Well the dust has finally settled...at least for now. In the past week, Notre Dame has accepted an invitation to play in the Hockey East and Bowling Green did the same with the WCHA. That leaves one lone independent for the 2013-'14 season and that is Alabama Huntsville. It is a long shot but I hope that the WCHA, who will only have 9 teams in the conference will at least take it into serious consideration to add UAH.
Speaking of those crafty Fighting Irish. Notre Dame has recently announced that they have worked out a deal with NBC to cover Irish hockey when they join the Hockey East. We all sat around waiting for the Notre Dame shoe to drop and we find out why it took so long. They were trying to leverage a better national TV deal. I give Notre Dame credit in a sense that this was the time for them to make this happen. They were coming off a season in where they reached the Frozen Four. They had multiple conferences chasing them for their services. They were the preseason # 1 team in the country and are about to open up a brand new hockey facility this fall. All the moons were aligning and they landed a great deal with NBC.
I would like to think that Notre Dame was doing this for the betterment of College Hockey but lets be real, they were looking out for #1 and who would blame them. I certainly wouldn't and the rest of the College Hockey world shouldn't either. In fact they should all be very excited about this. More national coverage, more exposure to new fans and more money being generated to grow the game even further. I may not have been a fan of the way Notre Dame handled the situation over the summer, being very coy about it all. But facts are facts and the Irish landed a National TV deal, a huge arrow up for College Hockey.
With CBS Sports Network, The Big Ten Network and now Versus, which will become NBC Sports in January of 2012. College hockey has come a long way in such a short time in terms of national television exposure. It is incredible that College hockey will be sharing the same television stage as the National Hockey League. But when you stop and think about it, it shouldn't seem that far fetched. I mean look at all of the former college players out there that have become stars in the NHL. Um, Ryan Kesler, Zach Parise, Thomas Vanek just to a name a few so you don't think I am just blowing hot air.
So instead of looking at this as a surreal deal for college hockey. I look at it as a necessity for both the Versus/NBC network as well as the game of hockey. With so many college players being drafted now, it would seem to me that exposing these players on television before they become NHL stars would only enhance the popularity of the game. Plus with most of the players drafted to specific teams already but still college eligible, fans of say the New York Rangers can check in on 2009 first round pick Chris Kreider while he plays for Boston College. Versus can build him up while promoting college hockey and the NHL at the same time. Bam!!
Ok, lets get away from talking about television and get to the real games. Last week was the beginning of the College Hockey season as well as the NHL. With the NHL being a 82 game season, I am going to hold off on any first week ups and downs. The same should be said about the college game but with only about 35 games apiece, all the games are very important. That being said, please don't get too excited about a first weekend sweep or too down about losing the first 2 games of the season. The big reason for that is the lack of practice time and prepration leading up to the first games.
The rules made by the NCAA have made things very difficult on college coaches. They are only allowed a certain amount of hours with the team leading up to the start of the season which in some instances only gives them 8-10 days of practice leading up to the first real games. That hardly gives these coaches enough time to implement all of their systems on the ice and create the type of team they want to be throughout the season. To put it into perspective, the NHL gets about a month of training camp and has 7-8 preseason games to install all the systems they want. These college coaches have to be very precise with their time early on and build off the foundations they have laid as the season opens up. So don't explode over the first weekends results!
Case and point,there were a few examples of dominance this weekend, for instance the Boston College Eagles who went up to Grand Forks and captured the Ice Breaker Tournament by defeating host North Dakota 6-2. You might look at that and say, wow look out for Boston College! But lets see a couple more weekends like that before we crown them the champs. I mean take from that same game on the other end of the spectrum, North Dakota. They struggled to beat Air Force and then got ripped by Boston College on their home ice. Are we discounting the Fighting Sioux now? I'm certainly not, and that is the point I am trying to make. Lets allow these teams to get into their seasons a little bit before we write teams off or crown a champ in October.
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