Around the...WIAC?

by Matthew Webb

Well, this has certainly been an interesting week so far. One weekend remains in conference play for all leagues but one, and no less than six conference races have yet to be decided.

When it comes to the one league -- the NCHA -- that has already finished its men's regular season and is set to commence its opening round of playoffs this weekend, most talk this week has not been centered around those very playoffs but rather news that first broke Tuesday evening right here at D3hockey.com, and was confirmed Wednesday in an official release.

Namely, that as of the end of the 2013-14 season, the five University of Wisconsin schools currently participating in the NCHA will disassociate from the league and participate solely under the banner of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC).

Since the news broke, speculation has run rampant regarding a multitude of topics that cover realms such as the rationale for the decision, along with its impacts on the West Region, MCHA and MIAC, and future NCAA tournament prospects. Additionally, perhaps the largest amount of discussion has been centered on the future of the men's programs at St. Norbert and St. Scholastica.

Now that it has been over 24 hours since we first broke the story and nearly 12 since the WIAC officially made its announcement, the initial shock has passed and the early reactive firestorm has subsided. Nonetheless, from the looks of much of the discussion taking place in certain areas it seems very little has been reached in terms of valid conclusions.

Thus, in an attempt to reset the situation and address it from the standpoint of what actually just happened as opposed to blindly guessing at what might happen three years from now, D3hockey.com today spoke with WIAC Commissioner Gary Karner about the what and why of what just transpired.

At the broadest level, many are scratching their heads as to the exact rationale behind the decision. When speaking to us, as he did in the official release, Karner cited multiple reasons but singled out budgetary matters and the current NCHA management structure as two of the more prominent issues the WIAC considered prior to making its decision.

"It's really a confluence of a lot of differing philosophies, roles, policies and procedures that people normally have in their own particular conference they are affiliated with," Karner said. "And then there are the five schools with women's ice hockey so sometimes it's difficult in the process of running the conference to separate out what are men's issues, what are women's issues and what are issues for both. It just got to the point it was extremely unmanageable is probably the best way I could put it."

To his point, the current NCHA is comprised of 12 different schools from six multi-sport conferences, and one independent. Five member institutions (Adrian, Finlandia, Lake Forest, Marian and Concordia-Wis.) participate solely in the women's conference, while UW-Stout features a men's team only.

"We were the architects of that so we're not pointing the finger at anyone," Karner said. "[The WIAC] schools were part of the process that led to where we are today in terms of the structure. It just got to the point where I think there was more and more frustration on the part of our schools and our administrators on the confluence of roles and policies and procedures."

"I think when we sat down and looked at the whole picture, we came up with what we thought would be in the best interest of the WIAC long-term and that was to withdraw from the NCHA and compete solely under the auspices of the WIAC."

From an organizational standpoint, Karner noted that the WIAC is not a new conference and that the five UW institutions have already been playing under the WIAC banner for some time. He additionally noted that for years now the league has independently awarded its own champion and handed out its own awards.

The other main issue singled out in both the official release and to D3hockey.com was that of budgetary matters. Though not directly addressed by Karner, it is suspected many of the financial concerns stemmed from the women's NCHA as the 11-team league is much more geographically diverse than its men's counterpart and is therefore subject to higher travel and operating costs. At the same time, due to lower game attendances the women's league does not generate the revenue the men's does, specifically when it comes to that generated by conference tournament games.

That point has led to speculation as to whether it may have been wise for the WIAC institutions to treat the future of its men's and women's hockey programs differently, but Karner made it clear that was not to be the case.

"We looked at the total picture and didn't separate out how this affects the men versus the women. We looked at the totality of the conference first, of both men and women and what it meant for the WIAC," he said, while also noting that philosophy is largely consistent with the way the current NCHA manages itself.

As the NCHA has existed in some capacity for over 30 years, an element of this entire machination that has left many confused is why the WIAC felt this moment was the right time to make this move, as opposed to perhaps exploring it further.

"This was a discussion that had been going on in this conference periodically during my whole 16 years as commissioner," Karner said. "It didn't really get a lot of momentum until about a year ago as that's when things started to heat up a little bit more with some of our athletic directors about what direction we were going to go in."

"As a result, over the course of the past few months I had a lot of discussions with our athletic directors and chancellors about what direction we want to go in and what the pros and cons of leaving the NCHA were."

The end result of the efforts was a unanimous 5-0 vote by the UW schools to move forward with their disassociation from the NCHA following the 2013-14 season. To some, another curious element regarding the timing circles around the formal announcement being made squarely in the heart of the season and a mere two days before the NCHA men kick off their Peters Cup quarterfinal series.

