Yellowjackets, WIAC Teams To Withdraw From WCHA

Feb 15, 2012

Northland Sports Online

The Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) announced today that its men’s and women’s ice hockey teams will be leaving the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) and will compete solely under the auspices of the WIAC effective with the 2014-15 academic year.

WIAC Commissioner Gary Karner stated that the decision to leave the NCHA is a difficult one given the history and success of the league and the relationships and rivalries that have been fostered over the years. UW-Eau Claire, UW-River Falls and UW-Superior are charter members of the men’s NCHA which was formed in 1980 (UW-Stevens Point and UW-Stout joined the NCHA in 1987 and 1996, respectively) and these same three institutions along with UW-Stevens Point formed the women’s NCHA in 2000.

The Yellowjacket hockey programs have enjoyed great success and contributed to the rich history of the NCHA. The Yellowjacket men have won three NCHA regular season titles (1994, 2001 and 2009) and claimed the Peters Cup playoff championship six times (1994, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2006). The women’s team has won four regular season championships (2001, 2004, 2007 and 2008) as well as an O’Brien Cup playoff championship in 2008.

Individual honors have been bestowed on a number of players as well. Three men’s players – Glen Lang (1992), Mike Wiggins (2005) and Chad Beiswenger (2009) and three women’s players – Melanie Salatino (2002), Erin Kegley (2005 and 2006) and Gina Baranzelli (2008) have claimed NCHA Player of the Year awards. Numerous players have received All-NCHA and NCHA All-Academic honors and four people – Steve Nelson and Dan Stauber on the men’s side and Jane Norman and Dan Laughlin on the women’s side have been named NCHA Coach of the Year at least one time.

“This was an incredibly difficult decision, as the WIAC schools have had a significant impact on the history of the NCHA. We didn’t just come to this juncture overnight,” said Nelson, now the athletics director at UW-Superior. “We put a lot of thought into this decision, making sure we were doing right by our membership and our student-athletes going forward and as a body we felt this was the best decision, to withdraw from the NCHA and compete solely in the WIAC.”

Karner noted that the current budgetary challenges confronting all WIAC institutions and the composition of the NCHA (a single-sport conference comprised of institutions that are members of six different multi-sport conferences as well as five institutions that are members for women’s ice hockey only) were among a number of factors that led to a decision that is deemed to be in the long-term, best interests of the WIAC.

Karner commented that the WIAC elected to make the announcement at this time in order to provide all current NCHA members ample opportunity to determine future conference alignments and to address scheduling concerns. “We (WIAC) recognize that our decision to withdraw from the NCHA will have a profound impact on the future of that conference. Out of respect for the non-WIAC member institutions of the NCHA, we had no interest in leaving the conference without providing sufficient notice and it is our intention to engage in a dialogue over the next two years that will ensure the viability of Division III men’s and women’s ice hockey in the upper Midwest for many years to come”, added Karner.

For Nelson, the decision to withdraw is bittersweet.

“This league, the NCHA means a lot to me. I coached in this league for a long time and I have a lot of love for the NCHA and the teams that compete here. There have been some tremendous battles over the years and the rivalries that have been developed are among the best in college hockey,” Nelson said. “At the same time I’m very excited about the future. The WIAC is going to give our schools every opportunity to be a power in NCAA Division III. The door is also open for other schools to apply to be members of the WIAC and make us an even stronger league going forward.”

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