Yeah, I didn’t think that was even a real question lol.
Since 2005-06, Belmont has been to the NCAA tournament EIGHT times and their record is 391-144. They are AWESOME.
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I don’t think the competition is the problem, and the argument that switching leagues will remedy that I don’t buy! Hell, we lost to LIU…practically a club team! We lost to CCHA competition this year already, so how would that magically change if we switched now to go to the CCHA? Are we not getting the players we used to get? Is there a culture shift needed? I just don’t think we can only pin it on the NCHC. If “Why Western” can do in the NCHC, why can’t Miami?!
I am no expert like others here are in terms of the college hockey landscape. In my previous posts I have not called for a move to CCHA but if we do not soon make some progress from being completely uncompetitive in the NCHC, then I think consideration of the CCHA is warranted . We can become competitive quicker there and start winning a few games and regaining some enthusiasm for our program. You want fans…you gotta win some games!
I was at Miami when Goggin was built in the 1970s and I don’t even know what conference we played in but we started to win almost immediately and Goggin was rocking even then.
P.S.and equating our membership in the MAC in major sports vs. a far flungNCHC in one sport is a non starter discussion for me.
I think it is fair to Coach Bergeron to give him his 5 years to right the program. It took Chuck Martin that long to get the football program back into solid shape. It has taken Jack Owens that long to get the basketball program back into solid shape. We already went through about 5 years of bad hockey under Rico before the 3 years of bad hockey under Berge.
Some things Blasin says make no sense to me. People have already pointed out the Belmont basketball issue. He is also saying that basketball has made no progress when they actually have turned a corner. Last year was the first winning season since late in Charlie’s career ( over a decade) and we are better this year. How much better remains to be seen, but definitely there is progress.
Blasin seems not to have been watching this team over the last 7 or 8 years. We just keep getting worse, not better. At first it was not making the tournament, now we are in a battle every year with Colorado College to avoid last place. The other 6 teams in the league all belong in the top rung of college hockey. They are hockey schools. Now that we have lost our way, no top hockey talent seems to be coming our way. It used to be that most of our graduating Seniors would immediately head into Professional hockey. Not anymore. Attendance is dropping further every year… A decade ago we had a waiting list of a couple of thousand wanting season tickets. I finally dropped mine because I could no longer find anybody who wanted to go. It is not really much fun to go to the games anymore, certainly nothing like it used to be.
You seem to think that flying to the games is no big expense, but maybe you should discuss this with some of the people in the Athletic department. Tickets are up to $30 now with fees and the product is not worth it. Bussing to games in the CCHA would be affordable. People used to go to some road games too. That does not happen any more.
We used to have a league TV package on cable TV plus weekly highlight shows. We used to televise almost every home game. Now TV exposure is nonexistant. A paid subscription to the NCHC tv network is the only chance to follow the team. Your comparison of the SEC and the NCHC in exposure and revenue is absurd.
We are not getting any of the benefits that Vanderbilt is getting from the SEC.
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Well said, Dick.
NM
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I see people talk about travel a lot to criticize the NCHC. Travel definitely is expensive but just to put some numbers out there, here are the average amounts spent on travel between the 2013-14 (when the NCHC launched) and 2019-20 athletic years for hockey, MBB and FB:
Football: 490,968
Hockey: 281,212
MBB: 166,980
Worth noting that the last two years in the dataset were also the cheapest for hockey at 252k and 212k. Even if there were massive travel cost reductions from going to the CCHA, you really wouldn’t be saving all that much money.
Take this year for example. Our away conference games are: Omaha, Denver, Duluth, St. Cloud, CC, WMU. In the CCHA, BGSU’s conference away games are: Bemidji St, Minnesota St, NMU, St. Thomas, Ferris St, Michigan Tech, LSSU. The only big difference is two flights to Colorado but how much money does replacing two flights with bus trips to the UP really make?
People used to go to some road games too. That does not happen any more.
