Kevin Cummings writes:
>>    Notre Dame and RPI into Hockey East as its 9th and 10th members.
>
>And I respond:
>
>No, Somehow I don't think so.  The major division that resulted in the
>Hockey East break from the ECAC was because the ECAC wanted to change
>the scheduling of its games to provided less disruption of classes
>(ie they wanted to eliminate weeknight away games which kept the
>hockey players away from classes for 2 days).  The ECAC also wanted
>to limit (some might say severely) the number of games a team could
>play during a season.  The Hockey East teams disagreed with the rest of
>the ECAC teams and the result was the Hockey East league.
 
    Whoa, time out.  That's not why the five HE charter members left the
    ECAC.  They left because the Ivies spearheaded a charge to force the
    entire league to abide by the Ivies' academic standards.  Teams like
    BC, BU, Providence, NU, and UNH were becoming more and more competitive
    with the Western teams and realized that remaining in the ECAC would
    be completely against their own best interests.  Recruiting against
    the Western teams would become more and more difficult.  This was the
    main reason the HEA was formed - the afore-mentioned teams aspired to
    reaching a higher visibility within the world of college hockey.  The
    Ivy limit of 26 has not been forced on the non-Ivies in the ECAC and
    many ECAC teams have traveled to play HE teams, for example, on weeknights
    since the split.
 
    However, it is true that one of the advantages of HE is that 7 of the 8
    teams are within an hour and a half drive of each other, and teams
    can play weeknight games with players missing no classes and little study
    time.  The ECAC is much more spread out.
 
>                                             The only question I had
>was why did Vermont stay with the ECAC?
 
    Vermont is one of those teams that I think would fit in well in HE, but
    it is a pseudo-Ivy league school and identifies itself more with the
    Ivies; the administration would never sanction a move to HE.  Too bad,
    because there are some decent rivalries with UNH and Northeastern;
    also BU to some extent.
 
>And with Union College moving up in the ECAC from Div 2 to Div 1, they
>are less than 15 miles from RPI!
 
    We have to wait and see if Union does indeed make the move, first.  I
    agree that if Union jumps up, that should do it for any talk of RPI
    joining HE (which I never took seriously, anyway).  If they don't,
    then it wouldn't make a difference what league RPI was in as to the
    Union-RPI rivalry.
 
>No, I think you will find that RPI would rather continue to align itself
>with the academic league over the athletic one.
 
    I agree 100%.  That is the way the administration has always perceived
    itself.  That's one of the (behind the scenes) reasons Addesa got the
    axe.  Hockey was becoming too big and overshadowing academics.  Plus,
    there was the attitude of the students towards the players (I was there
    for a while - I know).  It was really sad how some students considered
    players to be stupid if they weren't engineering majors like them.  Maybe
    they should take a look around the country; most students ARE business/
    management majors.  Maybe not at RPI, but the school does have a school
    of management that isn't very easy.  I saw a lot of the hard work that
    most players put into school when I was there, and I can say that as much
    as I may know about my major, they know a hell of a lot more than I do
    about business.
 
    Remember that calling the ECAC "the academic league" and HE "the athletic
    one" is an insult to the eight excellent schools that make up Hockey East.
    All are very respected in New England.  Not every school can be a Harvard
    or Cornell, but that doesn't mean other schools should be slighted.  As
    much as some ECAC fans would like to believe it, the fact that the ECAC
    implements the academic index does not make it "better" than any of the
    other conferences.  And as we have seen, unfortunately, it has resulted in
    the ECAC's plummeting to the bottom of the four conferences
    competitive-wise.  Like I've said, the top six ECAC teams can play with
    anyone in the country, but the bottom six are far, far below them.
 
>As for Notre Dame joining Hockey East?  It would be VERY expensive travelwise
>since all of the Hockey East teams are in the Eastern New England area
>between Providence and Portland.
 
    Yes, this seemed a bit odd too, but if you consider the number of road
    trips teams take each year anyway, it wouldn't be that expensive to
    just have one of those be to ND each year.  If the three-game schedule
    vs. each opponent were maintained, then teams playing one game at ND
    could couple that with a game at a CCHA team, perhaps.  It would be more
    of a strain on ND, which would effectively need to take four or five road
    trips to New England each year (although some of the games could be played
    over the break, allowing them to spend two or three weeks on the road).
 
    I don't expect either team to suddenly jump to HE, but I thought I'd
    throw it out to wake some people up. :-)  The comments have been
    interesting.
 
 
    - mike