2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

[AKSWF]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

The Sun Belt of college hockey

*MWC, one or so team goes to the big boys tournament. Has the potential to have three teams doing very well, but OOC games kill. I posted last off-season of NCAA CFB conferences and they're equivalent in College Hockey. Didn't go well, even though they are now both the same, money talks.

[Squarebanks]

*MWC, one or so team goes to the big boys tournament. Has the potential to have three teams doing very well, but OOC games kill. I posted last off-season of NCAA CFB conferences and they're equivalent in College Hockey. Didn't go well, even though they are now both the same, money talks.

B1G is B1G
Hockey East is SEC
PAC 12 is NCHC
ACC is ECAC
MWC is WCHA
AAC is AHA

Follow the money. Long run, B1G and Hockey East have the schools that command the most attention on the national sports landscape. NCHC is a strong hockey conference but has no schools that move the needle nationally.

[bravohankins]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

As you note, where this really becomes an issue is recruiting. Try to sell a high level recruit with, "Hey, you should come play in a conference where nobody scores, and the style of play -while frustrating and physically taxing- won't prepare you for anything at any other level. You ready to sign up?

Going forward this is BG's biggest issue. They are not the most offensively gifted team around, truthfully BG has no pure scorers, not one. However, they do have enough talent on the back end and in goal. They just need to find a couple of guys with real scoring ability. I know Bowling Green, same as the rest of the league, is at a disadvantage for these guys as they all want to go to better leagues, with bigger name programs and newer facilities.

BGSU needs a couple of guys that can score on their own. A couple of guys that can take the team on their back and create their own chances......the rest of the foundation is there.

That's the only way for BG, and pretty much the WCHA as a whole, to get out of this 2-3 year middling ground we have been bogged down in.

[AKSWF]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

B1G is B1G
Hockey East is SEC
PAC 12 is NCHC
ACC is ECAC
MWC is WCHA
AAC is AHA

Sounds like what I posted.

[manurespreader]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

Well maybe I'm wrong but we do have in this league a few advantages.
We have really, really good coaching. There are good coaches everywhere of course, but ours are especially good. We are maybe the best as a whole in developing players. Look at Mike Corbett. He started with basically nothing. Guys were leaving left and right. Even the other coaches were leaving. But look what he's got now. His guys compete. His guys work as hard as any team in hockey and they played very competitive non con games. He has a few scorers, his goaltending is top notch.
Or Mankato, they compete with anyone, they get good recruits, Hastings is well respected for how his guys play. I'm not seeing those guys as sub par to any other league any where. this year they were slightly down, but this is college hockey, there's a lot of parity. I mean Holy Cross beat Minnesota, remember?

At Tech, Coach Pearson is really good at developing guys. No we don't get jack Eichel, or Dylin Larkin, but we get good guys who compete and who develop. Would we like to get a great talent, sure, and I think we have been close a time or two, but still we find way to improve guys. Looking at talent alone, BU should have run away from everyone, but they keep losing and lost to Notre Dame last week, so talent isn't everything here.
My only complaint is that we play the NCHC too much.

[fairbanks hockey puck]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

Ditto on the coaching, but let's not forget about Dallas Ferguson with the Alaska Nanooks. 20 underclassmen and 12 freshman. Picked dead last by coaches and eighth by media, this team placed sixth overall and had an outside chance at fourth or fifth.

That with an administration blunder a few years back that caused NCAA infractions, and an Alaska budget so thin that both Fairbanks and Anchorage programs were on the chopping block...

But coach Ferguson continued with the "glass half full as opposed to empty" and continues to do amazing things on a shoe string budget that changes daily...

aka you can make it big time in Fairbanks...ask Chad Johnson/Calgary and Colton Parayko/St Louis

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

B1G is B1G
Hockey East is SEC
PAC 12 is NCHC
ACC is ECAC
MWC is WCHA
AAC is AHA

Follow the money. Long run, B1G and Hockey East have the schools that command the most attention on the national sports landscape. NCHC is a strong hockey conference but has no schools that move the needle nationally.

NO schools? I think at least one school -and Pierre McGuire- would disagree with that.

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

Well maybe I'm wrong but we do have in this league a few advantages.
We have really, really good coaching. There are good coaches everywhere of course, but ours are especially good. We are maybe the best as a whole in developing players. Look at Mike Corbett. He started with basically nothing. Guys were leaving left and right. Even the other coaches were leaving. But look what he's got now. His guys compete. His guys work as hard as any team in hockey and they played very competitive non con games. He has a few scorers, his goaltending is top notch.
Or Mankato, they compete with anyone, they get good recruits, Hastings is well respected for how his guys play. I'm not seeing those guys as sub par to any other league any where. this year they were slightly down, but this is college hockey, there's a lot of parity. I mean Holy Cross beat Minnesota, remember?

At Tech, Coach Pearson is really good at developing guys. No we don't get jack Eichel, or Dylin Larkin, but we get good guys who compete and who develop. Would we like to get a great talent, sure, and I think we have been close a time or two, but still we find way to improve guys. Looking at talent alone, BU should have run away from everyone, but they keep losing and lost to Notre Dame last week, so talent isn't everything here.
My only complaint is that we play the NCHC too much.

I agree with this. Certainly we have good coaches and we develop players, but every year that we have to settle for lesser talent, we move closer to AHA and further from ECAC/NCHC. The Bi6 has little to no goaltending/defense, some marginal coaching (Anastos, and that 98 year-old guy who can't win even though he recruits half the US Development program every year), but still gets top end offensive talent every year, and then showcases that talent with a wide-open, high scoring style. If we can open up the game in our conference, we can sell ourselves a little easier, especially given that the NHL is moving quickly toward a faster, less physical style.

[John J. MacInnes]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

Bump to get all the Asian spam off the front page.

[UP-Power]

Mason Mitchell signs with Wash.

http://www.sbncollegehockey.com/wcha/2017/3/2/14792508/alaska-anchorages-mason-mitchell-signs-with-washington-capitals

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

Bump to get all the Asian spam off the front page.

Mmmmmm...Asian Spam!

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

If you didn't know, there's a playoff thread: http://board.uscho.com/showthread.ph...-Ice-Advantage

GFM

[AKSWF]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

Mason Mitchell signs with Wash.

http://www.sbncollegehockey.com/wcha...ngton-capitals

Should help with recruiting, at least we're first in something.

[AKSWF]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

If you didn't know, there's a playoff thread: http://board.uscho.com/showthread.ph...-Ice-Advantage

GFM

Doesn't season encompass the playoffs? Bet ya, half a bitcoin I don't own.

[gfmorris]

Re: 2016-2017 WCHA Season Thread

I agree ... just passing the word on. I was a little surprised that this topic had gone quiet.

GFM