Editorial: National Realignment Plan.
MY DIVISION I HOCKEY NATIONAL REALIGNMENT PLAN.
With the recent influx of Division 2 and 3 teams into the ranks of
Division I College Hockey, the need for some type of realignment of the
conferences has arrived. Conferences are becoming bigger and bigger,
which is creating scheduling problems. Some fans (like myself) are
becoming concerned about rivalries becoming less valuable as teams are
forced to give up games against each other. The WCHA, for example, has
placed a moritorium on any further applications of membership into the
league after they voted to admit Mankato State beginning in 1999-2000.
The concern is that the league will become too big, thus creating some
of the problems described above.
The new programs and their fan bases also have concerns. Some of them
are concerned that they won't be accorded the proper respect by the more
established D-I teams. Some fear not getting into a major conference
and not getting to play top notch programs on a regular basis. This has
led to some hard feelings between established programs and the new
members of the D-I family. It also leaves us with the difficult task of
finding an acceptable solution to this whole mess.
The following is a NATIONAL REALIGMENT PLAN. It doesn't involve just
one team or one conference. It looks at the ENTIRE DIVISION I HOCKEY
LANDSCAPE, and tries to develop a comprehensive, common-sense alignment
that will serve the needs of the present as well as the needs of the
future. It likely will never happen (because of politics and the
almighty dollar), but it's a direction that I think we should go in if
we want to make College Hockey even better than it is now. Without any
further delay, here it is:
______________________________________________________________________
WCHA (10 teams) MAAC (10 teams)
Alaska-Anchorage American International
*Bemidji State *Bentley
Colorado College Canisius
Denver Connecticut
*Mankato State Fairfield
Minn-Duluth Holy Cross
Minnesota Iona
North Dakota *Mercyhurst
St. Cloud State Sacred Heart
Wisconsin Quinnipiac
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Great Lakes Conference (8 teams) CCHA (7 teams)
Alaska-Fairbanks *Alabama-Huntsville
Ferris State Bowling Green
Lake Superior State Miami (OH)
Michigan State *Neb-Omaha
#Michigan Tech *Niagara
Michigan Notre Dame
Northern Michigan Ohio State
Western Michigan
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ECAC (12 teams) HOCKEY EAST (9 teams) INDEPENDENTS (2 teams)
Brown Boston College Air Force
Clarkson Boston University Army
Colgate Maine
Cornell UMass-Lowell
Dartmouth UMass-Amherst
Harvard Merrimack
Princeton New Hampshire
Rensselaer Northeastern
St. Lawrence Providence
Union
Vermont
Yale
*-Denotes New D-I Program
#-Denotes team that has moved to another conference
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL TEAMS IN DIVISION I: 58
______________________________________________________________________
NCAA TOURNAMENT FORMAT
1. Go to a 16-team tournament
2. Automatic Bids: 10
At-Large Bids: 6
3. Automatic Bids by conference:
WCHA-2
GLC--2
HEA--2
ECAC-2
MAAC-1
CCHA-1
4. Expand Regional Format to include 4 tournaments with 4 teams each.
(West, Midwest, Northeast, East)
5. Winners advance to the Final Four.
______________________________________________________________________
A MORE DETAILED EXPLANATION.....
Before the inevitable flames commence, please read the following
section.
Let's start with the WCHA. The plan keeps Mankato State in the league
as was decided this past spring. It takes out Michigan Tech to make
room for Bemidji State, which starts D-I Hockey for both Men and Women
in a couple of years. I really wanted to put Alaska-Fairbanks in this
league, but it just couldn't be done. The new alignment leaves the WCHA
with 5 Minnesota teams, 2 in Colorado, and 1 each in Alaska, North
Dakota, and Wisconsin. This alignment keeps the league at a reasonable
size, and most teams within reasonable distance of each other.
Now let's look at the biggest part of the plan, which involves the
breakup of the current CCHA. First, I added four teams to the CCHA.
Alabama-Huntsville (D-I in a couple of years), Neb-Omaha (newest member
of the CCHA), Niagara (going D-I), and Michigan Tech (moves over from
the WCHA). Then, I took all 7 Michigan teams and with UAF formed the
Great Lakes Conference (GLC). The Michigan programs will benefit from
short travel distances and from being able to play teams from their own
state. The only "black sheep" of the bunch is Fairbanks, whom I
couldn't find room for in the WCHA. The other 7 teams are placed in the
new-look CCHA. This conference will boast 4 established programs and
should have at least 4 competitive teams to start out with. The small
size of the conference will open up the schedule for plenty of
non-conference games.
The MAAC is relatively unchanged in this plan. The newest D-I
conference will start out with 8 teams in the 1998-99 season, and will
add Mercyhurst and Bentley in the next couple of seasons. No need for
changes here.
The ECAC and Hockey East were left alone in this plan, although some
changes were considered. One earlier plan involved moving Merrimack
from Hockey East to the ECAC, adding Niagara to the ECAC, and giving the
Ivy League schools their own conference complete with an automatic bid
to the NCAA Tournament. This was finally deemed to be too disruptive
and just plain unnecessary at this time. But, if more eastern schools
were to jump to D-I in the future, having an Ivy League Conference might
make more sense.
The two remaining teams are Air Force and Army, which will remain
Independents under this plan.
The NCAA Tournament is expanded to 16 teams with four regional
tournaments with 4 teams each. The four regional winners advance to the
Final Four. Some people will immediately point out that 58 teams does
not meet the NCAA ratio of playoff teams to number of sponsoring schools
(the exact number needed here is 64). But it is reasonable to assume
that a waiver would be granted if a good case was made. This is a much
better format than the current 12-team tournament with the dreaded byes.
Another possible alternative would be to go back to best 2 out of 3
weekend series at campus sites for the first two rounds, then the Final
Four. Either one would be feasible in my opinion.
There are 10 automatic bids and 6 at-large bids. The MAAC and new-look
CCHA will get 1 bid each while the other 4 conferences will get 2 each.
The reasons for this are as follows: the MAAC is made up of all-new
teams, the CCHA has 3 new programs out of a total of 7 teams, and the
GLC is a new conference made up of 8 established programs. When the
MAAC and the CCHA have better established themselves, another automatic
bid can be added to each conference.
One last little tidbit: There are many in the WCHA that don't like the
idea of Michigan Tech moving to another conference because the Mac
Naughton Cup would go with them. Well, here is a solution to that.
Have the NCAA buy the cup from Tech, and then adopt it as the National
Championship trophy. It will become known as "the Stanley Cup of
College Hockey". Players could take turns showing it off during the
offseason. This would add symbolic prestige to the championship (and
unfortunately, more hype).
Well, there's my plan!!! If you have ANY comments or questions about
this plan, please e-mail me at unvarnishedtruth@hotmail.com or post a message
on the editorial message board.
Until next time, take care everyone. :-)
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