@50N40W, you’re not showing yourself to be very knowledgeable about college hockey. Since 1990, B10 schools have won the NCAA men’s hockey championship 7 times. Ivy schools have won it once.
UMich, Wisconsin, MSU, and (especially) Minnesota are among the powerhouses in that sport in terms of both wins and fan support.
You’re right about Hutchins. He hated football which he considered a “distraction,” and he hated all the adulation showered on football players and their exploits. So he set out to destroy University of Chicago football, and he succeeded. The Maroons weren’t competitive in their last years because Hutchins wouldn’t let them compete. He started by shutting down the physical education major, where Stagg had sheltered his players academically. Then in 1932 he forced Stagg to retire, against Stagg’s will. Then he prohibited Stagg’s successor, Clark Shaughnessy from recruiting players. And that was pretty much all it took to dismantle a football powerhouse. The Maroons won their last Big Ten title in 1924, before Hutchins became president. They were still respectable in their first few years under Shaughnessy, going 4-4-0 overall and 2-4-0 in the conference in 1935 when Berwanger won the Heisman (Berwanger, by the way, was the only Heisman Trophy winner known to have been tackled by a future U.S. President, Michigan’s Gerald Ford). But their last Big Ten victory came in 1936, and in their final season in 1939 they went 2-6 overall and 0-3 in the conference, and were outscored 308-37. Hutchins shut down the football program over Christmas break after the 1939 season, while the students were away.
Some of Stagg’s original contributions to football: invention of the tackling dummy; the reverse; the lateral pass; the man in motion; numbered uniforms. And to think we owe all this to University of Chicago football!
Oh, and one other contribution, albeit indirect: after a stirring, last-minute, come-from-behind, championship-clinching, upset win by Michigan over the previously undefeated Chicago Maroons in 1898, a Michigan student named Louis Elbel was inspired to compose a song to commemorate the event. The chorus went:
“Hail! to the victors valiant / Hail! to the conqu’ring heroes
Hail! Hail! to Michigan / the leaders and best!
Hail! to the victors valiant / Hail! to the conqu’ring heroes
Hail! Hail! to Michigan / the champions of the West!”
“The West,” is of course a reference to the Western Conference, as the Big Ten was then known, and the song is The Victors, one of the most famous and instantly recognizable college fight songs.
^^ The Victors is arguably the greatest fight song.
That is coming from an alumnus of a school that also has a great and famous fight song (On, Wisconsin!).
@PurpleTitan It’s just like any other job. “Yeah, you got a couple of patents fifteen years ago, but what have you done lately?”
They were good in the CCHA and WCHA, but in the Big 10, not so much. Right now it’s like having another Atlantic Hockey only on the Great Lakes.
Of course, five years from now they might be good again. Even this year. But as . Ummm… No.
Michigan’s all-time men’s ice hockey record v. Ivy League opponents:
Brown 7-0-0
Cornell 3-4-1
Dartmouth 3-3-0
Harvard 5-2-1
Penn 1-0-0
Princeton 5-1-0
Yale 8-4-0
TOTAL 32-14-2
NCAA Div. I Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament championships, all-time:
Michigan 9
Ivy League 4 (Cornell 2, Harvard 1, Yale 1)
Big Ten 23 (Michigan 9, Wisconsin 6, Minnesota 5, Michigan State 3)
Who’s not competitive?
If the “'s” in “who’s” is past tense, then sure. But not so much in present tense. 
Very cute.
But let’s see. No Big Ten or Ivy League schools in the NCAA Div. I championship game in 2015. In 2014, Minnesota was in the final but lost. In 2013 Yale won. In 2012, neither conference. In 2011, Michigan was in the final but lost an overtime thriller–can’t get much more competitive than that. In 2010, Wisconsin was in the final but lost. Before that you need to go back to 2007 when Michigan State won it all, and 2006 when Wisconsin won it all. Before that, Minnesota won back-to-back titles in 2002 and 2003. So since 2002, Big Ten schools have won 7 Division I hockey championships and appeared in 7 out of the last 14 championship games. In contrast, Ivy League schools have made just 1 championship game appearance, when Yale won it all in 2013. I don’t have immediate access to all Frozen Four appearances over that time span, but I suspect it would be similarly lopsided.
Now technically all of this is in the past tense—no school is playing hockey in August. But let’s just say that in the very recent past (as well as in the more distant past) Big Ten schools have been far more competitive in hockey than Ivy League schools.
@50N40W, you realize that the B10 hockey league has been around for only 2 years, don’t you? In those 2 years, the B10 sent 3 teams to the NCAA tournament (2 #1seeds) while the Ivy League sent zero (not sure if you realize that the Ivy League doesn’t actually have a hockey league). 2 Ivy teams participated in those years.
In 14 out of 15 years from 2000-2014, as many or more B10 schools made the NCAA tournament than did Ivy schools, and often, it was a lot more.
I find it hilarious when someone attempts to talk trash but shows their ignorance instead.
Nobody’s talking trash. Just saying that last year, the closest that’s relevant to “is,” was kind of painful to follow. May or may not be a lot better this year.
Regardless, in football and basketball, sure. Not so in all sports, however.
@50N40W, so a one year data point is all you’ve got? You seem the type who is heavily afflicted by recency bias.
And calling B10 hockey “not competitive” and the Atlantic East of the Great Lakes isn’t trash-talking to you? So what do you consider trash-talking?
Thanks bclintonk, that’s some interesting history.
@50N40W, take any time period you like, and there were more Big Ten schools in the Frozen Four than Ivy League schools. Since 2000, 14 Big Ten hockey teams have made the Frozen Four. In that same period, 2 Ivy League teams have made the Frozen Four. Or take it back another decade, to 1990; In that time span, 27 Big Ten schools have made the Final Four, compared to 3 Ivy League schools. I ask again, who is not competitive in hockey?
If you search for Big 10 hockey winners, you might not get much because most teams were in the WCHA. Michigan still played Wisconsin, but they also skated against North Dakota and Denver, and Colorado College.
Tetchy subject. Let’s go for “now,” since if it isn’t the team and coach that’s playing this year, it isn’t “is” it’s “was.” They “was” and someday they’ll be “is” again, no doubt. But right now, they “isn’t.”
I don’t know if any Big 10 schools compete in sailing at a varsity level, but Yale won the national championship this year. And certainly there are track and field events where the best Ivy performer is better than the Big 10’s best in a given year, such as men’s discus this year. So there are some cases where the Ivy League is better in sports.
Obviously overall the Big 10 is better in sports though.
@50N40w, so did you say the ACC wasn’t competitive in basketball “now” back in 2013-2014? After all, they only had one team make the Sweet Sixteen (equivalent to making the 16-team college hockey tournament), and UVa promptly lost their Sweet Sixteen game.
So then by your logic, no team and no conference is “now” competitive in college hockey, because no team is currently playing. The 2014-15 season is long since over, and no team, including the 2015 NCAA tournament winner, will have both the same coach and the same roster in 2015-16.
Fine, have it your way, but these are just silly word games.
Discussions about the B1G Whatever are always a hoot!
Of course, it is now the Big XII with 10 teams. There was a time when the Big XII had 10 teams, and the B1G Ten had 12 teams.
^ At that rate they’d all fail the math league.