Leaders of the Shawano/Bonduel high school boys varsity hockey team are hoping to move from an independent program to being a member of the Great Northern Conference with the start of the 2027-28 school year.
“We play most of these teams already,” coach Adam Gafner said. “They are similar sized programs, and it’s where we fit.”
Gafner said there are several reasons to join the GNC. Doing to would:
• Allow Shawano and Bonduel to have meaningful competition throughout the season.
• Allow the team and players to compete for conference titles and individual conference awards.
• Provide a more structured season schedule. Currently, without a conference schedule, the Hawks often have to incur significant travel to find teams to be able to play.
• Allow the program to develop a conference relationship and potentially conference rivalries.
• Provide legitimacy to the team’s performance. Gafner said experience has been that the team’s performance is often overlooked and not taken seriously at seeding meetings.
The GNC includes Antigo (co-op with Wittenberg-Birnamwood), Lakeland, Medford (co-op with Abbotsford, Edgar and Rib Lake), Mosinee, Northland Pines, Rhinelander (co-op with Laona, Phelps and Three Lakes), Tomahawk and Waupaca.
According to the WIAA proposal, adding Shawano/Bonduel to the mix would see minimal changes to the average travel time for games for current GNC members. The largest decrease would be seven miles for Waupaca and the largest increase would be eight miles for Lakeland.
Shawano/Bonduel is a Division 2 program, and seven of the eight GNC schools are also D2. Tomahawk is in the D1 program due to the competitive success factor.
The WIAA Conference Realignment Task Force reviewed and accepted the proposal Dec. 9.
Gafner said there is an appeal process, with a meeting set for Jan. 15. He expects Tomahawk and Norhtland Pines to appeal; however, Gafner does not believe they will be successful in stopping the realignment.
Also, on Oct. 29, the GNC athletic directors held a meeting at which Shawano/Bonduel made its case to join. Without providing any reason, the ADs present voted 7-0 against expanding the conference.
Gafner and others with the local program said if the request to align with the GNC is denied, they would rather remain independent instead of joining a different conference.
“We were part of a conference with much larger programs for a year,” he said. “It was not a good experience.”
Shawano was a member of the Badgerland Conference for one season in 2021-22.
“We found this to be a very negative experience and almost caused our program to collapse,” according to the realignment proposal. “Our team went winless on the season, including in conference play. The games were very lopsided and presented player safety concerns. We found that we simply could not compete with those programs that were in most cases significantly larger than our program.”
The Badgerland, Fox River Classic and Wisconsin Valley conferences have average program enrollments that range from 700-2,672 greater than the Shawano/Bonduel’s enrollment. Those conferences are also composed of predominantly D1 programs.
“If we had to choose between playing in one of these larger-program conferences or staying independent, we would opt to stay independent,” the proposal noted.
But, Gafner is confident the request will be approved by the WIAA.
“The WIAA typically wants teams to be part of a conference,” he said. “I’m excited for us. I think it’ll pass.”
The WIAA board of control will give final consideration of realignment plans advanced by the task force at its March 10 meeting.
