State before it, the Chargers looked to fold its program with no suitable alternative.

After three seasons as a desperate, barnstorming independent, realignment to the WCHA came along at the last minute. Huntsville's hockey program survived. The CCHA did not.

Since then, the Chargers have been slowly digging out of a hole which comes from nearly folding a program and losing everything. Right when UAH gets back with brand name non-conference opponents coming to Alabama and talk of a new on-campus arena, the hole reopened.

To be fair, the WCHA's current conference situation has been built upon an unstable pile of dirt. Ten remaining teams not invited to the NCHC or Big Ten joining together from multiple conferences spread across the nation from Alaska to Alabama to Ohio and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (with independent Arizona State being heavily recruited by the conference). Both Alaska schools together as each face budgets being slashed and moves into much smaller rinks. More travel for smaller programs.

Something had to give.

What did looks to be a sad end to one of college hockey's premier conferences; one that dates back to 1951. It comes shockingly and abrupt yet gives two final seasons to mourn. Announcing right before a new season officially begins July 1 allows the schools the minimum time to leave without penalty.

Blindsiding the WCHA creates a level of passive-aggressiveness perfect for a new conference based on Midwest geography. (It's not lost one of the seven schools is Minnesota State, who three years ago tried to throw the WCHA under the bus and move to the NCHC.) The group of 7 did not wait to find out the future of the Alaska programs, whose university system faces a $130 million deficit. Leaving insinuates the schools were not happy with the compromises made.

It's the same move made by the founding NCHC schools leaving the WCHA nearly eight years ago.

However, Friday's move comes as a throwback to western college hockey before the last realignment (albeit one that comes at the expense of three or four college hockey programs). Being full of like-minded schools (mostly Division 2 in other sports) can be considered a bonus, but it looks like geography is more important to the WCHA 7.

The CCHA and WCHA pre-2013 were based more on geography and competitiveness. Big schools and small schools were together. The two conferences even split the Alaska schools evenly to help out travel.

With realignment, it flipped to where like-minded schools were more important than geography. Post-realignment saw the Power 5 schools in the Big Ten, big hockey-only schools in the NCHC and everyone else in the WCHA. All three conferences now are beyond regional, spread across college hockey's western borders from Alaska to Allentown.

In a more perfect college hockey world, there would be enough teams to have multiple conferences full of nearby teams who are like-minded. Ones with just geography limited space for schools to add the sport. One with just like-minded stretches that space to the extreme for schools that could use a closer trip.

Sadly, there aren't enough for both. College hockey has 29 teams from Pennsylvania and points west spread across the country. Cutting off the geographic outliers comes at a cost for college hockey in a sport where Division 1, 2 and 3 teams all play together at the top level.

Forcing out western teams further insulates the sport. The western schools jumping to add a program have been bigger schools, but even Arizona State is stuck in a place where no conference currently fits the Sun Devils. (The same can be said for UAH after Friday's moves.) Getting past that point will be even more difficult.

For the departing WCHA schools to get back to a more regional conference, taking that step would be a bet on less travel and more close rivalries creating an "elite hockey conference." The money saved from not needing to travel to Alaska and Alabama, even with Huntsville subsidizing, could be put back into the program.

It does, however, raise the question "what is an elite hockey conference?" What does the yet-to-be-named group need to do to be competitive?

Is it national notoriety? Away from the ice, the other two western conferences have TV deals. The WCHA did not. Locally, Bemidji State took its home games off of TV in recent years in an attempt to get more fans in the building. (Attendance isn't a league-wide issue. Minnesota State, for example, has been able to as the Mavericks have been among the WCHA and nation's best in recent year.) Could teams get back on TV or even on a better streaming platform?

Is it having a solid lineup from top to bottom? In theory, that's something which would happen from leaving the two Alaska schools and Alabama Huntsville. Does having a higher Pairwise pay off in the long run?

Of course, there is another elephant in the room with an odd number of teams. Who would be the eighth? Does one of the Atlantic Hockey schools on the Great Lakes get an invite? Is that too far of a geographical pull for a group that thinks UAH helping fund trips to Huntsville is too far? Does the group wait and see how the situations with St. Thomas (MN) or Oakland (MI) situation turns out? Does Alabama Huntsville get extended an invite?

There aren't too many other like-minded Midwest schools on the horizon adding men's hockey.

Maybe that'll be answered in the next Friday afternoon news dump. Welcome to the next chapter of conference realignment where what's old is new again.

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