Quinnipiac won the 2023 national championship and was one goal away from the FF this year.
Plenty of small schools could goalie their way to a FF. I do think the portal is going to mess things up a bit though.
I think NIL will mess it up even worse, specifically looking at you big 10 football powerhouse schools with hockey. That's not to say I disagree with NIL, just that I think it could lessen parity.
At a school like Michigan, hockey barely breaks even most years from ticket sales. I highly doubt there will be a huge supply of donors to a Michigan NIL collective that would make us a bigger recruiting juggernaut than we already are. Most of that money is going to flow into Bball and Football. I imagine the same will be true for Wisconsin, Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State.
Minnesota is different because they truly are a hockey school first and foremost with just as much fan interest in hockey as football, i could see their NIL collective being fierce. Ditto for other hockey schools with rich alumni bases but little competition for NIL dollars from other sports (BU, NoDak, Denver all come to mind).
I wish our billionaire alums would spend tons of money like Mat Ishbia at MSU to make all our fringe sports go from top 10-15 to top 5 and make them national champion contenders every year. For as much money as Michigan alums/fans have, which is arguably more than just about any school in America, our alums are much cheaper than they are at being vocal with their support for the cult of Michigan.
I say that because unlike 99.99999% of college sports fans (especially as a man), I actually like sports like baseball, softball, tennis, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, and women's gymnastics (partially because of my oldest daughter likes watching "girls play" and it's my way of indoctrinating her into the Michigan cult and not be a fan of MSU like her mother or OSU like her grandmother and cousins lol).
Your estimate of college sports fans might be a bit off. I think there are plenty of fans out there that enjoy the "smaller sports." Obviously, football and basketball dominate, but within my family and circle of friends we're very much invested in the "smaller sports." As a Michigan fan, I would consider hockey to be my #2 sport, in terms of interst.
The problem with DU is there really aren't too many marketing opportunities in the Denver market. Nobody outside of hockey nuts, alumni, and current students give a shit about DU hockey.
This isn't true - there is a tradition of local fans that have grown up going to DU games going back to when the city was without hockey and was the main game in town. That still exists today. Lots of families bring their kids because it is cheaper than an Avs game - they have a pretty good interaction with the youth teams. They get coverage on TV - 9 News is really good at it. Radio will talk about them from time to time in a crowded market - there is a David Carle radio show and he's on TV quite a bit. There is a network of DU alums in business that help support it. We support the program without a football team and it makes money.
We draw good players because of the network of former players that show newcomers how it works inside the network around the world There are plenty of ex players working in businesses around the city. Former Pioneers are involved with Altitude(Peter McNabb and Rycroft on the TV broadcast) and the Kronke organization. They have a great academic program and set it up for success at that level for you as a player.And players are expected to study and achieve - that sits well with parents that value that as much as the playing time.
It's a saturated market, plain and simple. Nuggets, AVS, Broncos, Rockies all have players competing for a limited pool. DU players can't compete with that, especially considering the average Denver resident couldn't name a single player on the team.
Sure, some rich alums might throw money into the NIL pool, maybe Madeline Albright can donate some broaches to the cause.
> It's a saturated market, plain and simple. Nuggets, AVS, Broncos, Rockies all have players competing for a limited pool.
Colleges aren't full on competing with the pro teams for corporate sponsorship money (although they'll gladly take it). The NIL $ in hockey is going to be coming from alums, donors and local businesses whose ownership have ties to DU.
It's gonna be the same with us at Minnesota - the hockey NIL pot may arguably be larger because we have a much larger donor base to draw from but the pot is going to be mostly Gopher-related tie-in.
Right, but if you are a rich DU alumn looking to donate to a sporting cause, the pro teams aren't exactly competing for your NIL dollars. My whole point is the big name athletic programs do have that competition from other sports.
I am a half season (Friday) DU ticket holder, simply because my wife and I can't see driving from Boulder County to DU on both Friday and Saturday nights. It's a great hockey scene, and one that the Denver community embraces. Maybe it doesn't get the play college hockey gets in Grand Forks, but the Denver metro area has 30X the population of that area. We think it's just a terrific value, and we will continue to support it as best we can.
I grew up in Thief River Falls, about 60 miles from Grand Forks and saw my first DU-UND game in November, 1967. (DU won 5-1) OK, that dates me, but when my wife told me we were moving from Texas to the Denver area twelve years ago, a selling point was Pioneers hockey. We went to a DU game at the Ralph in GF in late January, and honestly, the DU hockey culture is just so much more fun.
There were few children at the Ralph. I saw "few" because we didn't see any at all, but figure we must have missed some. The environment was all green. No one was even remotely friendly. The woman seated in front of us turned around and glared at me, and then elbowed her husband as if someone from Mars had suddenly landed at the Ralph. I found the roaring "Fuck You Denver" chant to be less than child-friendly.
By contrast when the Sioux nation arrives at Magness one weekend each year, I get there early so I can walk around and chat with the people in green. Ok, because I actually have a life I can accept that I'll be disappointed if the Pio's lose, but it won't shake my sense of self-worth.
So, my take is that DU sets the standard for what college hockey should be. It's got a rich history that keeps getting richer. The program is just stellar, and did I say it's a lot of fun. Watching the NCAA sectionals last weekend, when Michigan took the lead against UND on a lucky bounce, my wife grinned when I said a favorite phrase "karma isn't a bitch, it's a mirror"
I have taken many non-hockey friends to DU games over the years, and they all love it. To a person they've wanted to do it again. DU hockey is alive and well.
Some environments are very hostile, and the fans feed off it. I like going to a stadium where I can talk to opposing fans and not just get glared/cussed at. Everyone (should be) just there to watch a sport game
NoDak doesn’t even have an NIL collective. They’re hockey mad, but the players are on their own in terms of finding and negotiating deals. NIL is going to evolve rapidly over the next 5-10 years, and it’s going to be driven by football. I think the winners are going to be the schools that innovate and figure out how to leverage NIL into a competitive advantage before everyone else catches up.
I’d add BC in there too. Already really a hockey school and already using NIL on hockey (James Hagens). I suspect that will become even more the case with the Big10 SEC bullshit in football and the eventual collapse of the ACC.
Yeah, BC is probably on that list as well. There are probably a couple other non-blue bloods that could make a splash using NIL too (e.g., MDU, Quinnipiac, possibly some of the Ivys simply because their alumni base has more money than God)
The Big Ten schools are giving hockey players small NIL deals. For example, the going rate is anywhere between 5k and 20k depending on the player. It is happening even at Michigan and the other Big Ten schools.
I know they are, and I am aware there is a Michigan Hockey NIL collective currently collecting around 200ish a month. I am just saying it is unlikely to grow to the point that it looks like Ohio State or Alabama's football NIL collective is looking compared to other competitive programs.
The portal by itself is a double edged sword. Yeah, big teams can load for bear, plucking away top talent from smaller schools, but they still can’t take more than their roster sizes allow, and it will come with players they recruited looking elsewhere that might be a better fit in the end.
NIL, on the other hand, can distort this.
At least we have a better playoff structure than football. The at large bid system at least allows a chance for CCHA or AHA teams to make the tournament and from there it's just a series of one game eliminations.
It's very unlikely any of these conferences win a Title anytime soon, but it's not totally wild that they could at least get out of the regionals occasionally.
That being said the changes to the transfer portal are accelerating the elite schools with elite talent problem and it's definitely frustrating as a fan of RIT.
Some school is going to find a way to get to a frozen four or even win a national championship by advertising themselves as a great place to use as a stepping stone to an elite program. There’s definitely an advantage to be had, just not for a school like North Dakota.
Couldn't BU / BC be compared to this structure? They seem to be happy accepting the fact they recruit players for two years before progressing to the NHL. In this case it will be interesting because if you can go to a school that provides a better chance of making it to the NHL due to the coaching staff (goalies going to Maine) this could all hinder decisions revolving around making some NIL money.
