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:
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 WCHA                   Great Lakes Conference     CCHA

 Alaska-Anchorage       Alaska-Fairbanks          *Alabama-Huntsville
*Bemidji State          Ferris State               Bowling Green
 Colorado College       Lake Superior State       *Findlay (OH)
 Denver                 Michigan State            #Mercyhurst
 Mankato State         #Michigan Tech              Miami (OH)
 Minn-Duluth            Michigan                   Neb-Omaha
 Minnesota             *Niagara                    Notre Dame
 North Dakota           Northern Michigan          Ohio State
 St. Cloud State       *Wayne State (Mich)
 Wisconsin              Western Michigan
----------------------------------------------------------------------

 ECAC               Hockey East             MAAC         
              
 Brown              Boston College          American International
#Canisius           Boston University       Bentley
 Clarkson           Maine                   Connecticut
 Colgate            UMass-Amherst           Fairfield
 Cornell            UMass-Lowell            Holy Cross
 Dartmouth          Merrimack               Iona
 Harvard            New Hampshire           Sacred Heart
 Princeton          Northeastern            Quinnipiac
 Rensselaer         Providence             
 St. Lawrence      #Vermont                 INDEPENDENTS
 Union                                     
 Yale                                       Air Force
                                            Army


*-Denotes new or emerging D-I program.
#-Denotes a team that has moved from one conference to another.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL TEAMS IN NCAA DIVISION I: 60
______________________________________________________________________

NCAA TOURNAMENT

1. 16 teams

2. Automatic Bids: 6
   At-Large Bids: 10

3. Automatic Bids go to the winners of the postseason conference         
   tournaments.
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CAMPUS-SITE FORMAT

1. Seed the teams #1-#16.

2. Higher seeds host best 2 out of 3 playoff series for the first two    
   rounds.

3. Survivors advance to Final Four.
______________________________________________________________________

EXPLANATION OF CURRENT PLAN (CONFERENCE BY CONFERENCE)


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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

CCHA:  The CCHA is restructured to make room for all of the emerging 
programs that are or will be trying to get into the league.  First, we 
add 6 teams to the CCHA:
              
Michigan Tech---from WCHA. 
Niagara---current D-I Independent. 
Wayne State---starting D-I program soon. 
Alabama-Huntsville---moving from D-II to D-I.
Findlay (OH)---starting D-I program soon.
Mercyhurst---from the MAAC.

Next, all 9 of the Michigan schools along with Alaska-Fairbanks are 
joined together to form the Great Lakes Conference (GLC).  The remaining 
8 schools will make up the new-look CCHA.  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 new-look CCHA will have 
a good mix of established programs and new programs that need a 
conference to play in.  There also is room for a couple of more teams if 
there is future expansion.

ECAC:  The ECAC will lose one team (Vermont to Hockey East), and gain 
one team (Canisius from the MAAC).  Some of my previous plans called for 
an extensive restructuring of the ECAC over concerns of overcrowding.  
But since the current 12-team format works fairly well and there aren't 
enough emerging programs in the east to form another conference, I 
decided to leave the ECAC alone.

Hockey East:  In order to ease scheduling problems, a 10th team 
(Vermont) is added to the conference.  Several people have mentioned 
Vermont as a good candidate for Hockey East, so I've implemented that 
change here.

MAAC:  The newest D-I conference is reduced in size from 10 teams to 8 
teams.  Canisius goes to the ECAC and Mercyhurst goes to the new-look 
CCHA.  This serves several purposes.  One, it makes the league more 
geographically sound (Canisius and Mercyhurst are much further west than 
the other MAAC schools).  Two, it leaves room for future emerging 
programs in the east.  Three, it helps keep the ECAC at 12 teams and 
allows Hockey East to expand to 10 teams.  It also allows the new-look 
CCHA to reach 8 teams instead of only 7.  Overall, these changes will 
make several conferences function better in the long run.

INDEPENDENTS:  The two service academies (Air Force and Army) will 
remain independents.  Neither team wants to join a conference, and 
neither team could be competitive in a major conference.  Keeping these 
teams independent is the best solution.
______________________________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION OF NCAA TOURNAMENT

The NCAA Tournament is expanded to 16 teams.  Each conference will get 
one automatic bid for a total of 6.  The other 10 bids will be at-large 
and will be based on power rankings.  It is assumed that the auto bids 
will be awarded to the winners of the conference postseason tournaments.  
This plan eliminates the automatic bids for the regular season 
champions.  It is my belief that 9 times out of 10, the regular season 
champions of the major conferences will have the power rating to get 
into the tournament with an at-large bid.  I think that the NCAA 
overreacted to the Colorado College situation in 1994 (CC was left out 
of the tournament despite winning the WCHA regular season title).  Also, 
the tournament is being enlarged by 4 teams.  With a 16 team field and 
10 at-large bids, the teams that deserve to be there probably will be 
there.

The regional format is replaced with the campus-site format.  The 16 
teams are seeded from 1-16 based on power ratings.  Then the top seeds 
in the first two rounds host 2 out of 3 game playoff series.  The 
survivors then advance to the Final Four.  I believe that this is the 
most fair and equitable way to structure the playoffs.  The regional 
format has not served College Hockey well.  There are too many questions 
every year about seeding of teams, which region the teams are placed in, 
ect.  It has become a political football that people are tired of 
throwing around.  The campus-site format awards teams based on 
season-long performance and allows the hometown fans to watch their 
teams in person.  There will be no room for whining or complaining.  
Teams will get the seeds that they deserve.
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