Dn10 wrote: ↑December 29th, 2023, 8:03 pm
Is it really that hard to find a conference that would accept the team? Seems like there are enough conferences in the northeast that we could crash
The majority of D1 hockey teams are small schools on a shoestring budget. Those new england schools in particular try to minimize travel as much as possible, they have no appetite to add a school 3+ states away.
If you look at this (slightly outdated) map of hockey schools we would be on an island by ourselves. Alabama-birmingham also had to drop hockey because their conference dropped them leaving them with no one to play but the alaska schools. Outside of Arizona state joining a conference the number of independents keeps growing. There is some interest for the independents to form their own conference so they have a better path to the post season but the NCAA currently has a moratorium on new single sport conferences so nothing can happen until that ends. If the conferences of independents were to happen that would be our chance but it doesn't seem likely anytime soon.