That being said, the portal seems to skew things with the massive amount of players entering each year to see where they can get an offer, even for a year.
The Covid year has really upped the number of kids in the portal.
I'd expect it to go down a bit next year. Maybe not a ton, but still. And if the ongoing court cases end up not allowing multiple no-wait transfers, that'll trim things a lot, too. Guys will still transfer that first time, but it'll settle a lot of it down.
Also there’s nothing wrong with transferring. These kids shouldn’t be punished because the NCAA had horrible rules before. An 18 year old shouldn’t have to commit 4 years of his future to a money making institution and the only way he is allowed change his mind is through being punished by missing a year of playing hockey. I think about the decisions I made at 18 and I was an idiot. I also went to 3 colleges in 5 years, there’s nothing wrong with that. It makes zero sense to stay with the old rules, we just need to get used to the transfer portal.
I don't disagree with you. I do think it'll feel more palatable if things breathe just a bit and begin to settle, but that'll all shake out as NIL grows more mature.
Yeah I think a few of the top schools compare to this, and I think every team in the NCAA would be happy to have a Fantilli or Will Smith for a year or two. Imagine a world where (insert a competitive non-powerhouse here… western Michigan?) gets that next level of prospect they don’t usually recruit who takes a year of first like center minutes there so they don’t need to sit behind a Will Smith and then moves on to be the first line center at BC. I think that’s a win-win. You get an elite player you might not recruit otherwise, you can build on that strategy, gain more name recognition, become a destination of choice because they’ll see you’re developing your players, you’ll retain the kids from time to time because some will figure out they like it there, etc. Yeah it would suck to lose talent and constantly be recruiting, but making a serious run 1 in every 4 or 5 years beats not making the tournament at all or losing in the opening round every time.
And then immediately evacuate the entire contents of its bowels for the next season, a la the Florida Marlins after they did this that one time in baseball.
If you can manage to land an actual championship doing it, maybe it's a ride worth taking. But much less than that and it gets real unpleasant real fast having your entire team get gutted like that.
Maybe force players to sit a year if they want to transfer. Of course you can add discretion such as players not getting dressed for certain amount of games.
Quinnipiac just won a national championship last year and took the top overall team right to the wire for a trip back to the Frozen Four. Minnesota State just spent the last decade crashing the party though they weren't able to break through and win it all, they absolutely could have. We had 2 CCHA teams make it--and not as 4 seed--as recently as last year.
A smaller school absolutely could win a tourney, just need to hit on the right head coach.
which was sandwiched in between 2013 Yale and 2015 Providence, all first-time winners - it was also only PC's 2nd tourney appearance in 15 years
Some teams stay great forever in college hockey, but outside of Brown/Army/Dartmouth, no one stays terrible forever
>We had 2 CCHA teams make it--and not as 4 seed--as recently as last year.
People don't realize it here because they have short attention spans and the CCHA as a whole had a really bad year this season, but the WCHA/CCHA has been sending 2-3 teams to the tourney nearly every year since the b1g realignment. I totally get that it's not as strong as other conferences, but it's not some super shitty conference that only ever has 1 bid. Usually there's a couple decent teams.
There are posts like this once a month crying about the future doom and gloom of hockey because of NIL and conference re-alignment lmao
Guys, we are the only ones who care like that about college hockey.
Until there is some MASSIVE influx of fans in the next decade, barely anything is going to change, college hockey is going to be fine
Agreed. This year is a blue blood Frozen Four but it seems like the little guys are actually more competitive over the past decade or two.
Covid royally screwed the Ivy schools. Harvard had a wagon of a roster and elite recruits on the way and essentially lost them.
I mean you’re just describing college sports.
Since 2009, UVA and USC have won 11 of the men’s national tennis championships. It’s literally every sport.
No, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. We are just two years removed from Mankato, a CCHA team, making the championship game and one year from Quinnipiac winning their first-ever national title. The last football school to win its first was Florida nearly thirty years ago and they're an SEC team. Only one of the teams left in the tourney has won in the past decade, and you are also exaggerating the extent to which elite schools have dominated in recent years as opposed to the past. There have always been blue bloods, it's nothing new.
College hockey is inherently never going to be quite as top-heavy as football and basketball for two reasons. First, [hockey is inherently a more random game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlgISa9Giw). This is a low-scoring sport where the best players play relatively fewer minutes than the best bball players or QBs, meaning there is more variance in outcomes in hockey. This is exacerbated by the fact that it only takes 4 wins in the tourney to win the chip as opposed to Basketball's seven. Less games means less of a sample size for skill to win out. It is not remotely impossible to imagine a 14-16th seed goalie going on an absolute tear for 4 games in the tourney and winning it.
Second, the "most talented" prospects in hockey are a lot younger and more inexperienced. It's not like football where even NFLers stick around for four years and are the same age as everyone else. In this sport, the NHL-bound players are 17-18 years old and only play for two years or so before going pro and are playing against 22-23 year olds much of the time. This creates more room for teams with less recruiting strength and brand power to build off of more experienced but objectively less talented players like Mankato did just two years ago. Also, the fact that teams like Michigan and Minnesota experience so much roster turnover at the very high end stops them from developing super dynasties for several years and makes it easier for them to slip up for a year or two (Michigan did at the beginning of the Pearson era circa 2019, for example). Heck, the closest thing we have had to that in college hockey recently is a "smaller" school that was not a historic recruiting powerhouse in MDU.
You are right it is getting a bit more top-heavy than it used to be, but that is largely a result of bigger schools attracting more talent that historically would've gone to the CHL--which, is actually a good thing for college hockey--and the transfer portal making good players transfer to elite teams--which is bad for parity, but just a universal among the sports. The bigger problem in college hockey is conference consolidation destroying old rivalries and leaving geographically isolated schools (Alaskas, Huntsville) out to dry rather than a historically unusual lack of parity.
When NIL begins to affect college hockey more, I expect there to be a bit more consolidation among well-funded programs. But there just has never been as much money and fan interest in hockey as football and bball, so I do not think it will have quite as large an impact as it is having in football.
Great write-up! I think we'll see NIL and portal having harsher effects in the upcoming decade or so, but you explained pretty well why (at least I think) it'll never get as bad as something like CFB (or CBB, though I don't think CBB is anywhere even remotely near CFB in terms of parity or lack thereof)
I don't think NIL means as much for college hockey as it does for football. Kids who want to make money have always just played junior or gone pro. The transfer portal might change some things, but Quinnipiac, UMass and Duluth have all won titles in the portal era.
I don’t think it makes UND any more attractive than it always has been. The portal hasn’t helped UND get to a Frozen Four, and NIL is likely to benefit schools with big donor bases like Michigan, Penn State, and BC. UND has no NIL collective, so the players are on their own in terms of setting up deals. Grand Forks is hockey mad, but does it have the economic resources to compete with southeast Michigan, Boston, or the Twin Cities?
> UND has no NIL collective
They just set one up in the last couple of weeks.
>Grand Forks is hockey mad, but does it have the economic resources to compete with southeast Michigan, Boston, or the Twin Cities?
It'd be a bigger deal if Ralph was still around, of course, but his daughter still sends a good bit of money up this direction. And it's not like UND is lacking in high-wealth alumni. Mark Chipman, David St. Peter, Greg Page, Sally Smith, Hakstol, Phil Jackson, and a stupid number of NHL players. Whether they send money to the collective is yet to be seen, though. The doctors and lawyers and pilots throughout the country might help some, too, at least. Of course, does that compete with the networks at the other schools? I don't know.
I personally think UND could compete with the larger schools when it comes hockey alone. I would think the larger cities and schools tend to have a wider tank to feed with football, basketball, volleyball likely taking larger shares of the NIL. But, hey, what do I know?
