Notre Dame Set To Join The Big Ten

On Tuesday, some big news came across the college hockey wire as the NCAA Hockey tournament is about to get underway this weekend. Notre Dame will be shifting from Hockey East to the Big Ten Hockey Conference in the 2017-18 season.

With this news Notre Dame joins as an affiliate member of the Big Ten conference, they become the 2nd affiliate school after Johns Hopkins was added to the Big Ten in men's lacrosse only last year.

Travel seemed to be a big factor in this shift for the Fighting Irish hockey program, under the current alignment their closest conference rivals are the University of Massachusetts and the University of Vermont.

Big Ten Hockey now currently sits at seven schools, many seem to believe currently independent Arizona State could join the Big Ten Hockey Conference to make an even eight schools. They are the only NCAA D-1 hockey program without a conference affiliation.