What do recent changes mean for AIC hockey? |
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By Chris Maza
Reminder Assistant Editor
SPRINGFIELD — With the landscape of college hockey changing vastly over the course of the past few months, many people are wondering how recent changes will affect their teams or conferences.
American International College (AIC) Head Coach Gary Wright is no exception.
“I think there are a lot of mixed emotions right now,” Wright said. “Hopefully it will work out for the best, but I think it is kind of a scary time for college hockey.”
The shifting began when the Big Ten conference made its anticipated announcement in March that it would add hockey to the list of sports the conference offers, starting in 2013. With the announcement, Minnesota and Wisconsin left the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) and Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State slid out of the Central Collegiate Hockey Conference (CCHA).
The major catalyst for the formation of a Big Ten hockey conference was the creation of a Division I college hockey program by Penn State University.
With their conferences weakened, member schools from the WCHA — Denver, Colorado College, North Dakota, Nebraska-Omaha, Minnesota-Duluth — and the CCHA — Miami University of Ohio — broke off and on July 13 announced the formation of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.
“The Big Ten adding hockey made sense in the sense that it has been talked about for a while, and now especially with Penn State starting a hockey program,” Wright said. “The National [Collegiate Hockey Conference], I think they decided to be pro-active.”
Wright, who called the current situation the WCHA and CCHA is faced with as “one of the most curious factors” in college hockey, explained that the nature of the sport has allowed for this kind of shifting to happen.
“The uniqueness of hockey lends to these sorts of things,” he said. “Hockey is still a regional sport in the United States. Many times a school has a hockey team, but the conference doesn’t have enough teams because not as many schools play hockey.
“ A lot of leagues in college hockey are leagues of convenience — teams form a league because their conference in other sports doesn’t have enough [hockey] teams — and sometimes this can lead to uncertainty,” he continued.
Wright pointed out that AIC is one such hockey program. In most other sports, AIC is part of the Northeast 10 Conference. However, in hockey, the Yellowjackets are part of the Atlantic Hockey Association (AHA), which consists of teams primarily in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New York.
Wright also added that this was not the first time a situation like this has occurred. In 1984, Hockey East, the conference the University of Massachusetts competes in, broke off from the East Coast Hockey League.
Both the CCHA and the WCHA are searching for new member schools to remain viable. the WCHA already plucked Western Michigan University from the CCHA. While the major effects of the changes thus far have been felt by the Western conferences, with two established conferences scrambling, those ripples could turn into waves in the East.
College Hockey News also reported this week that four AHA schools — Mercyhurst, Robert Morris, Canisius and Niagra — were in talks with the CCHA.
Wright said that while he had no knowledge of any AHA teams eyeing an exit for the league, there was that possibility.
“Both the WCHA and the CCHA lost a number of members. Will they reach out to teams in our conference? Could teams reach out to them? Could it affect membership in our conference? Yes it could,” Wright said. “Teams like Robert Morris, Canisius, Niagra, Mercyhurst or Rochester Institute of Technology are all out in Pennsylvania or Western New York. Geographically, they’re as close to some schools in the CCHA as they are to teams in our own conference.”
Air Force, which is located in Colorado Springs, Colo., could also be a candidate to move. Wright did not include AIC as one of the teams for which a move could be beneficial.
Wright reserved judgment on whether the changes would be good or bad for college hockey, calling the situation “fluid,” but did acknowledge it has already stirred up emotions across the nation.
“Obviously people are hurt by this,” he said. “There is probably good and bad that goes along with it, but I think a lot of times judgments in these situations are premature. History will decide whether this is a good thing or not.”
University of Massachusetts Head Coach Donald “Toot” Cahoon told Reminder Publications he was traveling and not available for comment as of press time.
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