Despite the Johns Hopkins affiliation, I never considered partial affiliations in specific sports a viable part of the B1G model. It's something you might do if you're running a TV network but in my opinion not a way to run a conference. Also I never truly believed for a minute that hockey moved the needle in any way, shape, or form for affiliation or realignment purposes. If we were talking about a hot fudge sundae, football is ice cream, basketball is hot fudge, hockey is whipped cream, lacrosse is the cherry on top.
However, since there appears to be movement along those lines, there are a couple of aspects of Flugaur's ramblings that actually make some sense. If you're going to add hockey programs without affiliation--essentially network television deals--it makes perfect sense to add Notre Dame hockey. And, whatever the real story is with the BU shirt, there is no way the B1G doesn't approach Boston U, at least to feel them out.
I know that being UConn, many of you think the B1G is all wonderful--and in many ways, especially $$$, it is. But there was a lot of unhappiness in Minnesota about the B1G Hockey Conference. Minnesota was asked to abandon most of it's long-time hockey rivalries to play in the new conference. The in-state rivalries, gone. North Dakota, gone. Arguably, Minnesota took the biggest internal hit from realignment but gulped hard, said goodbye, and moved into the B1G. I don't know this--I'm sourceless save the rumor mill--but I'm sure there was and is continued dialogue on buffing up hockey and I'd guess promises were made to Minnesota--and, of course, because appears to be doing better $-wise than anyone projected.
I completely disagree with Flugaur on adding schools like UN Omaha and UM Duluth because they're really B1G just branch campuses. And I completely disagree with his incessant North Dakota vision. The primary, if not only, reason for expanding is TV and none of those options add squat. (They would help Minnesota but do little or nothing for the conference as a whole.)
If it's affiliations based on TV, and kind of as a secondary consideration, tossing a bone to Minnesota--then at least approaching Boston U makes perfect sense. It's a rivalry that could be revived before it slips from living memory and it provides the correct television metric. Notre Dame, for all their hubris and pretension, is not (at least, outside of football) a national school. Notre Dame=northeast, primarily, and Midwest, secondly.
But...then I don't know how AAU fits or even what B1G envisions itself being. I don't know how much is tv network people vs. Presidents and Chancellors. If it's just tv, then all the B1G has to do is quantify, target schools by metrics, grab the checkbook, and go shopping for the (theorectically, on paper, for tv) ideal hockey conference.
And the thing I really don't get is why the heck you'd ask UConn to lace up skates while leaving what is arguably the best brand in college basketball--men's and women's--sitting on the sidelines. Seriously, hockey is not basketball. Hockey is never going to be basketball.
