According to the Duluth News-Tribune's Kevin Pates, national champion Minnesota Duluth has been invited to participate in discussions of a breakaway college hockey conference of power programs. Read Pates' blog on the news here.
Pates names mores schools in the yet-to-be-proposed league, including WCHA members North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College and Nebraska-Omaha and CCHA members Notre Dame, Miami and Western Michigan. However, he said it's not known who exactly is leading this charge.
Duluth athletic director Bob Nielsen didn't comment specifically about a superleague, but told the News-Tribune: "We're concerned about the college hockey landscape. We're looking at all the options of what could happen. Our hockey program is very important to our school and we want to be proactive.
"Our approach is to be active and examine potential opportunities and have conversation about the future of Division I. Our intent is to be a member of the WCHA, but we're considering options."
Stay tuned.
4 comments:
BREAKING NEWS - (Mankato, MN) Minnesota State University-Mankato will lead the charge in forming the newest collegiate hockey conference. The so-called "Conference of Remaining Athletic Powers, or CRAP for short, is the most recent in a wave of upstart conferences which will forever change the landscape of college hockey. Member schools will apparently be hand selected by Minnesota State. "CRAP is a conference we've always envisioned" Minnesota State's athletic director Kevin Buisman said Wednesday. "In our selection process, we aim to add schools that share our same philosophy." He went on to add that "(Minnesota State) is concerned that it can no longer remain competitive in it's current conference," and that "we took matters into our own hands." While prospective schools haven't been officially named, it's widely rumored that Rasmussen College's recent announcement that it would indeed add a hockey program allowed discussions to begin. The University of Phoenix - Online, another school who was considering adding hockey will likely do so now that they have a conference to call home. There were also talks that St. Mary's School for the Blind would be considered for admittance, but league officials are still considering whether or not to allow use of the beeper puck. While the logistics are still unclear, the framework is in place for the CRAP conference. "It's a great day for the University" a visably elated Troy Jutting said. "The last ten years have been leading up to this day, we've earned this!" Minnesota State will be departing from the WCHA, widely considered to be the leading collegiate hockey conference. "Winning hockey will return to Mankato." A triumphant Jutting added.
We need MSU hockey to be treated as a D1 school not D2! MSU has to take some steps n upgrade their hockey facilities.....I mean these days kids look at the facilities n everything. Our facilities are only better than Tech, it's time to step up n make hockey the 1 sport! It's up to Buisman to do this, if not get out n find someone that wants too!
You are absolutely right TMAVS18. Minnesota State needs to invest in their athletics as a whole. Nobody outside of Mankato (and the rest of the NSIC towns) pays any attention to any of their athletic programs.
The only one that draws the school any sort of meaningful exposure is the D1 hockey program. If the Mavericks are left in the cold when this proposed new conference comes to fruition, the University will lose the one sports entity that Mankato fans, alumni, and residents can actually proudly boast of.
It's not that folks can't be proud of the rest of the University's sports programs. They certainly can. But there's no sense in discussing them with anyone outside of the small NSIC community, because nobody will have a clue who the Minnesota State University Mavericks are.
If what is going on with these other WCHA teams is not an incentive for this years Men's TEAM to kick their you know what on the ice, I don't know what is.
They should pin these articles up in the training and locker room.
winning cures ALL!!!
GO MAVS
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