NCHC To Get Conference TV Deal On Versus

by Mike McMahon

The National Collegiate Hockey Conference will announce a television deal with NBC Sports Network (what Versus will turn into in January) to air college hockey games nationally.

Notre Dame has reached its own agreement with NBC Sports to air its games, separately from the conference contract. Hockey East will also get a TV deal with Versus/NBC.

The NCHC, according to sources, was reluctant to go along with Notre Dame's television wishes, so the Irish will join Hockey Easy in 2013-14.

26 comments:

marooned said...

Deadwood, bottom feeders... Is it any wonder that we fans of the 'left behinds' feel a little slighted. I love my BSU Beavers and to continually see them (and the others) maligned as anything other than worthy is an insult. Everybody knows that all the future WCHA teams are basically DII trying to compete at the DI level. What choice do they have? Go DIII?

Take pride that your team is strong and among the elite but show a little respect. Not everybody can be a 7 time national champion.

Anonymous said...

super league...not so much. More like league thats not gonna make any $$.

Anonymous said...

As a DU fan, I supported Bemidji becoming a WCHA member as it was what was best for NCAA D1 Hockey.

I understand your feelings but what is done is done. I don't know what else to say.

I hope you guys and the rest of the WCHA make the best of it after 2013...

marooned said...

You don't understand my feelings because you never see your team referred to as deadwood.

Uncle Ray said...

Think of this like any American group of high school girls cliques, cause that's exactly what it is...

Notre Dame is the prettiest girl with a lot of friends and a lot of the money. She's a little snobby, but everyone else wants to be her friend (unless she takes everything for herself and others get mad at her).

DU and North Dakota are also very good looking girls, and, among their own peers, rule the in-crowd - with lots of success of their own before Notre Dame came along, but lots of catty insecurities when compared to Notre Dame.

North Dakota has the prettiest house of all, and while it's way far out of town, most are impressed when they get there, even if it seems a little over the top in a Kardashian kind of way.

DU lives in a nice, solid copper-topped house in a nice part of town, but she's a wee bit old-money snotty and she's just one of many other pretty girls in her town, and she has to really clamor to get noticed.

North Dakota and Denver want Notre Dame to be their friend, but if Notre Dame doesn't share with her stuff them, North Dakota and DU will storm off and pretend they never liked Notre Dame in the first place.

CC, UMD, UNO and Miami aren't quite as cute at North Dakota or Denver, but they are kind of cute when they dress nice.

Like DU, CC is old money too, but she deosn't dress very well, and she hangs around with a trashier crowd than she used to when she lived in the old neighborhood.

UMD has gotten dolled up recently and has a nice new house in a run-down part of town, and she has a huge inferiority complex with her older, big sister who lives in Minneapolis.

Miami is kind of a new girl, and just built a nice new house, but it's a small house in country and she needs to decorate it with more hardware.

UNO is also a new girl, with a big drafty rental house that't too big for her. Like UMD, she has sibling insecurity with her big sister in Lincoln.

UNO, CC, UMD and Miami and are also all fundamentally insecure girls who have overspent their allowances to stay competitive and need DU and North Dakota to be their friends, because they so badly want to be part of the in-crowd.

WMU used to be a fat and ugly girl, but has slimmed down and become pretty lately, and gotten a big cash infusion from her parents to boot. She still lives a cruddy neighborhood, but she looks very promising since the diet....

Saint Cloud is one of those girls that can look cute or ugly depending on what angle you look at her. She usually pretty good to hang around with most of the time, but she's one of those girls who always does something embarrasing when it's her turn to shine.

BSU is the new girl, and has a nice new house, the others don't like her name and the difficult distance to her neighborhood, so she gets shunned, even though she's kinda cute in a small town kind of way.

UAA, MSUM and MTU are wallflowers who don't dress very well, and live in far-off or hum-drum places that the cool girls don't like to visit. They don't have as much money or status since they don't win, but they have good hearts and will probably enjoy life alot more with their own school where they don't have to compete with snobby girls anymore...

Ring_of_Fire said...

Uncle Ray:

Now THAT is "Post of the Year" material...

DG, kindly take note.

Anonymous said...

and hockey east is the slut that got phucked by notre dame in some pitiful attempt to get more popular ;-)

(in case it's not obvious, the comment above is a joke and not necessarily factual)

marooned said...

I sure hope BSU gets crowned prom queen someday (like LSSU in the early 90's).

GO_PIOS said...

Uncle Ray. WOW! I don't think it has been said better anywhere else. I wish there was a "love" button.

Rocco Grimaldi said...

Stop thinking about high school girls Uncle Ray.

DU/CC Dad said...

