This was originally posted at the Hockey Writers.
Last week, the Big Ten hockey conference sponsored a piece of legislation that calls for lowering the age limit for incoming college hockey freshmen from 21 to 20 years old.
Meaning, any player that enrolled in college after his 20th birthday would lose a year of eligibility for every year past 20. Apparently, the Big Ten schools don’t want to play any more games against 25-year-old seniors.
It’s well documented, the Big Ten has struggled mightily against the other power conferences during the first two and a half years of the Big Ten’s existence.
Breaking Down the Big Ten’s Non-Conference Numbers
Recently, stats guru, Ryan Lambert of Puck Daddy did a great job breaking down the Big Ten’s pitiful record against college hockey’s other major conferences. You can see by looking at the numbers, it’s not pretty.
The only two conferences that the Big Ten Hockey has winning record against is Atlantic Hockey Conference 39-6-4 (.854) and Western Collegiate Hockey Conference 26-23-11.
Against the other power conferences, the Big Ten is below water: the Big Ten hasn’t faired well against *East Coast Athletic Conference 10-17-2 (.379), Hockey East 26-34-5 (.438), National College Hockey Conference 12-39-2 (.245). Breaking it down further, the Big Ten is 48-90-9 (,366) against the ECAC, Hockey East and NCHC.
College hockey is a collegiate sport where the small schools actually have a chance of beating the Division I powerhouses on a regular basis. Looking at the numbers, you can see that it’s happened a lot.
I believe that’s the point of the Big Ten’s proposed legislation. If this legislation is approved by the NCAA membership, it could skew the advantages away from the less fortunate schools and give the bigger, power schools more of an advantage.
The NCHC vs. Big Ten
This past weekend, there were three series between Big Ten schools and the NCHC (UND vs. MSU, UMN vs. SCSU, UNO vs. OSU). The NCHC went 6-0-0 against the Big Ten. So far this season, the NCHC is 14-1-1 against the Big Ten.
*Note, the numbers have been updated with this past weekend’s games.
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