At 04:44 PM 3/20/2001 -0800, Anthony J. Buffa wrote:
>Somehow, someway, the ECAC and the member schools have got to rethink
>what they are doing. As an RPI alum and fan, I find it hard to accept my
>school being in a league that will get one and only one bid per year,
>year after year. There are some fixes I have thought of such as: all 12
>teams break away and form a league like HE did, only hockey. Or perhaps
>the 6 non-Ivies? Or a two division separate league: 6 ivies, 6 not. Bump
>up to 34 games (IMHO the lack of early season games REALLY hurts
>non-conference rankings and puts you behind the whole season  - - ECAC
>averages 30, WCHA about 37 regular season.).

I have to agree with this. Non-conference games amongst the top 4 ECAC
teams totalled about 10 per team for the regular season. Looking at Clarkson's
schedule, 3 of those games were against CCHA teams (2 Miami and Ohio St.)
and 2 against WCHA (only MSU-Mankato). The other 5 were Maine, Quinnipiac,
Mercyhurst, Colgate, & Cornell. I don't think this is nearly enough to get
a good
"sample" of a non-conference schedule.

Maybe there are other factors that prevent Clarkson and other ECAC schools
from adding a few games to the schedule that I'm not aware of, but I still
think
more non-conference games against the WCHA and CCHA would help.

Regardless, I'd rather not see the ECAC get one bid per year, either.

>Year after year, the other leagues (dominated mostly by big
>universities) are becoming more and more dominant. Maybe it has to be
>that way, maybe not. I find it sad that it looks like the NC$$ tourney
>and D-I hockey in general, might be going the way of bigtime football
>and basketball, where the small schools cannot possibly compete on a
>level ice rink. Maybe that is the price we have to pay for so-called
>progress, maybe not.

Maybe one of those factors is money. Tony mentions "big universities"
(I think Wisconsin, Michigan, Mich St, Minnesota, Ohio St) that play
both hockey and basketball. Is it that they have more money - probably
earned from the basketball tourney - to give to the hockey program than
Clarkson, SLU, Cornell, or Harvard, for example?

At one point in time, I was under the impression that many schools that
didn't even play hockey would benefit from money earned by the hockey
tournament, but schools that didn't play basketball, yet were regarded as
a "big name" hockey school would get almost nothing from the b-ball
tournament. Is this still true? How does the money get spread around, if
at all?

>I think the ECAC owes it to the schools and their fans to face the
>problem and, if possible, work to solve it.

Hear, hear....

I still maintain that the ECAC is the most competitive league. Any team
can beat any other on any weekend. Just ask Clarkson about Vermont.

When it comes to the NCAAs, though, they haven't been in the championship
flight recently. Before St. Lawrence's win over BU last year (and that took 4
OTs), the last time an ECAC team won an NCAA tournament game was Cornell
in 1997 over Miami. In fact, from 1993 on, the ECAC is 5-17 in the tournament
and the last ECAC team to play in a championship game was Colgate in 1990.

-Andy