Potential new athletic league for 2014-2015 are competitively and geographically similar to Park

Just eight years after joining the North Suburban Conference, athletic director Andy Ewald said Park is preparing once again to change conferences in search of stability and more equal competition.

Park is set to join a new conference for the 2014-2015 school year. The proposed move was triggered after Chisago Lakes, North Branch and St. Francis all announced their plans to leave the North Suburban Conference after this school year.

In addition to Park, the unnamed conference will consist of Robbinsdale-Cooper, Richfield, Chanhassen, Chaska, Bloomington-Jefferson and Bloomington-Kennedy. The details of the proposed new conference were announced at a School Board meeting Feb. 25.

Ewald said the reason for the proposed change in conference is primarily to ensure the long-term vitality of Park’s athletic and academic Park programs because of the similarity of the schools in the conference de- mographically in enrollment size and diversity.

“Look at Richfield or Bloomington, (our cities) are aging at the same rates, we’re facing similar problems of inner-ring suburbs,” Ewald said. “These new communities are much like us, and so (the new conference) should provide us with stability.”

Ewald also said another advantage of the new conference is the closer geographic proximity of the schools in the proposed conference to Park than the schools in the North Suburban Conference.

“In our current conference the average away game is 22 miles away. In the new conference the average trip is only 12 miles,” Ewald said. “This switch could save the school a lot of money on busing and students would not have to miss as much class.”

The name of the new league is expected to be determined at a meeting of member athletic directors Feb. 27. Once the conference name is decided upon, Ewald said there is going to be a contest between schools to create a logo for the new league.