In the new CCHA the only road game easily accessible to the average Miami fan would be BGSU. Otherwise, games would be mostly in the UP or Minnesota. The CCHA doesn’t have the Big Ten schools anymore. We wouldn’t be playing games in Columbus, Ann Arbor or North Bend.
We used to have a league TV package on cable TV plus weekly highlight shows. We used to televise almost every home game. Now TV exposure is nonexistant. A paid subscription to the NCHC tv network is the only chance to follow the team. Your comparison of the SEC and the NCHC in exposure and revenue is absurd.
The old CCHA had some games on TV because of the Big Ten schools largely. Currently subscription tv packages are required to follow most college hockey. The Big Ten puts some on BTN, some on ESPN/FS/NBCSN and a lot on B1G+. The CCHA and Atlantic hockey are on flohockey. The ECAC is on ESPN+ (I wish that the NCHC was too, but from what I’ve heard about the NCHC revenue numbers I’m guessing it makes financial sense for us not to be)
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Miami sold out against BUGS and had over 3,000 for North Dakota, and that’s with an abysmal record.
The team had decent attendance for LIU and almost no one was at the Directional Michigan series because it was Thanksgiving weekend and students left town. Even the restaurants were closed Friday.
Play better hockey, fans will return. It’s that simple.
Michigan, MSU, Ohio State and Notre Dame aren’t going to be in Miami’s conference again, so the “name recognition” from the CCHA is Ferris (already have a contract when them), BUGS (which Spratt/Berge are working to contract with), Lake State and Northern Michigan, and I don’t see fans pouring into Cady Arena to see the latter two.
The saving-money-through-less-travel idea is largely a myth too, as the CCHA has three teams in the UP, one in northern Minnesota and two in southern Minnesota. Even Ferris is seven hours away, leaving BUGS as the only short bus ride.
The lack of winning is the best argument, and this team absolutely does have confidence issues after getting its brains kicked in, and while it make take longer to rebuild in the NCHC, it will be worthwhile long-term because kids want to go to a conference where they’re going to get exposure, and playing better opponents will get them that.
Also, Miami’s strength of schedule would be atrocious because there would be few opportunities to schedule NCHC-caliber opponents. So then they would have to win over 20 games and maybe even a single-elimination conference tournament to get in the NCAAs.
All you have to do in the NCHC is finish fifth (or maybe sixth this season). That means beating three teams (or two).
The ultimate goal each season is the make the national championship. I don’t care if Miami does it finishing sixth in this league.
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EKU has a better basketball arena than us…
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If anybody can access Bowling Green’s numbers over this same time period it would be illuminating to see any differences…
A BU guy named Sean Pickett who posts a lot on USCHO has a Google Sheet with costs for all public hockey-playing schools going back 10 years or so. BUGS travel numbers as well as Western’s will be in there. I’d look them up myself but I’m on vacation with limited Internet access. Someone should be able to find them.
Back to lurking.
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Just a small factual error. The LIU games were Thanksgiving Weekend and attendance was 1009 and 906. WM was last weekend with school going on, attendance was 2116 and the game I attended on Saturday 1881. I think I called it two thirds full.
To me what those numbers show is that the opportunity to seize the fan interest was there at the beginning of the season as I think we had full houses for the first 3 games. With the performance of the team reality now seems to be setting in. Sadly, we also have to deal with Christmas break and J-term from now to the end of January.
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Is J-term an academic success? Because it sure sucks for winter sports.
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I dislike it because it kills winter sports but my daughter is going to Spain through Miami during J term and I think a lot of kids do that to get their international trip in
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Yeah, that’s what I did in SE Asia my sophomore year. Didn’t have time to fit Luxembourg for a whole semester.
According to the Google Sheet that Lucker mentioned, BGSU averaged $250,968 per year in the WCHA between 13-14 and 19-20. Obviously though, that does include flying to Alaska once or twice a season so it would be a bit lower now they don’t have to.
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So there’s a little cost savings, but maybe not as much as I was thinking. Thank you.
Let the record show, Dick, this week is finals week for Miami. So the Western series was the study weekend before Fall finals. My experience at Miami was any weekend hockey series before final exams was no well attended by students