"I don't think there was any particular significance to that," Karner said. "I'll be brutally honest: I never gave any thought to what is the best time to announce it. We wanted to announce it as soon as we had arrived at a decision. To us it was more important to make it as soon as we made a decision out of fairness to all the NCHA schools."

Expanding on his point, Karner cited some of the recent rapid-fire conference moves that have occurred in a variety of sports at the Division I level. Operating from a standpoint that such behavior unfairly affects one's current conference partners in a variety of facets, the WIAC holds a firm stance in terms of its belief that making the announcement sooner rather than later was the proper way to go.

"We wanted to make an announcement prior to the NCHA making any other membership or scheduling commitments," Karner said. "We felt we owed it to the NCHA to make a decision now before any other commitments were made that might take us four or five years down the road. We felt getting into that scenario was unfair to the NCHA, and also wanted to give the non-WIAC members of the NCHA ample notice so we can all sit down together and figure out what is in the best interest of everybody involved."

From a direct hockey-centric standpoint, the NCHA fracture has sent heads racing as to what it might mean for the overall quality of the product put forth by the teams currently in the NCHA, as well as to what implications might exist as it pertains to NCAA tournament bids and selection for both WIAC and non-WIAC schools alike.

These concerns are likely well-founded as the men's NCHA has been regarded as one of the premiere conferences in the nation for over 20 years. Since the adoption of the current NCAA Division III tournament structure in 1984, the NCHA men have accounted for nine national championships and ten runner-ups, though only a single WIAC team (UW-Superior '02) has claimed the title since 1994.

Throw in the fact that the league has moved three previous members on to Division I and has born witness to coaches such as Bob Peters, Craig Dahl, Herb Brooks, Dean Talafous, Mark Mazzoleni and George Gwozdecky, and it's not surprising many are questioning the logic of the WIAC's move, especially when no one – not even the WIAC – is certain of what lies ahead.

"That's one of the things that was difficult about this decision," Karner said. "Not only are we leaving the NCHA and the history and the positive relationships we've had with those schools, but we also don't know what the future is going to hold. We don't know if three years from now it's going to be just the five WIAC institutions or there are going to be others who look to join us as affiliate members."

If the WIAC is indeed left with just the five current men's and four women's members, come fall of 2014 the league will be without an automatic qualifier bid to the national tournament as neither the men nor women will have the current required seven teams in which to qualify. Though this is a fact that has drawn much ire from critics of the move, the WIAC insists it played very little into its long-term analysis.

"We don't know if that will be the case three years from now, but I think as a conference we agreed as a philosophy that we aren't going to have the AQ process determine how we're going to operate, who we're going to affiliate, or how we're going to organize our conference for any of our sports," Karner said.

"All the AQ does, quite frankly, is that it guarantees that somebody from whatever grouping of teams you're in is going to get an automatic bid and in ice hockey there is no guarantee that was going to be one of the five WIAC schools."

Finally, the implication that has drawn perhaps the most attention: what does this mean for the future of the men's St. Scholastica and St. Norbert teams? They are perhaps hit harder by this than the non-WIAC women's schools as, in theory, the NCHA women could sustain itself as a seven-team league even without the WIAC members whereas no such option exists on the men's side. For now, all we can be certain of is what each has issued in official statements.

On Wednesday afternoon, St. Scholastica issued a brief official statement that read as follows:

We respect today's decision by the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) hockey teams to part ways with the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) and form their own league beginning in 2014-15. With this time frame, it gives us (St. Scholastica) multiple options to explore and we will do just that to give both our men's and women's hockey programs the best opportunity to flourish in the future.

St. Norbert, on the other hand, was a bit more detailed during a press conference held earlier today at the Cornerstone Community Center. Like St. Scholastica, St. Norbert made it clear it will examine all of its options and do what is in the best interests of its programs, but Director of Athletics Tim Bald went on to add that future membership as a hockey affiliate in the WIAC is a possibility for the Green Knights.

St. Norbert also noted it will not be re-examining the concept of moving to Division I as it previously did in the 1990's, but did specify that finding a stable solution sooner rather than later is its preferred route.

It will be nearly three years until the new West Region configuration – whatever it might be – takes hold on the ice. As we've seen in other sports at other levels recently, that length of time can be an eternity when it comes to things like conference realignment, so this could very well be just the first domino to fall.

At the moment we can only go on what we know to be certain and the list of certainties regarding this matter will no doubt lengthen as time passes and Fall of 2014 approaches. Right now, however, there is likely one thing just about everyone can agree on: Things will never be the same.

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