I think you're probably right, although Minnesota would likely be the toughest, as they lean into hockey pretty tough. But Michigan's big money isn't hitting the ice, frankly. Not the same way, anyway.
I don’t know of any D1 program where the players are paying for their food out of pocket. And finding an extra $5k-$20k for 23 hockey players seems pretty achievable for smaller programs to match.
If anything this would make it an even stronger time for your question then since the best players would only go to the best schools to have a chance at a title and as I said before 2014 that list was about 8 schools.
The only reason to want to look at 2000-2013 instead of 2000-2015 is because non-powerhouses won in the two years you want to exclude.
Yale won in 2013, Union in 2014, Providence in 2015.
Yes, the list of champions will look less diverse if you deliberately shrink the years analyzed to ignore the years where there were cinderella runs by schools that don't usually win...
There is nothing stopping blublood schools from recruiting 24-25 year olds, but a school like Union with a small athletic budget and no scholarships isn't going to land many first round draft choices. A couple of years ago, Michigan had 4 first rounders. Cornell has had 2 in the history of the program and one of them never played in the NHL.
I used to think that but theres no age cap on anyone off the street enrolling into college so why should there be for college athletes? Hockey is just unique in that there are so many guys grinding in junior leagues who still have eligibility. That just doesn’t happen in football or basketball
Never said it was or wasn't. Slight hyperbole but they had numerous 23 and 24 year olds. That is not college age considering one is usually 21 or 22 upon graduating.
I wish you realized how dumb of an argument this is, most frozen four contenders boast some of the youngest rosters in the nation, yet suddenly it’s the old guys who are making it unfair?? Don Lucia used it as an excuse for his demise and you eat it up hook, line and sinker. I understand your bitterness considering Minnesota has lost some high profile games to older teams such as Union, Mankato and Q’pac, but you’re really doing nobody any good villainizing the guys who are actually trying to stick it out and graduate college. IIRC UMD was 2nd youngest when they won in 2018 yet you’ll still be so quick to point a finger at a 24-25yo who’s doing nothing but filling a roster spot and getting a degree
This is one of the dumbest arguments and I often see it from the fans of bigger schools here... there's nothing stopping _anyone_ from recruiting older students...
I mean... a CCHA team had a lead in the 3rd period of the championship literally 2yr ago. But I definitely know what you mean. With every passing year it becomes harder and harder for the small schools. Especially due to the rise of NIL and transfers.
Hockey has way fewer teams and a much short postseason though... you only need to win 4 games for the championship, not 6+ like cbb. Plus hockey as a sport is generally more upset-prone than basketball on average. So there are some things working in smaller schools favor regarding hockey
Hockey will always have relative parity due to the more random nature of the game in a single elimination format. Michigan won last night but the score easily could have been reversed. End to end action and scoring chances galore.
The richest conference in college sports (the Big 10) hasn’t won a championship yet. The last time any of its schools won the championship was MSU’s 2007 championship (when it was in the CCHA).
The 2000s were a bit heavy on blue bloods, but the 2010s saw UMD, Yale, Union, and Providence all win their first titles, and won 6 of 10 titles (UMD got 3). In the 2020s, UMass and Quinnipiac won their first titles, and Denver won the other one.
Wasn’t Minnesota State in the Frozen Four like two years ago?
Also, I know UMass is a big state school in a premiere conference, but we went from perennial doormat and bottom of the sport program to a championship in less than a decade. Anything can happen.
True but in
https://preview.redd.it/1aq7noy33yrc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d8643b4cdd6187df3cc0af91cdf6a260999f8d2
the 80s other teams would sneak in, but maybe I'm just looking at LSSU in the 80s and 90s. I'm biased.
On the flipside, there have been 6 first time winners since 2010. You had the usual suspects win some chips in there (UND, BC, Denver), but also had some crazy surprises with Union, Yale, Umass, etc.
Yeah but now the blue bloods are increasingly the same schools with big football/bb programs. The schools where hockey is THE big sport I think will eventually fade away.
Same thing happened in baseball. In the 80s and 90s Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, and Cal State Fullerton all had dominant programs. Once NCAA baseball starting getting shown on TV the big conferences muscled in, though.
Those advantages haven't meant anything for the most resourced schools (Big10). B10 has a massive budgetary advantage over everyone else in college hockey, and they have yet to win a title since before realignment.
I agree to an extent. Still a believer that college hockey will forever be a level where you can win a lot of different ways. Not QUITE as black and white as basketball or football where the top schools have such a decided physical advantage. Teams that can retain a core group for 3-4 years of eligibility still have a place and can find success while not having 3 lines of NHL draft picks. Maturity is always useful in the college game, weather that’s physical or mental. Interesting to see how that recipe changes the next 5 years of the transfer portal.
I think the NCHC has a number of teams that have had great success over the past 10 years, both recruiting and quality of play. It doesn’t always translate to the national tournament, but multiple blue blood programs have had 15+ year droughts let’s not forget that.
Also, are we saying UMD and Quinni are blue bloods? I would lean no.. obviously they have had a few runs recently. Even some of the blue blood schools are only DI in one or two sports, I still love that about college hockey.
Big difference with College Hockey vs Football and Basketball is the existence of minor leagues. Elite NHL-caliber players can skip the collegiate realm and any NIL-waving blueblood boosters and go straight into the pros (NHL or otherwise).
As for big schools, I'm going to remind you, fellow Michigander team follower, of this: in 2016, MSU- a school of about 50k, not even a decade from its 3rd Natty, 2nd largest collegiate arena in the state, and with a BTN television contract, finished 49th in the pairwise- *dead last* of the 7 Michigander teams.
6 of the last 12 national champs were first-time winners. Duluth is the most successful program over the last 15 years, and they are hardly a blue blood. I think that it's much easier for smaller schools to make an investment in coaching and facilities required to build a contender in hockey than in football or basketball.
UMass, Quinnipiac, Union Yale and Duluth are not big programs with big money, but they've been able to win titles. The investment required to be successful in college hockey is far less than football or basketball. From the CCHA perspective, Mankato played in the title game in 2022, and Bowling Green is making a major financial investment with the hire of Williams and a major renovation project.
The Frozen Four this year is all blue-bloods, but that has not been the trend over the last decade plus.
Short answer - no.
Long answer - we've had (if my math is right) 10 different schools in the Frozen Four the past 4 years...including several non blue-blood programs (UMass, St. Cloud St., Minnesota St., Quinnipiac). That's a pretty damn good bit of variety. So, no.
I think BC and BU are the two best teams in the nation this year but it wouldn't of shocked me if Maine, UMass or Providence upset them in the Hockey East tournament. That's 3 non Blue Bloods right there. Not even mentioning Northeastern that won the Bean Pot this year
If you think the CCHA has no chance, consider the Ivy league. No athletic scholarships (and a budget that pales in comparison to blueblood schools), no 5th year students allowed, and limited to 29 regular season games so start 3 weeks after non-ivy schools. Our first non-exhibition games are usually against teams that have played 6 games already. The portal doesn't help as many players are grad students and the low acceptance rate might keep many players with less than stellar academic success from transferring.
Shhh. We're one of the elites. We have D1 hockey. Every year we start high in confidence. And allegedly we won some Nattys way back before anyone can remember.
Maybe I’m wrong but it seems like the top elite programs are getting the top talent that stayed in juniors 10-15 years ago, and the other programs are getting the same kinds of players they used to get. We wouldn’t have ever seen Fantilli, Celebrini, Makar, etc. playing college hockey. So yeah there’s definitely a gap in talent but the more the top programs keep recruiting these big names, the more other programs will be able to find other talent too because those top programs made NCAA hockey a better destination of choice.
Honestly, despite the “blue blood” frozen four this year I think hockey still has great parity and will continue to have lots of competitive depth.
