NCHC Hockey: Brand is Developing

Trevor Olson scores during the 2017 NCHC Frozen Faceoff (Photo Credit: Russell Hons)

After four seasons, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference has proven to be a strong conference from top to bottom. During league play, there are no off nights. While it sounds cliché, every game is a war.

Week-to-week, in NCHC  play, there are no easy games. Any team can win on any given night. If your favorite team has aspirations of winning the Penrose Cup, they can’t take a night off. Take two night’s off and your team’s conference title hopes can go down the drain. Teams shuffle in the standings from game-to-game. The NCHC coaches, players, and fans wouldn’t have it any other way.

Some NCHC fans have joked that the conference’s regular season trophy should be a meat grinder. All jokes aside, the NCHC has developed an identity as being a very tough league with top teams. Any team in the conference can beat anybody on any given night. Series sweeps are hard to come by.

In the first four seasons, the NCHC has had 17 teams qualify for the NCAA tourney. Six NCHC teams have made the Frozen Four. Two NCHC teams have won NCAA titles (DU 2017 and UND 2016). From my perspective, that’s a pretty good start.

Before the NCHC considers any expansion, the conference should continue to develop their branding and identity. To date, the leagues branding and stature has developed nicely. The NCHC needs to take care of the eight teams currently in the conference before they add other teams. The league is just fine the way it is.

Rumors Surface Again

I also don’t like reading tweets like this. Again, as I mentioned in another article, I have no idea who this person(s) is, but apparently, he either has someone at the Big Ten leaking information or he’s just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing if it sticks.

This spring, I did some checking around on my own, I couldn’t find a single college hockey focused writer or blogger that knows who this individual is. However, some Gopher fans seem to believe everything that he tweets on twitter because he predicted the hiring of the current Gopher Football head coach P.J. Fleck. Or so the urban legend goes. Whatever, right? IRC, that was one of the most telegraphed coaching hires ever on the Internet. I guess we’re going to find out how good of a source Big Ten Man is and soon.

BTM: B10 HCKY Coaches and Athletic Directors have pitched their desire of adding North Dakota to B10 HCKY Conference to Jim Delany.

— Greg Flugaur (@flugempire) May 19, 2017

I also find it interesting that he seems to know what UND President Mark Kennedy would do.

BTM: North Dakota President Mark Kennedy would accept invite if given.

— Greg Flugaur (@flugempire) May 19, 2017

As a blogger that has covered college hockey for six seasons, I have zero interest in seeing the University of North Dakota moving to the Big Ten Hockey Conference. Also, I have no interest in watching UND play OSU, MSU, and PSU in hockey. Nothing against those teams, but UND is already going to play Wisconsin and Minnesota on a semi-regular basis. Finally, I like the way the current membership of the NCHC is set up.