Yeah, I know I am always throwing rumors around, but maybe some ECAC
    people have heard something about this.
 
    I didn't see it, but I was told that there was an article recently in
    one of the Boston papers about a realignment of the Eastern conferences.
    The six Ivies would become their own conference - making the Ivy League
    actually official, something which almost happened seven years ago.  The
    other six ECAC teams (Colgate, St Lawrence, Clarkson, Union, RPI, and
    Vermont) would join together with the eight Hockey East teams to form
    a super-conference with two divisions - East/West, whatever you want to
    call them.  Speculating further beyond what I was told, if the NCAA
    tourney expands to 16 teams, which I believe will happen within five
    years, the Ivy winner could receive an automatic bid, and since the
    super-conference teams would be playing each other, we wouldn't have
    quite so many arguments over Clarkson vs. BU/UNH/PC, etc.
 
    This is pretty radical, and I think it would depend on how firmly the
    six non-Ivies felt tied to the ECAC and the Ivies, whether they
    perceived the Hockey East schools to be as committed to academic
    excellence as they are (I don't think there's any doubt that they are,
    but whether those schools agree is a whole different matter), and
    whether they believe that the extra distance traveled to play games
    would be beneficial.  I think Hockey East would welcome such a move,
    as they feel that they had been left no choice but to leave the ECAC,
    even though they wanted to continue relationships with some of the
    schools.  Recent ECAC-HE games show that the rivalries are still there.
    Every HE team is playing some games against ECAC schools anyway.  Why
    not find some way to put the league back together in a form that would
    please everybody?
 
    What do ECAC fans think about this and have you heard any such rumors?
 
 
    - mike, rumor guru