Are There Really Any Neutral Regional Sites?

Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald touched on this subject today.

Brad Schlossman, UND Hockey Blog — Ferris State coach Bob Daniels, on a conference call, lamented his team’s experience in the 2003 regionals, when it lost to Minnesota in a partisan Mariucci Arena. He said that it’s too big of an advantage to give a team.

However, under the current setup, Ferris State could earn a No. 1 seed next season and get sent to Fargo to play UND in the first round. Would Daniels consider that to be a fair setup? Doubtful.

The benefit to changing the format would be rewarding teams for strong seasons, not for strong bids that submitted three years earlier.

This past week, the WCHA announced that they’re are going to change their playoff format for their conference playoffs. Starting in 2017, the WCHA will move away from neutral sites for their conference playoffs. The WCHA will hold their entire conference championship at on-campus sites. The Big Ten Hockey Conference, is planning on following suit.

So, you’d think that NCAA regionals would be the next thing to return to campus? Don’t count on it. There are a lot of coaches and a few college hockey writers that want to keep the status quo.

There is a line of thinking that the on campus regionals would benefit the bigger schools in college hockey and hamstring the smaller college teams. I disagree with this line of thinking. I think if a team has aspirations of winning a NCAA title, they’re going to have to beat the best teams where ever the game is played. Adam Wodon, Managing Editor of the College Hockey News is a big proponent of keeping the regional championships at neutral arenas.

On the fairness issue, there is another major point: There are many coaches — and, again, I agree — who believe the schedules are unfairly tilted in favor of large schools, who schedule many more home games than the smaller schools. This leads to better records and to higher seeds in the NCAAs. That is different than the NHL where the schedules are balanced. If you then give these schools home NCAA games, it’s a double whammy to the road team, which already had a harder time during the course of the season’s non-conference games.

Here’s my question: is Boston College playing in the DCU Center in Worcester, MA, a neutral regional site? How about UND playing in the Scheels Arena in Fargo, ND? Lastly, Providence College playing in Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, RI? The answer is probably no for all three questions.

Coach Daniels isn’t the only one that doesn’t want to move the regionals on campus. In 2015, Yale head coach Keith Allain was luke warm to the idea. I can’t imagine that he’s changed his tune this year.

“I think it would be a terrible thing to move these games to campus sites,” said Allain, whose school has hosted multiple regionals in Bridgeport, Conn., but has never come away from those as regional champion. “It’s exciting to come to these venues that we don’t get the chance to play in often.

“If you put it on a campus site, it’s a tremendous advantage for the team that is hosting. They’re in their own locker room, they’ve got their own fans. I think it takes away from the national feel of a national tournament. It becomes just a regular college hockey tournament. So I would be totally against it.”

Some college hockey coaches don’t care where you play the regional championships at. Denver head coach James Montgomery told the Denver Post his thoughts on the subject.

“You know what, no,” coach Montgomery said. “Would you like to have a packed house? Yes. But really when you’re dialed in, your’re focused and you’re committed to each other and there’s an NCAA championship you’re playing for. It doesn’t matter, you could be playing in Siberia