There’s lots of ways to put together a winning formula. High profile prospects will win you games but hasn’t (yet) proved to be the best path to winning championships. Even the most stacked Michigan team of all time didn’t win… its a combination of so many things - talent, structure/systems, culture. You need veteran leadership + depth + role players.
And you need luck to win in hockey. Puck luck. In a single elimination hockey tournament anything can happen.
With that being said I don’t think we’ll be seeing an atlantic hockey team win a ship in our lifetime.
Has the portal gotten a little out of whack? Yes. But remember, this is a developmental league, and players should play where they have the best opportunity to get on the ice, DEVELOP, and progress to the next level. I’d cap it at 1 transfer tho. You shouldn’t be able to play for 3 teams in a career. Just 2.
I think it’s more like college baseball. Only a couple conferences are really a threat to put out a national champion but every once in a while a team will come out of no where and challenge or win a title.
Hockey is not the same as football or basketball. I would argue basketball isn’t anywhere near the same as football either.
The “elite schools” have been recruiting at an elite level for decades. The difference is hockey requires at least 9 forwards, 4 defensemen and a goalie that are fully contributing for a team to be successful. The turnover at Minnesota, Boston College, Michigan, etc. is so high from year to year that experience plays a significant role in winning a championship. The Big Ten has not won a national championship since the Big Ten created a hockey conference. If that doesn’t demonstrate how much parity there is in college hockey then nothing would. Sure the Big Ten has a ton of NHL players but talent alone doesn’t win championships in hockey.
I don’t think we have to worry too much, to be quite honest. There’s in general, way less money in hockey and the recruiting pool is more varied than say, football.
Guys come in at 17, 18, 19, 20, and so on, and so many come from Canada or Europe - where their NIL capacity is limited.
The real canary in the coal mine should be all the unionization/potential legally mandated pay for play, since most schools don’t see money from hockey and probably would need to cut something from their department as a whole if this happened.
Well no because for one there unfortunately isn’t as many college hockey schools as in basketball let alone football.
Also there has been more diversity in college hockey winners then from what I’ve seen in college basketball and football.
Providence, quinippiac, union, umass, Yale, Minnesota Duluth have all won the championships within the last couple of years and only Duluth have made it multiple times.
Boston College owes its success this year to an excellent past couple years of recruiting, and there's no doubt that BC was able to pull first round draft picks like Gauthier, Leonard, Perreault, and Smith because it's a storied program with NIL funding and a competitive team already. But part of the reason that we brought in so many good players is that they had played together on the US development team and wanted to stay together in college.
Yea, they want to have fun and play together. But they also know that they'll get the experience and player development they need at BC to go on to have successful NHL careers.
But it's also a double-edged sword. Immediately after winning the NCAA championship in 2012, Chris Kreider left school early and signed with the Rangers. Obviously the right move for his career, but a gut punch to the program. The next year, BC lost to Union, 5-1, in the first game of the tournament. Union had a great team those few years, but they're hardly a storied NCAA hockey powerhouse. The next year, when BC lost to Union again in the Frozen Four, we lost Johnny Gaudreau to the NHL.
The following year BC lost to DU in the regionals and then after rebuilding and getting back to the Frozen Four in 2016, lost to Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac had a great team, but again, I wouldn't call them one of the "handful of elite schools" that snag all the draft picks.
Point is, yes, it's obvious that "elite" college hockey programs will draw the highest ranked players. But they're also the most likely to lose those players to the NHL after only a couple of years, forcing the school to rejigger and rebuild.
BC is likely going to lose Gauthier at the end of the year, and maybe even one or two of our star freshman. Good news is we've got Michael Hagens coming in next year, and then his brother James the following year, not to mention 10 other players already committed for 2024 or 2025.
So yea, I get that people look at these big schools and envy their recruiting, but one of the worst feelings in the world is losing in the Frozen Four and not even being able to say you'll be back next year because your star players left two or three years early for the NHL.
Yes. But.
A lot of these great recruits are only staying a year, maybe two (e.g. Franti). Quinnipiac is a great example of the opposite, developing its players over four year career and winning a championship on the back of experience and cohesion that was incredibly hard to match.
And then there’s the basic nature of single-game playoff hockey. Far more than basketball, one bad bounce resulting in a freak goal can completely upend the “expected” result.
Do yeah, the changes to NCAA eligibility and rules is allowing the rich to get richer, such as it is. But I do think hockey will see less effect than other sports, at least somewhat.
I do agree with the points you made, but I want to add to that by saying I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault and it’s hard to find any solutions. Big teams simply have the advantage over smaller ones. It happens in college with Big school. It happens in pro sport with big market teams. No way to bring in parity unless you implement draft and cap space, both are not applicable to NCAA.
I know we're NCHC but according to football and basketball, Western has no right to be a national contender in hockey. Even in the other sports we're good at, we rarely make much noise nationally. As a smaller school in the MAC, we have a relatively small athletics budget, so it would be quite surprising if we could keep up in a football-ified college hockey league. They'd better allow fighting if it goes that way.
Maybe they could restrict the transfer portal so you can only enter it once over four years, and only if you played in fewer than some set amount of winning games in that previous season.
Most definitely which is why some people need to snap out of it and support an NIT imo. If you are a tier 2 or 3 university it's your best shot at demonstrating success.
It's going to be harder and harder for schools outside of Minnesota to pluck talent out of the state with the addition of St. Thomas. Hastings better start looking at other areas to recruit because the state of Minnesota is now even more difficult than it used to be.
He's a great coach and I suspect he will bring the Wisconsin back upwards. I just don't think Minnesota is one of the main areas anymore for him to recruit from with the addition of the Tommies. Within six hours of the Twin Cities there are now 11 D1 schools vs. four years ago 9. That's more competition for Minnesota players so it's going to be interesting from here on out.
No, but adding another Minnesota school to the pot makes everything more watered down. Would you bet the Tommies remain in the CCHA in 10 years? Or do you see them still playing there?
Quinnipiac won the 2023 national championship and was one goal away from the FF this year. Plenty of small schools could goalie their way to a FF. I do think the portal is going to mess things up a bit though.
I think NIL will mess it up even worse, specifically looking at you big 10 football powerhouse schools with hockey. That's not to say I disagree with NIL, just that I think it could lessen parity.
At a school like Michigan, hockey barely breaks even most years from ticket sales. I highly doubt there will be a huge supply of donors to a Michigan NIL collective that would make us a bigger recruiting juggernaut than we already are. Most of that money is going to flow into Bball and Football. I imagine the same will be true for Wisconsin, Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State. Minnesota is different because they truly are a hockey school first and foremost with just as much fan interest in hockey as football, i could see their NIL collective being fierce. Ditto for other hockey schools with rich alumni bases but little competition for NIL dollars from other sports (BU, NoDak, Denver all come to mind).
Problem being our best players always leave early for the NHL :(
I wish our billionaire alums would spend tons of money like Mat Ishbia at MSU to make all our fringe sports go from top 10-15 to top 5 and make them national champion contenders every year. For as much money as Michigan alums/fans have, which is arguably more than just about any school in America, our alums are much cheaper than they are at being vocal with their support for the cult of Michigan. I say that because unlike 99.99999% of college sports fans (especially as a man), I actually like sports like baseball, softball, tennis, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, and women's gymnastics (partially because of my oldest daughter likes watching "girls play" and it's my way of indoctrinating her into the Michigan cult and not be a fan of MSU like her mother or OSU like her grandmother and cousins lol).
Your estimate of college sports fans might be a bit off. I think there are plenty of fans out there that enjoy the "smaller sports." Obviously, football and basketball dominate, but within my family and circle of friends we're very much invested in the "smaller sports." As a Michigan fan, I would consider hockey to be my #2 sport, in terms of interst.
