Daily Skate: NCHC discusses the possibility of adding Arizona State

GRAND FORKS — For the first time in years, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference is considering expansion.

The NCHC's athletic directors discussed this week during the league's annual meetings in Naples, Fla., the idea of adding Arizona State to the conference.

Arizona State, which moved its hockey program to the NCAA Division-I level in 2015-16, is still an independent.

The Sun Devils applied to join the NCHC in the summer of 2016 — along with Minnesota State-Mankato — but the league opted to stick with the same membership its had since its inception in 2013-14. Those eight teams are UND, Denver, Colorado College, Omaha, Minnesota Duluth, Miami, Western Michigan and St. Cloud State.

Arizona State's viability has changed since 2016, though.

It has gone from playing home games in the small, outdated Oceanside Ice Arena into the brand new Mullett Arena, which opened last fall and also currently serves as home of the NHL's Arizona Coyotes.

It has gone from a fledgling program to one that's reached the NCAA tournament once in 2019 and was on track to do it again in 2020 until the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the season.

The pandemic also put any expansion discussions on the back burner until this year.

The Sun Devils were one of five Division-I men's hockey independents in 2022-23. The others were Alaska Anchorage, Alaska (Fairbanks), Long Island and Lindenwood.

If the NCHC does vote to add Arizona State — a move that would not be possible for at least a year or two because of scheduling issues — the league could go to an odd number of teams for the first time.

Although Miami has not been shy in hinting it would prefer to be in the more geographically aligned Central Collegiate Hockey Association, there was little discussion at the Naples meetings about the RedHawks making a serious push to exit the league.

The NCHC's exit fee is in excess of $1 million and could be cost-prohibitive for Miami.

Membership decisions ultimately come down to a vote of school presidents. They're not currently scheduled to meet this month — or in the immediate future — so no decision on Arizona State is imminent.

Arizona State coach Greg Powers admitted to the Herald in October that his Sun Devils were probably not ready to be an NCHC member when they initially applied in 2016. But he said the Sun Devils are ready now.

"At the end of the day, we really don't know what else we can do," Powers said in October. "We've done everything the right way. We got competitive quicker than we thought we would. We qualified for the NCAA tournament. Now, we built a beautiful facility. We think we're ready. We've done what should be required to get into any league and hopefully that will happen."

The NCHC also had discussions about moving its conference under the umbrella of the Summit League.

A move to the Summit, a multi-sport conference, would give the league a seat at the table with the NCAA to do things like propose new legislation.

The Summit's commissioner, notably, is Josh Fenton, who served as the NCHC's leader from its inception until the summer of 2022. Former St. Cloud State athletic director Heather Weems just completed her first year as Fenton's replacement.

Although a couple of NCHC teams backed the idea of moving under the Summit's umbrella, others balked and it does not appear there's a large enough consensus to make such a move at this time.

A major concern is that hockey will be an afterthought in Summit League, where the majority of full members don't sponsor the sport. That could especially be the case if Fenton ever leaves for another job.

Big Ten hockey members have dealt with this since its inception in 2013-14, expressing frustration in the league's lack of hockey promotion outside of the playing season.

Three NCHC members are in the Summit League for other sports — UND, Omaha and Denver. The only other full Summit member with a Division-I men's hockey program is St. Thomas, which plays in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

There were a few other topics of conversation at the NCHC's meetings.

Coaches raised the idea of getting rid of travel roster limits for league games. Currently, teams are capped at bringing 23 players on the road — a cost-saving measure. Some coaches would like to see no travel roster limits.

Once this season, UND had to play a road game at Miami without a full 18-player lineup because of a suspension and injuries sustained in the series opener.

Another point of discussion was changing the number of media timeouts per period from three to two to improve game flow.

In the NCHC, there are currently 75-second breaks at the first whistles under the 15-, 10- and 5-minute marks each period. The suggested change would go to two 90-second breaks at the first whistles under the 13- and 7-minute marks.

That would leave the same amount of time for TV ad spots.

The Big Ten recently changed from three media timeouts per period to one — at the first whistle under the 10-minute mark.

The NCHC also discussed starting every game on the final day of the regular season at the same time.

This is something European soccer leagues do to avoid giving a team a potential advantage by playing last and knowing exactly what it needs to do to get a certain position in the league standings.

None of these potential changes have been finalized, but they've generated discussion.

National discussions are expected Thursday and Friday.