Ten Minus Four Equals New Hockey Conference

For those of you who have always thought the Big Ten conference should expand into men's hockey, your wish may come true.

If the conference gives its blessing to the athletic directors' proposal, six of the Big Ten's twelve schools (strange as it sounds) that offer hockey programs will be in the same league, starting with the 2013-14 season.  They are:  Minnesota, Wisconsin (from the WCHA), Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State (from the CCHA) and Penn State.

The conference exists only because Penn State is adding varsity hockey in a couple of years, and the Big Ten requires at least six schools to make the league competitive.

One beneficiary of a new hockey conference is the Big Ten Network, which will try to slide as many games as possible in between college basketball doubleheaders.

The WCHA (which just added Nebraska-Omaha and Bemidji State this past season) and the CCHA will be losing their biggest-name schools in their largest markets.  Not to worry.  They'll still get to play their Big Ten rivals in non-conference games.

As for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, who have been a member of the WCHA (and its predecessors) since the 1950s, talk of the future may be a good distraction from the present.

The Gophers have not only failed to appear in the WCHA's Final Five (won this year by North Dakota), but also did not qualify for the NCAA playoffs for the third consecutive year.  The Frozen Four finals are scheduled for St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center this year, just so you know.

Don Lucia, despite numerous calls for him to step down, is expected to remain as Minnesota's coach for the foreseeable future.  His teams have been plagued recently by injuries, mediocre play and defections by underclassmen for the NHL (the latest being Aaron Ness, who signed with the New York Islanders).  There's also been plenty of criticism of how Lucia has handled his players, which usually consists of the pick of Minnesota's hockey crop.

Minnesotans expect a lot out of their only major university's athletic programs.  They do tend to cut a little slack when it comes to football and men's basketball, which haven't won anything in years.  But failing to excel in hockey, no matter what conference they're in, doesn't cut it in a state where the sport is a birthright.