Ok, looking at the PWR and comparing it to the KRACH ratings which are a far more accurate assessment of the strength of a team, the WCHA has 5 teams in the Top 10 vs 3 in the PWR and 7 in the Top 20 vs 4 or 5?
So when looking at how the introduction of the new Big Ten Conference will affect the WCHA as a whole, it is a negative thing.
But when looking at the WHCA's members, individually, as compared to say the CCHA's, well, the WHCA gets penalized by the PWR system for it does not reward well enough for SOS. So this year the CCHA is playing a bunch of crappy teams and so marginally good teams like Miami and Western Michigan and Notre Dame rate much higher than they would if they had to play in conference like the WCHA, while marginally good teams in the WCHA, like Wisconsin, UMD and CC probably won't make the NCAA tournament, though they are probably close to as good as Notre Dame and Western Michigan and maybe even Miami.
So, what this breaking up of the WCHA will accomplish, for the individual members of the WCHA, which are all fairly strong hockey programs, is a much greater chance of being able to get into the NCAA tournament in the future. What happened a few years back, with 4 WCHA teams getting into the FF, and then the NCAA reacting and changing things to try prevent this from happening again in the future, is going to be harder to prevent now.
If Minnesota and Wisconsin can dominate over Mich, MSU and Ohio St, and if the WCHA teams going to the new super conf can dominate that conference, and the teams remaining in the WCHA can now thrive and dominate the conf now that they don't have to play against Minnesota and UND all the time, well, my guess is that if we keep track of "former" WCHA teams from next year and the next few years, we'll see MORE of those teams getting into the NCAA tournament than would otherwise with the current league makeups.
And I think what we'll also see is the weakness of the CCHA exposed, as former CCHA teams will find themselves struggling to make the NCAA tournament in the future, or to get to the FF if they do get in, where it was much easier to do so in the past.
This should make the entire realm of college hockey better. It is a way of spreading the wealth of the WCHA out across 3 different conferences. It may not benefit Minnesota necessarily, but that will depend of course on how well we can do against our Big Ten brethren. We could come to completely dominate the new BTHC and that should be a good thing for Minnesota. Might get more invites to the NCAAs, and better seedings when we get there?