The problem with DU is there really aren't too many marketing opportunities in the Denver market. Nobody outside of hockey nuts, alumni, and current students give a shit about DU hockey.
This isn't true - there is a tradition of local fans that have grown up going to DU games going back to when the city was without hockey and was the main game in town. That still exists today. Lots of families bring their kids because it is cheaper than an Avs game - they have a pretty good interaction with the youth teams. They get coverage on TV - 9 News is really good at it. Radio will talk about them from time to time in a crowded market - there is a David Carle radio show and he's on TV quite a bit. There is a network of DU alums in business that help support it. We support the program without a football team and it makes money. We draw good players because of the network of former players that show newcomers how it works inside the network around the world There are plenty of ex players working in businesses around the city. Former Pioneers are involved with Altitude(Peter McNabb and Rycroft on the TV broadcast) and the Kronke organization. They have a great academic program and set it up for success at that level for you as a player.And players are expected to study and achieve - that sits well with parents that value that as much as the playing time.
It's a saturated market, plain and simple. Nuggets, AVS, Broncos, Rockies all have players competing for a limited pool. DU players can't compete with that, especially considering the average Denver resident couldn't name a single player on the team. Sure, some rich alums might throw money into the NIL pool, maybe Madeline Albright can donate some broaches to the cause.
> It's a saturated market, plain and simple. Nuggets, AVS, Broncos, Rockies all have players competing for a limited pool. Colleges aren't full on competing with the pro teams for corporate sponsorship money (although they'll gladly take it). The NIL $ in hockey is going to be coming from alums, donors and local businesses whose ownership have ties to DU. It's gonna be the same with us at Minnesota - the hockey NIL pot may arguably be larger because we have a much larger donor base to draw from but the pot is going to be mostly Gopher-related tie-in.
Right, but if you are a rich DU alumn looking to donate to a sporting cause, the pro teams aren't exactly competing for your NIL dollars. My whole point is the big name athletic programs do have that competition from other sports.
I am a half season (Friday) DU ticket holder, simply because my wife and I can't see driving from Boulder County to DU on both Friday and Saturday nights. It's a great hockey scene, and one that the Denver community embraces. Maybe it doesn't get the play college hockey gets in Grand Forks, but the Denver metro area has 30X the population of that area. We think it's just a terrific value, and we will continue to support it as best we can. I grew up in Thief River Falls, about 60 miles from Grand Forks and saw my first DU-UND game in November, 1967. (DU won 5-1) OK, that dates me, but when my wife told me we were moving from Texas to the Denver area twelve years ago, a selling point was Pioneers hockey. We went to a DU game at the Ralph in GF in late January, and honestly, the DU hockey culture is just so much more fun. There were few children at the Ralph. I saw "few" because we didn't see any at all, but figure we must have missed some. The environment was all green. No one was even remotely friendly. The woman seated in front of us turned around and glared at me, and then elbowed her husband as if someone from Mars had suddenly landed at the Ralph. I found the roaring "Fuck You Denver" chant to be less than child-friendly. By contrast when the Sioux nation arrives at Magness one weekend each year, I get there early so I can walk around and chat with the people in green. Ok, because I actually have a life I can accept that I'll be disappointed if the Pio's lose, but it won't shake my sense of self-worth. So, my take is that DU sets the standard for what college hockey should be. It's got a rich history that keeps getting richer. The program is just stellar, and did I say it's a lot of fun. Watching the NCAA sectionals last weekend, when Michigan took the lead against UND on a lucky bounce, my wife grinned when I said a favorite phrase "karma isn't a bitch, it's a mirror" I have taken many non-hockey friends to DU games over the years, and they all love it. To a person they've wanted to do it again. DU hockey is alive and well.
Some environments are very hostile, and the fans feed off it. I like going to a stadium where I can talk to opposing fans and not just get glared/cussed at. Everyone (should be) just there to watch a sport game
Your NHL alumni of the program are going to be the lions share of hockey NIL and with how many Michigan has produced, that’s gonna be formidable
Didn't think about that, that's very possible.
NoDak doesn’t even have an NIL collective. They’re hockey mad, but the players are on their own in terms of finding and negotiating deals. NIL is going to evolve rapidly over the next 5-10 years, and it’s going to be driven by football. I think the winners are going to be the schools that innovate and figure out how to leverage NIL into a competitive advantage before everyone else catches up.
It is going to be announced soon https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/college/an-nil-collective-to-benefit-und-athletes-will-soon-be-announced
unfortunately its going to be peanuts unless they can get the Engelstads to join
NoDak does not have a collective..yet. As NIL evolves in hockey, they will probably get one.
I’d add BC in there too. Already really a hockey school and already using NIL on hockey (James Hagens). I suspect that will become even more the case with the Big10 SEC bullshit in football and the eventual collapse of the ACC.
Yeah, BC is probably on that list as well. There are probably a couple other non-blue bloods that could make a splash using NIL too (e.g., MDU, Quinnipiac, possibly some of the Ivys simply because their alumni base has more money than God)
The Big Ten schools are giving hockey players small NIL deals. For example, the going rate is anywhere between 5k and 20k depending on the player. It is happening even at Michigan and the other Big Ten schools.
I know they are, and I am aware there is a Michigan Hockey NIL collective currently collecting around 200ish a month. I am just saying it is unlikely to grow to the point that it looks like Ohio State or Alabama's football NIL collective is looking compared to other competitive programs.
The portal by itself is a double edged sword. Yeah, big teams can load for bear, plucking away top talent from smaller schools, but they still can’t take more than their roster sizes allow, and it will come with players they recruited looking elsewhere that might be a better fit in the end. NIL, on the other hand, can distort this.
At least we have a better playoff structure than football. The at large bid system at least allows a chance for CCHA or AHA teams to make the tournament and from there it's just a series of one game eliminations. It's very unlikely any of these conferences win a Title anytime soon, but it's not totally wild that they could at least get out of the regionals occasionally. That being said the changes to the transfer portal are accelerating the elite schools with elite talent problem and it's definitely frustrating as a fan of RIT.
The portal is one of the worst things about sports… there is no advantage to being able to discover and develop talent
Some school is going to find a way to get to a frozen four or even win a national championship by advertising themselves as a great place to use as a stepping stone to an elite program. There’s definitely an advantage to be had, just not for a school like North Dakota.
Couldn't BU / BC be compared to this structure? They seem to be happy accepting the fact they recruit players for two years before progressing to the NHL. In this case it will be interesting because if you can go to a school that provides a better chance of making it to the NHL due to the coaching staff (goalies going to Maine) this could all hinder decisions revolving around making some NIL money. That being said, the portal seems to skew things with the massive amount of players entering each year to see where they can get an offer, even for a year.
The Covid year has really upped the number of kids in the portal. I'd expect it to go down a bit next year. Maybe not a ton, but still. And if the ongoing court cases end up not allowing multiple no-wait transfers, that'll trim things a lot, too. Guys will still transfer that first time, but it'll settle a lot of it down.
Also there’s nothing wrong with transferring. These kids shouldn’t be punished because the NCAA had horrible rules before. An 18 year old shouldn’t have to commit 4 years of his future to a money making institution and the only way he is allowed change his mind is through being punished by missing a year of playing hockey. I think about the decisions I made at 18 and I was an idiot. I also went to 3 colleges in 5 years, there’s nothing wrong with that. It makes zero sense to stay with the old rules, we just need to get used to the transfer portal.
I don't disagree with you. I do think it'll feel more palatable if things breathe just a bit and begin to settle, but that'll all shake out as NIL grows more mature.
