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NASHVILLE… We are a couple of seasons into life after the destruction of college hockey as we used to know it and what do we see? I’ll get to that in a bit, but let me say that I was one of the more infuriated collegiate hockey fans when the Big Ten Conference announced a couple of years back that they were kicking off their own program in Men’s Ice Hockey since 6 member schools would be competing in hockey with the 6th school, Penn State, commencing D-1 competition in the 2013-14 season. During the initial backlash they claimed it was “in the Big Ten charter” that as soon as 6 members had teams in D-1 that they would have to play under the conference Banner from that point forth.

Ok, whatever. I think what the charter really said was that as soon as the B10 powers  sighted an opportunity to line the conference coffers even more, that they would force this move. Surely this was just a blatant money grab. I have to believe that prior to the changeover that college hockey was talked about at the B10 offices about as often as having road apples for lunch. The conference’s fledgling TV network had TV programming hours to fill and college ice hockey was probably a better bet then going to televised poker games. The announcement shook the college hockey world and forced a complete revamping of conference alignments and the birth of a new one.

I’ve got to say that neither am I feeling the excitement or heat of the Big Ten’s new offspring. Yes, I know it is just the 2nd year of the new conference, and double yes, my club isn’t faring real well as of late. But really, while solid rivalries exist between the B10 hockey schools in other sports, they are still developing, or in some instances, re-developing in ice hockey. I can vividly recall when Michigan and Michigan State were both in the WCHA way back when. With the Gophers and Wisconsin also still in the conference, avid fans kept track of which team was “winning” the mythical B10 hockey title in the standings.

And overall there doesn’t exist any real power team in the conference this season either. Michigan leads the B10 at 4-1, but are only 12-7 overall with a National rank of 22nd. (as of 1-5-15) But they swept the Gophers over this past weekend and will surely move up. The Gophers are struggling, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State are mid-pack teams and the Badgers have one of their worst teams in my flailing memory. The Nittany Lions are currently in 2nd place! You can do wonders when you have a Billionaire behind you I guess.

So the B10 basically sucks. I thought there would be growing pains and I’m sure other schools use it against member teams when recruiting, but still. The new WCHA isn’t the same as the old WCHA and never will be. The old one was THE gold standard for college hockey for a long, long time. There exists no winnable debate over that statement either so don’t even consider it. The new kid on the block and the undisputed winner in this hockey upheaval is the NCHC. They kept a good chunk of the old guard of the WCHA in NoDak, UMD, The Cloud, CC, Denver and UNO and added a strong program in Miami of Ohio and Western Michigan, who seems to be off of their game this season, but with former NHL bench boss Andy Murray at the helm, will always be competitive, he is a great teacher and solid tactician.

So, B10 conference, I hope you are proud. You are without a doubt the worst in college hockey this season. Your move has threatened the overall strength of  your participating hockey schools and with the competition between college hockey and Canadian Junior hockey heating up by the season, your selfish, money grubbing maneuver could have had damaging consequences for the college game here for all involved. The results aren’t in yet. The only ones hurting so far are your own teams. I was told to “reserve judgment”, that the TV exposure on the conference network would prevail at some point, but I’m unconvinced. At this point, this has been a really bad decision. I don’t see that it has done anything for “the game”. If you had really wanted to do something for your member teams and the game, you would have left things just as they were….

AS A YOUNG KID growing up on West 7th in St. Paul, we had the St. Paul CHL Rangers. Every March we had the State hockey tourney right down the street and anywhere there was a patch of ice in our neighborhood we practiced our game. Right as I was about to turn into a teenager my family relocated to the Burbs’. I didn’t like it too much but to soften the blow and ensuing changes in my life as a young hockey punk, enter the Minnesota NorthStars. My buddies and I became instant fans. We went to games when we could, watched on TV or listened on the radio. The first time I saw a game in the new Met Center, it was just about the grandest thing I had ever seen.

The arena was great, the team had some “fire” and some “sand” and it was an exciting era unfolding before us. As time moved forward we got to know the team and the players. At the time about 98% of the league were Canadian players and that’s the way it was back then. As a kid the French Canadian players were especially intriguing. A lot of that was probably their accents, we just weren’t exposed to that too often. And considering that, it was probably one of the many reasons that we were endeared to Jean-Paul “JP” Parise. Not only that, but the guy was a pretty good player too. He was one of the greatest corner players of his time and his work along the boards at that time was just about unequaled.

We lost JP to an 11 month long battle with cancer on the 7th. I think he was one of the greatest NorthStars ever. My Green & Gold heart is hurting right now. NorthStars forever, forever NorthStars…. RIP JP. PEACE

Marc Elliott is a sports opinion writer who splits his time between his hometown in Illinois and Minnesota