NMU’s Troy Loggins and Bowling Green’s Stephen Baylis go head-to-head during the WCHA playoffs at the Berry Events Center Saturday evening, March 16, 2019. (Journal photo by Corey Kelly)

By RYAN STIEG

Journal Sports Writer

MARQUETTE — The WCHA season may now be over, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t happening within the conference.

In an interview a few weeks ago, league commissioner Bill Robertson talked with The Mining Journal about the state of the WCHA.

He mentioned the quality of the league as evidenced by teams like MacNaughton Cup winner Minnesota State along with Bowling Green State and Lake Superior State that were frequently in the top-20 national rankings. MSU and BGSU also made the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m extremely happy that we’ve had three teams in the top 20 consistently throughout the year, and I think that’s a testament to the kind of play that we have overall in our league,” Robertson said. “Obviously, the health of all 10 teams is important but having three teams ranked in the top 20 throughout the year says a lot about the quality of play.”

While the quality of play may not be in question, the health of the 10 teams has been over the past couple of months, particularly with the state of Alaska dealing with looming massive budget cuts that could affect the future of both hockey programs in the state, Alaska-Anchorage and Alaska-Fairbanks.

Robertson said the league is keeping an eye on what is happening there.

“I’ve been in constant contact with both Anchorage and Fairbanks on the situation,” he said. “I was in Fairbanks a couple of weeks ago and had discussions with their chancellor and their athletic director and their vice chancellor to talk about what’s going on.

“And right now, we’re in a situation where we’re monitoring it with them, but there’s nothing new to report. They still believe that they’re going to be playing hockey and we hope that they’ll be playing hockey for many, many years to come because they’re both really good markets.”

Another related topic is league expansion. There’s been rumblings about other athletic programs considering adding NCAA Division I hockey programs. And among existing programs, Arizona State, which is coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance, is still an independent and could be a good fit for the WCHA.

“I’m always looking at what the potential is for new schools to come in and play,” Robertson said. “There’s not a lot of movement right now or a lot of new schools coming in to play in Division I college hockey, but certainly, we have interest in Arizona State amongst others that would want to potentially join the WCHA over time.

“I think it’s (ASU joining the league) still a possibility for us. I don’t want to put any percentages on that. We continue to discuss it. We’re doing their home officiating this year, so that was a way for us to work closer together.

“We’ll see what happens. They still have a lot of work to do in getting their arena up and running, but we’ve had good conversations about the potential for that.”

In regard to the WCHA handling the Sun Devils’ home officiating, Robertson said that he thinks it creates a working connection with ASU.

“We had talked about it a couple of years ago when they became an independent school and they wanted to do it on their own,” he said. “We talked about it again in the summer and early fall, they came to us and said that we’d like to consider us doing that. We’re only doing their home games and then we’ll do supplemental discipline as needed. So that’s really the extent of it for us. I look at that as an olive branch for us to work together.”

Robertson also said he thinks Division I hockey will expand westward, but the league doesn’t want to expand just to expand. It wants to make sure any new teams are a good fit.

“My opinion is that there is going to be more movement in college hockey to the west over time,” he said. “That could be over the next 15 years. There’s nobody right now on the docket that is coming down the pipeline in college hockey. Illinois is potentially one of the next, but they’d have to go to the Big Ten due to their commitments to that conference. We’re looking at it, we’re thinking about it and we’re doing feasibility studies. I’m open to any school right now, but it has to fit within a plan of some sort. It just can’t be hodgepodge.”

What is currently in place is a successful postseason format that seems to be liked by just about everybody. Robertson also says its been quite successful, especially with the on-campus format.

He also thinks that it’s better that the WCHA has just one title game instead of another best-of-three series like the previous two rounds.

“I like it very much so. I like that both the quarterfinals and semifinals are best two-out-of-three and that it’s a one-game championship.

“It really goes to the idea that the teams that do the best during the regular season have the ability to host. And I like the on-campus-model format very well because you have the electricity of a crowd that we had last night here at Northern and you can’t buy that in a lot of buildings where it’s a neutral site.

“I like that it’s one game. I think that if you played in the championship, if you played more than one, having potentially three games in the quarterfinals, three games in the semifinals and then adding (three) more would be really hard for a team trying to make it to the NCAA Frozen Four.”

Something that NMU fans are intrigued about is the potential addition of a Division I women’s hockey program at the school. When asked if he thinks that Northern would be a good fit for the league, Robertson said he did and that there would be benefits for both the women and men, but he also wanted to make it clear in the interview that he’s not the women’s commissioner.

“Right now, they have seven teams and to add an eighth team that fits into the WCHA footprint, that would be wonderful,” he said. “I think Northern Michigan University is a perfect spot for women’s hockey and it’d be the first Michigan school … to have Division I women’s hockey. I think that would be fabulous.

“I think there’s mutual benefits on both sides and particularly the sponsorship level. Inside the city of Marquette and the surrounding area, there would be more potential for us to do more things with having both women’s and men’s teams.”

The addition of another women’s program to the league may be a long way off, but as far as the near future, Robertson says the league is looking at doing quite a few things to deepen the WCHA’s footprint in Division I hockey.

“I think a few things that are important right now are revenue generation, more sponsorship and more national sponsorship,” he said. “We’re looking at that and the other piece is more exposure to the league by whatever that means as far as our digital assets, website, all of our social media pieces. We’re trying to upgrade that as best we can to get more revenue and more exposure.

“Those are two big things for the league. The third thing is the health of our 10 teams. The overarching situation for me is to make sure we have 10 teams that are committed and want to play in the WCHA.

“I’m finishing up my fifth year and it’s hard to believe. I would say this. I think we’ve grown in every way over the past five years. Revenue has grown, exposure has grown, the on-campus model has grown, the Jeff Sauer Trophy (introduced in 2018).

“We’ve done some really interesting, and I think, very innovative things to help our league and I hope that there’s more of those going forward. That’s the goal for me as the commissioner. To be on the forefront on those things.”

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.