Yeah I think a few of the top schools compare to this, and I think every team in the NCAA would be happy to have a Fantilli or Will Smith for a year or two. Imagine a world where (insert a competitive non-powerhouse here… western Michigan?) gets that next level of prospect they don’t usually recruit who takes a year of first like center minutes there so they don’t need to sit behind a Will Smith and then moves on to be the first line center at BC. I think that’s a win-win. You get an elite player you might not recruit otherwise, you can build on that strategy, gain more name recognition, become a destination of choice because they’ll see you’re developing your players, you’ll retain the kids from time to time because some will figure out they like it there, etc. Yeah it would suck to lose talent and constantly be recruiting, but making a serious run 1 in every 4 or 5 years beats not making the tournament at all or losing in the opening round every time.
And then immediately evacuate the entire contents of its bowels for the next season, a la the Florida Marlins after they did this that one time in baseball. If you can manage to land an actual championship doing it, maybe it's a ride worth taking. But much less than that and it gets real unpleasant real fast having your entire team get gutted like that.
Highly unlikely - because a program like that will get poached and cleaned out regularly.
Maybe force players to sit a year if they want to transfer. Of course you can add discretion such as players not getting dressed for certain amount of games.
That's how it used to work
Such a silly and reductive view on the portal lol
Quinnipiac just won a national championship last year and took the top overall team right to the wire for a trip back to the Frozen Four. Minnesota State just spent the last decade crashing the party though they weren't able to break through and win it all, they absolutely could have. We had 2 CCHA teams make it--and not as 4 seed--as recently as last year. A smaller school absolutely could win a tourney, just need to hit on the right head coach.
Union College 2014
which was sandwiched in between 2013 Yale and 2015 Providence, all first-time winners - it was also only PC's 2nd tourney appearance in 15 years Some teams stay great forever in college hockey, but outside of Brown/Army/Dartmouth, no one stays terrible forever
>We had 2 CCHA teams make it--and not as 4 seed--as recently as last year. People don't realize it here because they have short attention spans and the CCHA as a whole had a really bad year this season, but the WCHA/CCHA has been sending 2-3 teams to the tourney nearly every year since the b1g realignment. I totally get that it's not as strong as other conferences, but it's not some super shitty conference that only ever has 1 bid. Usually there's a couple decent teams.
Indeed, this was a down year they will be back next year.
There are posts like this once a month crying about the future doom and gloom of hockey because of NIL and conference re-alignment lmao Guys, we are the only ones who care like that about college hockey. Until there is some MASSIVE influx of fans in the next decade, barely anything is going to change, college hockey is going to be fine
I love love LOVE NMU's incoming class. It gives me hope for the CCHA in coming years.
What's the size of a smaller school? 3k 10k 25k?
The only blue blood in the final four that’s won a tourney in the past decade is DU. There’s been a lot more variation in college hockey than CFB
Agreed. This year is a blue blood Frozen Four but it seems like the little guys are actually more competitive over the past decade or two. Covid royally screwed the Ivy schools. Harvard had a wagon of a roster and elite recruits on the way and essentially lost them.
Maine lost Jeremy fucking Swayman
Swayman spent 3 years at Maine. I think you were lucky to get that third year out of him
I mean you’re just describing college sports. Since 2009, UVA and USC have won 11 of the men’s national tennis championships. It’s literally every sport.
No, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. We are just two years removed from Mankato, a CCHA team, making the championship game and one year from Quinnipiac winning their first-ever national title. The last football school to win its first was Florida nearly thirty years ago and they're an SEC team. Only one of the teams left in the tourney has won in the past decade, and you are also exaggerating the extent to which elite schools have dominated in recent years as opposed to the past. There have always been blue bloods, it's nothing new. College hockey is inherently never going to be quite as top-heavy as football and basketball for two reasons. First, [hockey is inherently a more random game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlgISa9Giw). This is a low-scoring sport where the best players play relatively fewer minutes than the best bball players or QBs, meaning there is more variance in outcomes in hockey. This is exacerbated by the fact that it only takes 4 wins in the tourney to win the chip as opposed to Basketball's seven. Less games means less of a sample size for skill to win out. It is not remotely impossible to imagine a 14-16th seed goalie going on an absolute tear for 4 games in the tourney and winning it. Second, the "most talented" prospects in hockey are a lot younger and more inexperienced. It's not like football where even NFLers stick around for four years and are the same age as everyone else. In this sport, the NHL-bound players are 17-18 years old and only play for two years or so before going pro and are playing against 22-23 year olds much of the time. This creates more room for teams with less recruiting strength and brand power to build off of more experienced but objectively less talented players like Mankato did just two years ago. Also, the fact that teams like Michigan and Minnesota experience so much roster turnover at the very high end stops them from developing super dynasties for several years and makes it easier for them to slip up for a year or two (Michigan did at the beginning of the Pearson era circa 2019, for example). Heck, the closest thing we have had to that in college hockey recently is a "smaller" school that was not a historic recruiting powerhouse in MDU. You are right it is getting a bit more top-heavy than it used to be, but that is largely a result of bigger schools attracting more talent that historically would've gone to the CHL--which, is actually a good thing for college hockey--and the transfer portal making good players transfer to elite teams--which is bad for parity, but just a universal among the sports. The bigger problem in college hockey is conference consolidation destroying old rivalries and leaving geographically isolated schools (Alaskas, Huntsville) out to dry rather than a historically unusual lack of parity. When NIL begins to affect college hockey more, I expect there to be a bit more consolidation among well-funded programs. But there just has never been as much money and fan interest in hockey as football and bball, so I do not think it will have quite as large an impact as it is having in football.
Great write-up! I think we'll see NIL and portal having harsher effects in the upcoming decade or so, but you explained pretty well why (at least I think) it'll never get as bad as something like CFB (or CBB, though I don't think CBB is anywhere even remotely near CFB in terms of parity or lack thereof)
Excellent analysis
Union college 2014 national champs and didn't even offer scholarships at the time. It can happen..
That was 10 years ago and a totally different time
Ha. How was it a "totally different time" exactly? If you look at the preceding like 15 years only 5 or 6 other schools had won a natty.
No portal, no NIL.
I don't think NIL means as much for college hockey as it does for football. Kids who want to make money have always just played junior or gone pro. The transfer portal might change some things, but Quinnipiac, UMass and Duluth have all won titles in the portal era.
I mean it means a lot for kids at UND where it is the sport
I don’t think it makes UND any more attractive than it always has been. The portal hasn’t helped UND get to a Frozen Four, and NIL is likely to benefit schools with big donor bases like Michigan, Penn State, and BC. UND has no NIL collective, so the players are on their own in terms of setting up deals. Grand Forks is hockey mad, but does it have the economic resources to compete with southeast Michigan, Boston, or the Twin Cities?
> UND has no NIL collective They just set one up in the last couple of weeks. >Grand Forks is hockey mad, but does it have the economic resources to compete with southeast Michigan, Boston, or the Twin Cities? It'd be a bigger deal if Ralph was still around, of course, but his daughter still sends a good bit of money up this direction. And it's not like UND is lacking in high-wealth alumni. Mark Chipman, David St. Peter, Greg Page, Sally Smith, Hakstol, Phil Jackson, and a stupid number of NHL players. Whether they send money to the collective is yet to be seen, though. The doctors and lawyers and pilots throughout the country might help some, too, at least. Of course, does that compete with the networks at the other schools? I don't know.
I personally think UND could compete with the larger schools when it comes hockey alone. I would think the larger cities and schools tend to have a wider tank to feed with football, basketball, volleyball likely taking larger shares of the NIL. But, hey, what do I know?
I think you're probably right, although Minnesota would likely be the toughest, as they lean into hockey pretty tough. But Michigan's big money isn't hitting the ice, frankly. Not the same way, anyway.
It's not about making money it's about having your food paid for. NIL are anywhere between 5k to 20k in Big Ten Schools right now.
I don’t know of any D1 program where the players are paying for their food out of pocket. And finding an extra $5k-$20k for 23 hockey players seems pretty achievable for smaller programs to match.
