> How do the Western schools (Denver, CC, UAA, UAF) handle this lengthy
> travel problem during the regular season?
 
they fly. For the WCHA, it is also less of a problem during the regular
season, becuase the games are almost always Friday and Saturday night,
without a Sunday game. It does mean missing 1 (friday) or 2 (thursday
and friday) days of school on the week of a road trip. Take only 8 or 9
road trips (for the league regular season), and probably 1 or 2 of those
is during a school vacation, and it isn't so bad.
 
During the playoffs, on the other hand, it gets bad. St. Cloud played
Fri-Sat-Sun in Denver, and then again Thursday night in Milwaukee (the
4-vs-5 playoff game). If they had won, they would have had to play
Friday and Saturday as well. If the #4 seed (MTU this time) had gone to
three games in the first round, they would be in the same situation.
And, if the #4 or #5 team were to win the tournament, in most years they
would be on the road again the next weekend for the NC$$ regionals (this
year the WCHA was a week early).
 
At playoff time, there are potentially 4 weeks of very little time for
classes. In Wisconsin's case, and probably for other teams as well, one
of those weeks is usually spring break, which helps a little bit. Still,
its a lot for the players to deal with.
 
Not to bring up another heated topic, but this is one of the reasons
that the WCHA likes the 2-game series: travel overhead.
 
> > **2)  Most importantly - Most of us agree that College Hockey deserves
> > more publicity and that better national TV coverage of the Final Four is
> > a big step.
 
When they first switched to the regionals, getting better TV coverage
was one of the reasons given (I'm sure we can find some mention of it
somewhere in the hockey-l archive). The idea was that by having 4 games
all in the same place, in a major facility, it was more likely to get
someone to televise the games (by sharing the costs of the crew,
location equipment, satalite, etc), and perhaps to a wider audience. I
remember just before the switch (I'm guessing here: either 1991
Wisconsin @ Clarkson, or 1989 Wisconsin @ St. Lawrence) COULD NOT be
televised to Madison, because the home rink could not (or perhaps would
not) allow television cameras.
 
Of course, it hasn't worked out as well as they hoped -- the West
regional is not in a "major" building, but at a campus site, since they
had a lot of difficulty filling Joe Louis Arena in 1992 and 1993 (but it
can be televised!), and the total draw is not what it would be under the
old system. But there were also other reasons for the regionals, and in
the long run, it is probably good for college hockey.
 
        --david
 
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