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When the checks are dispersed to the schools in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association following next year’s Final Five, the programs that will remain in the conference afterward better find a sure-bet investment for that money.
If it wasn’t clear that a golden goose was being slaughtered by the breakup of the WCHA, it certainly was with last week’s news of the league’s future playoff plans.
Members of the revamped, nine-team WCHA agreed during meetings in Detroit on a plan that includes giving the McNaughton Cup winner a bye into the Final Five semifinals and controversially pits the two Alaska schools against each other in the first round regardless of where they finish in the standings — unless one of them wins the regular-season title.
The idea is to curb the expense of taking hockey teams to and from the 49th state, especially on short notice once the playoff matchups are set.
Placing cost containment over competitive equity, as Minnesota State athletic director Kevin Buisman put it, doesn’t sound like something a major athletic conference would do, or even a mid-major, as the WCHA is turning into.
But the conference is headed into rough geographical and financial waters once the Big Ten forms and the National Collegiate Hockey Conference teams bolt for supposed greener pastures.
Some critics have hinted that approval of the so-called “Alaska Plan” is precisely the mentality the “like-minded” NCHC programs were running from when they decided to form their breakaway league.
But it’s not like the WCHA lost all of its money to Bernie Madoff. This predicament is a direct result of the college hockey shakeup coming a year from now.
Gone will be big schools, big cities and big arenas. And gone will be a conference tournament that paid up to $100,000 for each member school each spring.
The result is the “less than ideal” Alaska Plan.
The reality is, though, Alaska’s presence has always created a financial dilemma for college hockey.
It’s why Anchorage and Fairbanks (playing separately in the soon-to-be-defunct Central Collegiate Hockey Association) subsidize travel costs for visiting opponents. It’s also why the NCAA grants an exemption to teams that play in Alaska, allowing them to host extra games beyond the 34-game regular-season limit.
And even though league officials can’t say it out loud, everyone knows the WCHA never wants the Seawolves to host a first-round playoff series, just as they don’t want Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota to go on the road and leave their big rinks empty during the postseason.
Buisman said the Alaska Plan is not necessarily permanent, and there’s a report saying officials are already revisiting the issue.
The league would be wise to get creative and come up with something better in time for the 2014 playoffs, even if it means finding a sponsor to cover tournament travel costs.
But considering the changing landscape of the league, it’s understandable why the plan was hatched to begin with.
Shane Frederick is a Free Press staff writer. Read his blog at mankatofreepresshockey.blogspot.com, and follow him on Twitter @puckato.
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June 18, 2012
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