We asked, you answered... (well a few of you)

 So we know that yes, not everyone is the biggest fan of the latest Big Ten hockey conference, and that's alright. But we thought it'd be nice for you to explain in your own words what you think about it. Like it, hate it or absolutely love it, we asked for it and you answered...well three of you did anyway. Big shoutout to Tony, Kyle and Reed for sharing your input on the upcoming conference. Here's what they said and your opinions are always welcome!

Enjoy.

Tony:

Going to be honest - Not a fan of the Big Ten hockey conference. The only plus is more TV coverage with Big Ten Network.

Now for the negatives...
1. Being a Michigan hockey season ticket holder I enjoyed seeing teams like Notre Dame, Miami, Western, etc coming to Yost. The new conference has spiraled the college hockey world out of control. What made college hockey special was big schools competing closely with little schools. How will non-conference scheduling work?
2. I don't think a 6 team conference it really "legit". Two perfectly good conferences were destroyed (with the CCHA dying completely). How many times will we be playing the same teams over and over again? At least with the CCHA we had 10 more teams to play...with Big Ten we only have 5. As much as I hate MSU, playing them so many time gets boring.
3. Where will the championship be played? Will it move around? WIll it always be at Xcel? Since that seems to be where everything seems to end up.

I would support a Big Ten Hockey conference if at least 10 of the Big Ten schools had teams.

Kyle Rossi:
I'll be honest, when Penn State first announced the creation of an NCAA program, I hoped we'd just take that 12th slot in the CCHA for a few reasons. First, I didn't want to rock the boat as the new kid and create the massive shakeup that ended up happening (including the part where many blame/hate PSU over it). I also felt like the CCHA offered a great mix of name schools for the casual fan - Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Notre Dame - as well as schools like Miami that hockey people recognize as name programs. That leads into my final and biggest reason: the CCHA also had several schools that struggle more often than not like Bowling Green, Lake Superior State and a couple others. As a new program, I realize that we're not going to be very good out of the gate, and I thought it would be helpful to have a few weaker programs to climb over in the standings before worrying about beating Michigan. There are no weak programs in the Big Ten.

The Big Ten is going to be TOUGH, the best conference in college hockey in my opinion, and I have no idea how Penn State's ever going to win a conference championship ahead of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan (I suppose you can say that about the CCHA too, but at the same time, finishing 4th of 12 is better than finishing 4th of 6). It's going to be a tremendous battle for us to finish even in the top half of the league, and I hope we know what we've gotten ourselves into and how to compete with some of the best programs in history.

That said, I'm extremely excited for the BTN/media side of this whole thing. As a fan of a team only watchable via UStream or actually being at the game to this point, it blows my mind that Penn State hockey will be on "real" TV at some point. Even when we're not, the streaming will be of a much higher quality than what we're used to over in ACHAland! I also can't wait to get to know our new rivals, their players, coaches, traditions, and everything else. I have so much respect for all of them, and it's going to be a blast. 

Reed Miller:
As a Penn State fan, I'm kind of indifferent. I'm just glad we're finally going to have D1 hockey.

I would have been fine with joining the CCHA or ECAC but if having a B1G league means more of our road games will be on tv than that's good too.