Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Sorry Bemidji

From a blog I follow:

The WCHA has decided not to expand their conference, meaning Bemidji State will likely soon find themselves without a conference to play in once the CHA collapses, and could force BSU to drop their hockey program.There have been critics that said Bemidji's program would be in dire financial straits with or without the WCHA, but my question is, why not at least give them the opportunity to fail? Maybe they wouldn't be able to make it in the WCHA, but they're almost guaranteed to die without any conference to play in.And what's the argument for not letting them into the league? It ruins the 8 years of tradition built up by having the same 10 teams in the league? It makes an already unbalanced league schedule slightly less balanced? The real answer is most likely that the other teams in the league don't want to split the revenue from the Final Five another way.The Beavers have more than proven themselves as a capable team. They've competed extremely well against the WCHA over the past couple years, despite having CHA-level resources. Playing in the WCHA would make the program even stronger. Yes, Bemidji still has issues, like the lack of a WCHA-level arena, but that could be solved by making their league membership, and cut of the league revenue conditional until they get a new arena.It's really a disappointing decision from the WCHA. Having an extra 18 scholarships/26 roster spots for D-I college hockey players is never a bad thing, and this decision puts that severly in jeopardy.

2 comments:

Lois said...

Sad news, huh?

Frostbike said...

I would have enjoyed seeing Bemidji play in the WCHA.