Uncle Ray...great post +1.

Marooned, I've always been a BSU fan growing up in Duluth. I hope they do get a National Championship. I think Bemidji will become a major power in the new WCHA.

dggoddard said...

North Dakota - Hot but she lives in a trailer park
DU - Drives a BMW, but its leased
Colorado College - DU's little sister who smokes a lot of weed
UMD - New money
UNO - Farm girl who's parents make all their money off government subsidies
SCSU - Good looking until the lights come on at the end of the party
Miami - Good body but immature
WMU - Dad got laid off at the plant

Anonymous said...

Well, I think we officially bottomed out with this thread.

Anonymous said...

Uncle Ray, maybe it's time to get a job.

Green Hornet said...

The Big Ten deal is still better than every conference combined.

Anonymous said...

Well with the WMU Broncos uprising, and the undefeated NFL Detroit Lions stirring up a tizzy in Michigan...I'm holding out to see the WSU Warriors announce thier return. Wayne State truly is they key to this WHOLE thing

vizoroo said...

Kudos to Uncle Ray for his analysis :-}

Anonymous said...

SCSU has the 6th best attendance in the country. In other words, despite her crappy house and modest looks, she's "popular" with the boys.

Ketchup and Mustard said...

Losing out on Notre Dame is not necessarily a bad thing for the NCHC, especially if they were trying to act like they were something special. They didn't go out on a limb and form the conference and now they are going to be stuck in Hockey East which is usually a few really good teams and a bunch of bad ones. I'm guessing that in addition to their demands they were concerned that if they joined the NCHC they would run the risk of possibly not being a top team in their conference and decided to go with an easier conference schedule.
While it sucks for the schools not to have the draw at the gate that Notre Dame would bring I think that the new conference should be pretty solid top to bottom. I wouldn't be surprised if the last place team in the NCHC routinely beats their non-conference opponents. As for the Big Ten conference, most of those teams are sliding by on reputation and are overrated in my opinion.
Regarding the TV deals, I get Versus included in basic cable whereas I pay extra for the Big Ten network (and never watch it).

Anonymous said...

Perspective of athletic programs minus hockey. Just giving people a chance to take off those rose colored glasses.

D1: DU (WAC in 2012), North Dakota (Great West-FCS), Miami (MAC) & Western Michigan (MAC)

Nebraska-Omaha (non-football, Summit League) moving up to D1 in 2012.

D2 (Metro State (RMAC)): Minnesota-Duluth (NSIC) & St. Cloud State (NSIC)

D3: CC (SCAC)

Anonymous said...

What the F do metro st scumbags have to do with the NCHC?

Anonymous said...

We're talking about hockey and the NCHC. What relevance are the athletic conferences minus hockey?

I'll take North Dakota and CC over a "power conference" school like Ohio State any day.

I've seen the argument you need big name schools to drive up attendence. There is some truth to that. However, I also think that college hockey fans are some of the most overall knowledgable fan bases out there. They know who North Dakota is and they know they are better than Ohio State. The "casual" sports fan doesn't really follow college hockey anyways (at least in Denver). You're not going to get them in the barn regardless.

Anonymous said...

"I've seen the argument you need big name schools to drive up attendence. There is some truth to that. However, I also think that college hockey fans are some of the most overall knowledgable fan bases out there. They know who North Dakota is and they know they are better than Ohio State. The "casual" sports fan doesn't really follow college hockey anyways (at least in Denver). You're not going to get them in the barn regardless."

Only dumb-phucks who don't know what the eff they are talking about are the ones crowing for "big name schools". Like big name schools will all of a sudden put college hockey on a level with b-ball and football...yeah right... :-)

Anonymous said...

The truth is the loss of Minnesota and Wisconsin hurt more than people let on, especially as time goes by.

I wouldn't be quick to discount Metro State since Nebraska-Omaha jumped quickly from D2 to D1. Metro State has regularly played Minnesota-Duluth, Wayne State & St. Cloud State.

As an athletic program, why wouldn't DU join the MAC? It would only strengthen ties between Miami and Western Michigan.

Anonymous said...

I'm still confused as to what Metro St has to do with D1 Men's Ice Hockey...

Anonymous said...

The MAC is a football conference first and foremost, with a geographic footprint mostly in dying midewestern areas of the US.

They would not want DU and DU would likely not want to be there, either.

Without football, DU's all-sports conference options are very limited, and none of them are particulraly attractive here in terms of generating high level opponents with local name recognition.

The reality is DU is eastern style school in a western location. Our sports mix is unusual out here, and we pay the price for that. However, given our high level of success in most sports we play as the nation's top non-football atheltic program, it's worth staying the course.