“This was literally one of the best days of my life outside of my wife and kids. I was so into it and the problem with coaching hockey is you get drained, and here I was on the sideline getting drained with every play.”

- Andy Murray on joining the Western Michigan football team on the sidelines at Michigan Stadium, one of the unique college experiences he discussed with the Kalamazoo Gazette

“Until Notre Dame makes its choice, you can’t tell what the college hockey world is going to look like. We are writing a new contract (for Gasparini), probably for six months, but I don’t think it will be for that long. I hope it will not be for that long.”

- Earl H. Potter III, the St. Cloud State president, is among those affected as Notre Dame makes up its mind; he’s shelling out $15,000 a month to athletic department advisor Gino Gasparini as SCSU navigates the college hockey landscape

“I had it in my mind that I was going to college, but they have a way of trying to throw stuff at you. They were totally professional about everything, they respected my decision… but they try to convince you whichever way they can up there.”

- Michigan’s Luke Moffat in a terrific in-depth piece about the college hockey vs. major junior tug of war on SportingNews.com

“Other commissioner possibilities? On a pure speculation list — Colorado College athletic director Ken Ralph; former U.S. Hockey League commissioner and former North Dakota coach Gino Gasparini; Miami University senior associate athletic director and former hockey coach Steve Cady; and former Minnesota Wild vice president Bill Robertson.”

- Kevin Pates in the Duluth News Tribune quotes Tom Kurvers on his potentially being a candidate for NCHC commissioner and offers other ideas for candidates

“Notre Dame holds a lot of collateral in all this. At the end of the day, which direction Notre Dame goes may dictate some other decisions, whether it’s for us or some of the other schools.”

- Bowling Green athletic director Greg Christopher, who says his school has talked about joining the NCHC, a potential WCHA-CCHA merger or the CCHA with the addition of four Atlantic Hockey schools

“There’s a sense I have from the CCHA people that they want to approach this more from a group type of merger thing. The first question they asked me is ‘How are you approaching this, Bruce?’ Obviously, I told them we don’t have a single approach right now, it’s kind of a do approach to the thing where we kind of work our way through it.”

- Bruce McLeod, during a visit to Fairbanks to evaluate the Nanooks for potential WCHA membership

“There’s no telling where hockey could lead this town if Canisius and Niagara take advantage of the opportunity standing before them. If they recognize their potential, get their affairs in order and enough things fall into place, either could win a national hockey championship sooner rather than later.

“Yes, a national championship.”

- Buffalo News columnist Bucky Gleason makes his pitch for Canisius and Niagara to jump to the CCHA

“If Lake Superior finds its place in the rapidly shifting world of college hockey, in five years it will be competitive for a spot in the NCAA tournament for the first time in 15 years.

“But if LSSU gets it wrong, it will be the end of Laker hockey.

“There is no middle ground.”

- Peter Pietrangelo of the Sault Ste. Marie Evening News outlines the options available to the Lakers

“At the moment this new league is a dicey endeavor. But you have six great programs who have been in postseason play pretty regularly. But now, half of those teams will be on the bottom half and won’t get to the postseason. These are not simple matters. It’s complicated.”

- St. Cloud State president Early H. Potter III, reaffirming his school’s commitment to the WCHA in the St. Cloud Times

“How do you sell naming rights for the arena of a team in a third-tier conference? In 2013-14, that’s exactly what the WCHA will be.”

- One in a series of pointed questions from St. Cloud Times sports editor Dave DeLand

“The WCHA has changed pretty dramatically over the years. As we look at the institutions that are most like us from a hockey perspective, the institutions our fans like seeing and the institutions that are providing national media for us, it became a pretty defined group.”

- Colorado College athletic director Ken Ralph on some of the thinking behind the new conference, to Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald

“The competition will be stiff. It will be a daunting challenge at times. Now, on a nightly basis within our league, it is extremely competitive. This league, certainly, will be extremely competitive on its own right.”

- North Dakota head coach Dave Hakstol, looking ahead to the challenge, to the Grand Forks Herald

“This is something that’s been discussed for a number of months and this was the direction we (at UMD) chose, and hopefully the changes will be great for the college game. The new alignments may encourage schools to grow the sport and create more conference opportunities, and, in the long run, this could be a good thing.”

- Minnesota Duluth head coach Scott Sandelin hoped for a brighter future for the game as he spoke to Kevin Pates of the Duluth News Tribune

“They have that national exposure that very few, if any, institutions in the United States have, and certainly that brings added dimension to the NCHC. We understand they are doing their due diligence and I have been in constant conversation with (coach) Jeff Jackson, and I understand his thoughts.”

- Denver head coach George Gwozdecky to Mike Chambers of the Denver Post about the much-anticipated seventh member of the NCHC, Notre Dame

“We had two leagues (the WCHA and CCHA) and now we have four. Everyone’s got to play a ton more nonconference games and they are a lot more expensive to play than conference games — the guarantees get higher and people have to travel more. The cost in three years is up for everybody, and revenues are gonna be down.”

- Alaska Anchorage athletic director Steve Cobb on the landscape moving forward in the Anchorage Daily News

“They’ve hired a consultant and they are looking at further expansion than just those original six, which is what we believed was going to happen, but we couldn’t validate totally and we did not know whether they would come out today and say that. That validated the conversations we’ve had (with those schools), which we felt have been very genuine and sincere.”

- Western Michigan athletic director Kathy Beauregard told the Kalamazoo Gazette about WMU’s perspective on the NCHC announcement

“This has been a lot of change. Change makes people nervous. But we’re all professionals and we’re working for the good of our schools, our conferences and the game.”

- Jennifer Heppel, associate commissioner for the Big Ten who is overseeing hockey for the conference, told Andy Baggot of the Wisconsin State Journal