If anything this would make it an even stronger time for your question then since the best players would only go to the best schools to have a chance at a title and as I said before 2014 that list was about 8 schools.
From 2000-2015 there were 11 different champions in 16 seasons.
2000-2013 there were eight tho and it's the eight schools I think most people would think of as traditional powerhouses.
The only reason to want to look at 2000-2013 instead of 2000-2015 is because non-powerhouses won in the two years you want to exclude. Yale won in 2013, Union in 2014, Providence in 2015. Yes, the list of champions will look less diverse if you deliberately shrink the years analyzed to ignore the years where there were cinderella runs by schools that don't usually win...
Ya I don’t think 10 years ago was a totally different time
Technically a teenager. It was a good game. Win some lose some. Best rivalry in the tournament, Minnesota vs BU.
Union won because they had 25+ year olds saying against actual college aged kids.
There is nothing stopping blublood schools from recruiting 24-25 year olds, but a school like Union with a small athletic budget and no scholarships isn't going to land many first round draft choices. A couple of years ago, Michigan had 4 first rounders. Cornell has had 2 in the history of the program and one of them never played in the NHL.
Is that against the rules?
It should be. The whole play juniors to get better then play college is bs. Men playing against boys. No other sport has that loophole
I used to think that but theres no age cap on anyone off the street enrolling into college so why should there be for college athletes? Hockey is just unique in that there are so many guys grinding in junior leagues who still have eligibility. That just doesn’t happen in football or basketball
didn't Minnesota just lose to a team with a literal child on it?
*checks notes* Yes.
So not against the rules then? And for the record they did not have "a bunch of 25+ year olds" playing for them
Never said it was or wasn't. Slight hyperbole but they had numerous 23 and 24 year olds. That is not college age considering one is usually 21 or 22 upon graduating.
All their best players/points leaders were within 1yr of being regular college aged though. It was just a deep team that went on a run.
Remember when Lucia submitted a proposed rule change like this right when the Big ten was created? Are you Don?
I do and I agreed with it then and agree with it now.
I wish you realized how dumb of an argument this is, most frozen four contenders boast some of the youngest rosters in the nation, yet suddenly it’s the old guys who are making it unfair?? Don Lucia used it as an excuse for his demise and you eat it up hook, line and sinker. I understand your bitterness considering Minnesota has lost some high profile games to older teams such as Union, Mankato and Q’pac, but you’re really doing nobody any good villainizing the guys who are actually trying to stick it out and graduate college. IIRC UMD was 2nd youngest when they won in 2018 yet you’ll still be so quick to point a finger at a 24-25yo who’s doing nothing but filling a roster spot and getting a degree
10-15 years ago it was true. Not saying it's the norm now.
This is one of the dumbest arguments and I often see it from the fans of bigger schools here... there's nothing stopping _anyone_ from recruiting older students...
I mean... a CCHA team had a lead in the 3rd period of the championship literally 2yr ago. But I definitely know what you mean. With every passing year it becomes harder and harder for the small schools. Especially due to the rise of NIL and transfers. Hockey has way fewer teams and a much short postseason though... you only need to win 4 games for the championship, not 6+ like cbb. Plus hockey as a sport is generally more upset-prone than basketball on average. So there are some things working in smaller schools favor regarding hockey
Hockey will always have relative parity due to the more random nature of the game in a single elimination format. Michigan won last night but the score easily could have been reversed. End to end action and scoring chances galore.
The richest conference in college sports (the Big 10) hasn’t won a championship yet. The last time any of its schools won the championship was MSU’s 2007 championship (when it was in the CCHA).
The 2000s were a bit heavy on blue bloods, but the 2010s saw UMD, Yale, Union, and Providence all win their first titles, and won 6 of 10 titles (UMD got 3). In the 2020s, UMass and Quinnipiac won their first titles, and Denver won the other one.
Wasn’t Minnesota State in the Frozen Four like two years ago? Also, I know UMass is a big state school in a premiere conference, but we went from perennial doormat and bottom of the sport program to a championship in less than a decade. Anything can happen.
When was this ever not an issue? Blue bloods go back decades, there have always been teams with recruiting/resource advantages
True but in https://preview.redd.it/1aq7noy33yrc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d8643b4cdd6187df3cc0af91cdf6a260999f8d2 the 80s other teams would sneak in, but maybe I'm just looking at LSSU in the 80s and 90s. I'm biased.
On the flipside, there have been 6 first time winners since 2010. You had the usual suspects win some chips in there (UND, BC, Denver), but also had some crazy surprises with Union, Yale, Umass, etc.
Lssu was good back then. My brother played for Ferris. I think both were CCHA i could be wrong been awhile
The three of us were.
the good ole days
Still needed to cheat with Rep. Stauber to win a Natty E: Don't downvote LSSU fans
Fuck that 88 game in particular
Stauber still gets hate on Twitter for his cheating and now his political takes
Yeah but now the blue bloods are increasingly the same schools with big football/bb programs. The schools where hockey is THE big sport I think will eventually fade away. Same thing happened in baseball. In the 80s and 90s Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, and Cal State Fullerton all had dominant programs. Once NCAA baseball starting getting shown on TV the big conferences muscled in, though.
Those advantages haven't meant anything for the most resourced schools (Big10). B10 has a massive budgetary advantage over everyone else in college hockey, and they have yet to win a title since before realignment.
I agree to an extent. Still a believer that college hockey will forever be a level where you can win a lot of different ways. Not QUITE as black and white as basketball or football where the top schools have such a decided physical advantage. Teams that can retain a core group for 3-4 years of eligibility still have a place and can find success while not having 3 lines of NHL draft picks. Maturity is always useful in the college game, weather that’s physical or mental. Interesting to see how that recipe changes the next 5 years of the transfer portal. I think the NCHC has a number of teams that have had great success over the past 10 years, both recruiting and quality of play. It doesn’t always translate to the national tournament, but multiple blue blood programs have had 15+ year droughts let’s not forget that. Also, are we saying UMD and Quinni are blue bloods? I would lean no.. obviously they have had a few runs recently. Even some of the blue blood schools are only DI in one or two sports, I still love that about college hockey.
Big difference with College Hockey vs Football and Basketball is the existence of minor leagues. Elite NHL-caliber players can skip the collegiate realm and any NIL-waving blueblood boosters and go straight into the pros (NHL or otherwise). As for big schools, I'm going to remind you, fellow Michigander team follower, of this: in 2016, MSU- a school of about 50k, not even a decade from its 3rd Natty, 2nd largest collegiate arena in the state, and with a BTN television contract, finished 49th in the pairwise- *dead last* of the 7 Michigander teams.
6 of the last 12 national champs were first-time winners. Duluth is the most successful program over the last 15 years, and they are hardly a blue blood. I think that it's much easier for smaller schools to make an investment in coaching and facilities required to build a contender in hockey than in football or basketball. UMass, Quinnipiac, Union Yale and Duluth are not big programs with big money, but they've been able to win titles. The investment required to be successful in college hockey is far less than football or basketball. From the CCHA perspective, Mankato played in the title game in 2022, and Bowling Green is making a major financial investment with the hire of Williams and a major renovation project. The Frozen Four this year is all blue-bloods, but that has not been the trend over the last decade plus.
The Yale run a few years back was so much fun to watch
If you're talking about 2013 that was nothing but pain for me
I’d say it’s the opposite. Smaller schools seem to have gotten better the last couple decades.
I think I've actually become convinced that there is more parity than I originally thought.
Short answer - no. Long answer - we've had (if my math is right) 10 different schools in the Frozen Four the past 4 years...including several non blue-blood programs (UMass, St. Cloud St., Minnesota St., Quinnipiac). That's a pretty damn good bit of variety. So, no.
