> On another subject, Dave Parter's ideas have some merit (tho good luck getting
> any powers-that-be to listen).
 
Don't give me the credit for the idea. According to Keith's original
note, it (merging the WCHA and CCHA) is Rick Comley's idea, I just laid
out what looks like the most straight-forward way to do it...
 
>                                 I don't understand, however, "2 teams not in
> the division at 0 games" - does this mean you play two ECAC teams but they
> don't count in the standings?
 
No, that meant that the remaining 2 teams in the league (but not in the
same division) were not played at all that season (unless scheduled as
one of the 4 remaining games allowed, and wouldn't count in the league
standings). I was trying to show how balanced/unbalanced the schedule
would be.
 
For an example of an unbalanced and unfair schedule, in Big 10 football
right now there are 10 schools (Penn State doesn't count yet), and each
team plays EIGHT other schools -- skipping one school for a number of
years. For three years (or something like that), Wisconsin
doesn't/didn't play Michigan -- which is good for Wisconsin, since we
would loose badly, but unfair to Michigan, who doesn't get the easy win
(which other teams get when they play Wisconsin). And no, the schedule
isn't made taking into account who needs the easier scehdule, every team
just skips one team for a few years.
 
With the right number of teams and the right number of total games, a
WCHA/CCHA merged schedule can be better than that... I think.  It would
be possible to have two strong teams (possibly even undefeated) that
happen to not play each other in the regular season.  Assuming that the
league would have a league championship tournament, they would at least
meet in the tournament, if they are that good.
 
Since my note, someone said something about Kent joining the CCHA,
which would raise the number of teams in the league to 22, which means
2 divisions of 6 teams and 2 of 5 teams, with appropriate revisions in
the rest of the numbers.
 
Of course, to add more fuel to potential flame wars, with that many
teams, why not just combine the WCHA and CCHA and then split into THREE
leagues -- 7 and 7 and 8 teams each (and don't worry about interleague
play, just let it happen as people desire)? A seven-team league means 6
league opponents, or 24 games (using 2-game series as the standard),
leaving 10 games open for scheduling...  of course, the result would be
more inter-league arguments, not less, and breaking more
rivalries.....
 
	--david