Lately it's been the ECAC taking the brunt, but I remember arguments in the
80's about how Hockey East (remember when everybody called it Hockey
Least?) was "structurally unable to compete because of a restricted
regional talent pool".  Um, yeah.  Now we have the argument that the ECAC
can't compete because the admissions requirements don't let Joe Slap Shot
in.  And we have had to listen to same sort of mewling and back-biting when
the CCHA and WCHA had down periods.
 
I have two questions:
 
1.  Is anyone's interest served by making conference generalizations?
 
2.  Does anybody with even an ounce of hockey sense believe that the top 3
teams in each conference couldn't beat the hell out of the middle-to-bottom
teams in each conference over a full season?
 
You know what you get if you move Clarkson to CCHA?  You get Clarkson
finishing in the top portion of the conference.  You know what you get if
you move *this year's* (no flames please) last place CCHA and WCHA teams to
the ECAC?  You get two teams finishing below Union (if it's a consolation
I'm sure they'd both beat Cornell ;-)
 
Whoopy - big difference.  Good luck to the surivors in this year's tourny
-- I somehow suspect that this year's sweep won't matter a bit to next
year's ECAC entrants.
 
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