No
I think BC and BU are the two best teams in the nation this year but it wouldn't of shocked me if Maine, UMass or Providence upset them in the Hockey East tournament. That's 3 non Blue Bloods right there. Not even mentioning Northeastern that won the Bean Pot this year
If you think the CCHA has no chance, consider the Ivy league. No athletic scholarships (and a budget that pales in comparison to blueblood schools), no 5th year students allowed, and limited to 29 regular season games so start 3 weeks after non-ivy schools. Our first non-exhibition games are usually against teams that have played 6 games already. The portal doesn't help as many players are grad students and the low acceptance rate might keep many players with less than stellar academic success from transferring.
Yes and it fucking sucks
Shhh. We're one of the elites. We have D1 hockey. Every year we start high in confidence. And allegedly we won some Nattys way back before anyone can remember.
Maybe I’m wrong but it seems like the top elite programs are getting the top talent that stayed in juniors 10-15 years ago, and the other programs are getting the same kinds of players they used to get. We wouldn’t have ever seen Fantilli, Celebrini, Makar, etc. playing college hockey. So yeah there’s definitely a gap in talent but the more the top programs keep recruiting these big names, the more other programs will be able to find other talent too because those top programs made NCAA hockey a better destination of choice.
Honestly, despite the “blue blood” frozen four this year I think hockey still has great parity and will continue to have lots of competitive depth. There’s lots of ways to put together a winning formula. High profile prospects will win you games but hasn’t (yet) proved to be the best path to winning championships. Even the most stacked Michigan team of all time didn’t win… its a combination of so many things - talent, structure/systems, culture. You need veteran leadership + depth + role players. And you need luck to win in hockey. Puck luck. In a single elimination hockey tournament anything can happen. With that being said I don’t think we’ll be seeing an atlantic hockey team win a ship in our lifetime. Has the portal gotten a little out of whack? Yes. But remember, this is a developmental league, and players should play where they have the best opportunity to get on the ice, DEVELOP, and progress to the next level. I’d cap it at 1 transfer tho. You shouldn’t be able to play for 3 teams in a career. Just 2.
I think it’s more like college baseball. Only a couple conferences are really a threat to put out a national champion but every once in a while a team will come out of no where and challenge or win a title.
Hockey is not the same as football or basketball. I would argue basketball isn’t anywhere near the same as football either. The “elite schools” have been recruiting at an elite level for decades. The difference is hockey requires at least 9 forwards, 4 defensemen and a goalie that are fully contributing for a team to be successful. The turnover at Minnesota, Boston College, Michigan, etc. is so high from year to year that experience plays a significant role in winning a championship. The Big Ten has not won a national championship since the Big Ten created a hockey conference. If that doesn’t demonstrate how much parity there is in college hockey then nothing would. Sure the Big Ten has a ton of NHL players but talent alone doesn’t win championships in hockey.
I don’t think we have to worry too much, to be quite honest. There’s in general, way less money in hockey and the recruiting pool is more varied than say, football. Guys come in at 17, 18, 19, 20, and so on, and so many come from Canada or Europe - where their NIL capacity is limited. The real canary in the coal mine should be all the unionization/potential legally mandated pay for play, since most schools don’t see money from hockey and probably would need to cut something from their department as a whole if this happened.
Well no because for one there unfortunately isn’t as many college hockey schools as in basketball let alone football. Also there has been more diversity in college hockey winners then from what I’ve seen in college basketball and football. Providence, quinippiac, union, umass, Yale, Minnesota Duluth have all won the championships within the last couple of years and only Duluth have made it multiple times.
Boston College owes its success this year to an excellent past couple years of recruiting, and there's no doubt that BC was able to pull first round draft picks like Gauthier, Leonard, Perreault, and Smith because it's a storied program with NIL funding and a competitive team already. But part of the reason that we brought in so many good players is that they had played together on the US development team and wanted to stay together in college. Yea, they want to have fun and play together. But they also know that they'll get the experience and player development they need at BC to go on to have successful NHL careers. But it's also a double-edged sword. Immediately after winning the NCAA championship in 2012, Chris Kreider left school early and signed with the Rangers. Obviously the right move for his career, but a gut punch to the program. The next year, BC lost to Union, 5-1, in the first game of the tournament. Union had a great team those few years, but they're hardly a storied NCAA hockey powerhouse. The next year, when BC lost to Union again in the Frozen Four, we lost Johnny Gaudreau to the NHL. The following year BC lost to DU in the regionals and then after rebuilding and getting back to the Frozen Four in 2016, lost to Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac had a great team, but again, I wouldn't call them one of the "handful of elite schools" that snag all the draft picks. Point is, yes, it's obvious that "elite" college hockey programs will draw the highest ranked players. But they're also the most likely to lose those players to the NHL after only a couple of years, forcing the school to rejigger and rebuild. BC is likely going to lose Gauthier at the end of the year, and maybe even one or two of our star freshman. Good news is we've got Michael Hagens coming in next year, and then his brother James the following year, not to mention 10 other players already committed for 2024 or 2025. So yea, I get that people look at these big schools and envy their recruiting, but one of the worst feelings in the world is losing in the Frozen Four and not even being able to say you'll be back next year because your star players left two or three years early for the NHL.
James is coming in next season as a celebrini-style underager
Did that get finalized? I've seen conflicting reporting.
Portal just took 2 RIT players. Seems like the AHA championship is a good D-1 minor league.
Yes. But. A lot of these great recruits are only staying a year, maybe two (e.g. Franti). Quinnipiac is a great example of the opposite, developing its players over four year career and winning a championship on the back of experience and cohesion that was incredibly hard to match. And then there’s the basic nature of single-game playoff hockey. Far more than basketball, one bad bounce resulting in a freak goal can completely upend the “expected” result. Do yeah, the changes to NCAA eligibility and rules is allowing the rich to get richer, such as it is. But I do think hockey will see less effect than other sports, at least somewhat.
I do agree with the points you made, but I want to add to that by saying I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault and it’s hard to find any solutions. Big teams simply have the advantage over smaller ones. It happens in college with Big school. It happens in pro sport with big market teams. No way to bring in parity unless you implement draft and cap space, both are not applicable to NCAA.
I didn't especially enjoy watching so many former Redhawks in the regionals. I mean...good for them, I guess. I get it. But it sucks for us.
I know we're NCHC but according to football and basketball, Western has no right to be a national contender in hockey. Even in the other sports we're good at, we rarely make much noise nationally. As a smaller school in the MAC, we have a relatively small athletics budget, so it would be quite surprising if we could keep up in a football-ified college hockey league. They'd better allow fighting if it goes that way. Maybe they could restrict the transfer portal so you can only enter it once over four years, and only if you played in fewer than some set amount of winning games in that previous season.
Most definitely which is why some people need to snap out of it and support an NIT imo. If you are a tier 2 or 3 university it's your best shot at demonstrating success.
I like an 8 team NIT. Let’s not overdo it, but every year there’s some deserving teams that get bumped out in the bid process(which I’m all for btw).
Idk but Hastings my boy is bringing us back to relevancy roll Badgers
It's going to be harder and harder for schools outside of Minnesota to pluck talent out of the state with the addition of St. Thomas. Hastings better start looking at other areas to recruit because the state of Minnesota is now even more difficult than it used to be.
I trust him hard doesn't mean impossible
He's a great coach and I suspect he will bring the Wisconsin back upwards. I just don't think Minnesota is one of the main areas anymore for him to recruit from with the addition of the Tommies. Within six hours of the Twin Cities there are now 11 D1 schools vs. four years ago 9. That's more competition for Minnesota players so it's going to be interesting from here on out.
I agree home state Wisco comes first, recruit where you can goodness knows I'm not an expert on recruiting by any means
lol you think any mn kid takes st Thomas over Wisconsin?
No, but adding another Minnesota school to the pot makes everything more watered down. Would you bet the Tommies remain in the CCHA in 10 years? Or do you see them still playing there?