By Jon Brooks
The National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) has dropped the first episode of its conference origin story docuseries ”The Rise of the NCHC: A Decade in College Hockey” on its social platforms.
The episode — titled ”New Beginnings” (see embedded video below) — is narrated by college hockey play-by-play voice Ben Holden, and features interviews and archival footage looking at the genesis of the conference’s formation.
At the heart of the first episode is Ken Ralph, former Colorado College Director of Athletics (who is currently the AD at Southwestern University).
“It was a difficult conversation, because we knew [a new conference] would disrupt the college hockey world," says Ralph of the early efforts to form a new conference (caused by the ripple effect of Penn State elevating its club program to the D1 level).
In addition, we hear from CBS Sports Network analyst Dave Starman, North Dakota Head Coach Brad Berry, Grand Forks Herald beat writer Brad Schlossman, and former NCHC Commissioner Josh Fenton (currently the commissioner of The Summit League).
This is the first of a four-episode series. (According to the end credits of this episode, the second episode will be released on Jan. 31, 2023.)
The series is produced and edited by Sam Kuhne (the NCHC’s Digital Content and Services Coordinator). She does an excellent job of pulling together the footage and keeping the narrative moving.
I love sports documentaries. The inner workings of athletic conferences is a topic of particular interest to me (I’ve watched the ESPN Films: 30 for 30 doc “Requiem for the Big East” multiple times).
I enjoyed the first episode of “The Rise of the NCHC: A Decade in College Hockey” — I would encourage UNO Hockey fans to check it out (the first episode is a quick watch at 6 minutes, 38 seconds).
I’m excited to see where the series goes from here.
We need more of this sort of archival content available to college hockey fans. The sport has a rich history and it needs to be documented before it is lost to time.
