David mentioned how the NHL has mentioned a super-tournament or
conference to increase hockey support in the western U.S.  If people like
Eisner and Betteman were powerful enough to make it happen, all the
better.  Unfortunately, the federal government currently stands in the
way of increasing the role of hockey in the west.  With Title IX,
colleges and universities are currently debating how to handle the
issue.  While some schools like Cal have commited themselves to keeping
all current sports and raise more money, others like UCLA have decided to
axe non-revenue sports to comply with Title IX.  The have decided to drop
the men's swimming and diving program, one of the best in the
nation.  The point is, while I think it would great to include schools
like UCLA, Cal, Arizona, USC, Stanford, San Jose State, etc. in NCAA
hockey, it just isn't feasible at this point in time.  I did my undergrad
at Berkeley (Cal for those who don't know), where we only had club
hockey, that was basically student-run and funded.  The university
couldn't pick up the tab unless it was able to equally fund an equal
proprtion of women's teams.  In fact, I heard that they will add women's
golf and water polo to the current varsity sports to prevent dropping a
men's sport like soccer.  Most of the current NCAA teams are able to
support hockey in lieu of sports like swimming, water polo, soccer, and
golf, which are essentials to the west coast schools.  I'll stop now
before I confuse even myself.