BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — By legacy, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association that current men’s league Commissioner Bill Robertson followed as a boy in St. Paul in the 1960s and ‘70s represented the hockey version of Big East basketball. Splashy and formidable, its five marquee programs — Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Denver — had 31 of the 38 national championships W.C.H.A. teams won between 1951 and 2011. No other conference, not even Hockey East, won more in that span.
But when Robertson, a former N.H.L. executive, assumed the commissioner’s job in 2014, the W.C.H.A. resembled the Big East in another way — a famous name fronting a diminished lineup. Eight schools, the marquees among them, departed in 2013 for the newly-formed Big Ten and National Collegiate Hockey Conferences. The ensuing musical chairs of conference realignment left the W.C.H.A. with a loose confederation of remnants and outliers, along with the widest geographic footprint of any Division I conference, stretching from Alaska to Alabama.
It seemed untenable from the start. And now Robertson is struggling to hold it together.
Last June, seven schools — Minnesota State, Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Northern Michigan, Michigan Tech and Lake Superior State — announced plans to withdraw from the W.C.H.A. and possibly form a new conference for the 2021-22 season. That left only Alaska-Anchorage, Alaska-Fairbanks and Alabama-Huntsville, the W.C.H.A.’s farthest-flung members. This week, the departing seven programs reorganized as the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, reviving the name of a conference that dissolved in the previous realignment.
“There is no script for this situation,” Robertson said recently at the W.C.H.A. offices, located in a bleak office park near the Mall of America. “It’s a challenge every day, and I’m trying to do the best job I can being professional, honest and focused on the job at hand — to get us ready for the playoffs, conference championships, and the N.C.A.A. playoffs. I can’t take my eye off that piece.”
Hockey conferences need six teams for an automatic N.C.A.A. Tournament bid. Robertson said the two Alaska schools and Alabama-Huntsville are committed to the conference. Realistically, he has less than a year to find three more schools to keep the W.C.H.A. viable as a men’s league.
The women’s W.C.H.A. should not be affected. Of the seven withdrawing schools, only two field women’s teams, and Robertson said both plan to remain.
The presidents of the seven departing schools declined interview requests and directed inquiries to Morris Kurtz, a former college athletics administrator who serves as the group’s adviser. Kurtz would not say why the schools chose to leave.
“This is about seven like-minded schools going forward,” Kurtz said. “No one took a shot at anybody else, any other program.”
By resources and commitment, the seven departing W.C.H.A. schools have been on opposite trajectories from the others since the beginning. While Minnesota State, Bemidji State, Bowling Green and the Michigan schools invested in facilities and program upgrades, the Alaska schools faced state-mandated budget cuts to higher education that threatened men’s hockey’s survival. The Alaska state budget will trim $70 million from the university system over three years.
This season, Alaska-Anchorage shifted games from the 6,290-seat Sullivan Arena downtown to the 750-seat Seawolf Sports Complex on campus, a move that Athletic Director Greg Myford said saved $200,000 annually. The complex’s capacity ranks below the W.C.H.A. minimum of 2,500 and Myford soon plans to announce fund-raising for an expansion project to increase seating to as many as 3,000. Robertson approved the venue shift, a decision that did not sit well with some members.
Travel costs were another issue. To further cut expenses, the two Alaska programs sought to eliminate the travel subsidies they pay W.C.H.A. schools to come play them once a season. Alabama-Huntsville, which joined in 2013, also subsidizes travel. Alaska-Fairbanks Chancellor Dan White, chairman of the W.C.H.A.’s board of directors, declined to specify figures, but said the subsidies include airfare and some related costs — easily many thousands of dollars.
More than once, White said, it came up for a conference vote. “And of course, with seven teams receiving the subsidy and three paying, you can imagine how that vote turns out,” White said in a telephone interview from Fairbanks.
Two officials familiar with the presidents’ discussions said ongoing financial issues in Alaska concerned all seven. So did lackluster play by certain schools. Alabama-Huntsville’s last winning season came in 2005-06, and Alaska-Anchorage is deep into its sixth consecutive losing season. The departing schools felt those sub-.500 seasons hampered their pursuit of at-large bids to the N.C.A.A. Tournament, where strength of schedule is a factor. Under its current configuration, the W.C.H.A. has yet to win an N.C.A.A. title. The last came in 2011, by Minnesota Duluth, now in the N.C.H.C.
Robertson remains hopeful that one or two of the departing schools might reconsider. Beyond that, the W.C.H.A.’s options for luring new members are limited.
Only 60 institutions sponsor N.C.A.A. Division I men’s college hockey, compared to 351 in men’s basketball and 255 in football, and 59 are committed to conferences. The lone independent, Arizona State, declined W.C.H.A. overtures in 2017. Facility and travel costs make hockey an expensive proposition, and the number of Division I programs has remained relatively stagnant for a decade.
Illinois soon plans to add Division I hockey but is committed to the Big Ten. Mike Snee, executive director of College Hockey Inc., a nonprofit that promotes men’s Division I hockey, said his organization is helping six schools develop Division I programs. He declined to name them, and it’s not clear if any will field teams by 2021-22.
“Hopefully we will have some success getting some of these schools to move from the consideration stage to the actually adding and eventually playing hockey stage,” Snee said. “Of course they’ll need a conference to play in, and hopefully that can assist Alaska-Fairbanks, Alaska-Anchorage, Alabama-Huntsville, and other programs.”
If not, where could the W.C.H.A. turn? Perhaps to St. Thomas, the St. Paul school seeking N.C.A.A. approval to move directly to Division I from Division III. Robertson said he has talked to others as well.
It’s a stressful time for Robertson. He remembers when the W.C.H.A. and Hockey East were college hockey’s best-known brands, when fans argued whether the Northeast or the Midwest produced the best players, an argument manifested by the Minnesota-Massachusetts split on the 1980 U.S. Olympic roster, whose 20-member team featured 16 players from either state.
Robertson abhors the thought of the conference dissolving on his watch.
“I’m a competitor,” Robertson said. “I’ll work very hard to make sure this brand continues for a long period of time.”
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