{"id":87691,"date":"2018-08-24T07:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=87691"},"modified":"2020-08-24T14:33:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T19:33:22","slug":"analyzing-the-2018-19-schedules-five-years-in-big-ten-finding-niche-while-continuing-to-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2018\/08\/24\/analyzing-the-2018-19-schedules-five-years-in-big-ten-finding-niche-while-continuing-to-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyzing the 2018-19 schedules: Five years in, Big Ten finding niche while continuing to grow with ‘core principles’ in place"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"17<\/a>
Notre Dame and Ohio State battle in the B1G championship game at Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend in March 2018 (photo: Rachel Lewis).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This is the second of six in a series looking at each conference\u2019s schedule for the upcoming 2018-19 season.<\/i><\/p>\n

A popular discussion around college hockey fans centers on the prospect of a \u201cpower conference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leagues like the NCHC and Hockey East have a public perception of being something of a strong, super league because their membership have a certain caliber of tradition, history and longtime talent.<\/p>\n

Only the Big Ten, though, can claim that it\u2019s one of college sports\u2019 true blue-blooded mastodons. It\u2019s one of college hockey\u2019s youngest leagues, but it\u2019s the only one that shares sponsorship with an autonomous \u201cPower Five\u201d league. When it formed, it was the largest and arguably most significant bridge built from the occasionally-niche hockey world to the rest of the college universe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a pretty smooth transition for the Big Ten,\u201d director of communications Adam Augustine said. \u201cJennifer Heppel helped coordinate things on our end with coaches and administrators of the hockey schools as we worked to bring it to fruition that first season. She had a tremendous background for hockey and a respect for the game, and that helped smooth the transition. She helped translate to the conference what the hockey teams were looking for in a conference, and it went a long way to making that transition as smooth as it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Big Ten formed, it merged Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State from the CCHA with Minnesota and Wisconsin from the WCHA. Penn State, having elevated its program from club status, joined after spending a season as an Independent. Heading into that first season, the league had a relatively short discussion about scheduling with all schools expressing similar desires about how it should be set up.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo a large extent, it was what the teams were used to in the CCHA and WCHA,\u201d Augustine said. \u201cMost of them were used to playing two game weekend series with a home-and-away series against each opponent. So it was a relatively easy discussion at the early outset to settle on what was a 20-game conference schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a principle that, owing to the league\u2019s size, created an interesting foundation for the league\u2019s first four years. The six-team conference began play with its teams needing to fill over 40 percent of their own schedules. It meant conference play didn\u2019t begin until the middle or end of November, at which point the other leagues were almost half over. That was a definite oddity, even though it was in-line with other Big Ten sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe non-conference play is an indirect effect of how you do your conference schedule,\u201d Augustine said. \u201cThe strangest part of our schedule in our first years were 14-16 non-conference games, and our teams weren\u2019t starting their conference schedule until Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was something that was familiar with other sports like basketball in the Big Ten office, but that\u2019s a bit new to the college hockey world. As we increased the number of conference games, though, it started to disappear so long-term fans will see things start to look a little bit more familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n

The room for growth in that schedule happened by adding a team. Notre Dame joined the Big Ten as an affiliate member in ice hockey last season, which meant four more conference games. It upped the number of games to 24 while decreasing out-of-conference play to 10, a number more in line with the eight-team NCHC, which Augustine said was also a very easy discussion point for the conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe core principles stayed in place,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s an obvious downside to having an odd number, which means there\u2019s a bye every week for one of the teams, including the last weekends. If you talk to most coaches, a number of them don\u2019t want to be sitting around at the end of year, so we tried to identify parties that might be available for games during that stretch. That\u2019s why teams like Arizona State or the national development program show up on our schedules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season, Michigan hosted the Sun Devils to close out the season. It was the second straight season a team played the independent in January or February after Ohio State hosted it in 2016-2017. In addition, Big Ten schools have played seven games in the last two years against USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program’s Under-18 Team.<\/p>\n

But the Big Ten\u2019s biggest impact has been off-the-ice, where the familiar conference logo lends itself to the branding of the collective unit. There were conference rivalries well before the Big Ten formed, but the league umbrella created a new seasoning that\u2019s starting to open doors for other opportunities.<\/p>\n

For example, the league has its own television network, creating a whole new medium for college hockey. It co-branded hockey by leveraging the network, and it included a \u201cSuper Saturday\u201d broadcast of Minnesota hockey next to men\u2019s basketball. In addition, the conference leverages mobile technology through its own app that links directly to the network\u2019s national streaming capabilities. All of that was in addition to regional and other broadcast outlets that carried Big Ten games.<\/p>\n

For the league, it was something of a blending that took the old-world hockey traditions and pushed it to a new audience through the Big Ten banner. It\u2019s something the league hopes honors the past, even as it pushes forward into a new era. And of course, there\u2019s the growth of the game, which exists in the prospect of the recent feasibility study at Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cHockey fans are unique in what excites them to what they find the most interesting on the schedule,\u201d Augustine said. \u201cIf you root for Ohio State, you see Penn State and you understand what that means. You know who they are from other sports. There\u2019s a course of familiarity in there, but that said, there\u2019s familiarity in historical standpoints. (A combination from) six of these schools played together at some point in the WCHA. Depending on how far back you can go, (fans) will remember when these teams played each other on that basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery fan base is different. Some were very excited about the change, and some are still looking for that excitement. That\u2019s okay. That\u2019s part of forming a new league, and part of having the schedules change with different schools being a little different. We\u2019ve had some more success as a league, and that will help. It\u2019s not an overnight thing to shift opponents regularly. We know that and understand that, and it\u2019s okay for fans to take time to adjust. At the end of the day, if the hockey is good and opponents have well-coached, entertaining games with talent, that\u2019s going to draw them in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A popular discussion around college hockey fans centers on the prospect of a \u201cpower conference” (photo: Rachel Lewis).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":111682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[804],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnalyzing the 2018-19 schedules: Five years in, Big Ten finding niche while continuing to grow with 'core principles' in place - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A popular discussion around college hockey fans centers on the prospect of a \u201cpower conference" (photo: Rachel Lewis).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87691\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Analyzing the 2018-19 schedules: Five years in, Big Ten finding niche while continuing to grow with 'core principles' in place - 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