This week's (04/14/95) issue of The Hockey News includes a piece on
Hockey East and commissioner Bob DeGregorio by Larry Mahoney of the
Bangor Daily News.  DeGregorio, also athletic director at Merrimack,
just completed his second season as commissioner.
 
Among the points made are:
 
* Bob expects debate on two key issues during the league meetings in
Florida this month: the shootout, and the HE quarterfinal format
(single game this season).
* Bob says he favors the shootout because "it was implemented to bring
more fans and excitement into the buildings and it did that."
* On the playoff format, he says, "I'd like to send the No. 1 team
right to the semifinals and keep the eighth and ninth seeds out of the
playoffs.  We would have quarterfinals with No. 2 playing No. 7; three
playing six and four playing five.  Then we'd have the semifinals and
finals."
* According to Bob, the league needs more than five referee tandems -
preferably 8 or 9 for next season - because teams see the same tandems
too often.
* Also, he says he would be in favor of adding a 10th team to the
league.  Larry Mahoney notes that there have been rumors that UConn is
considering upgrading its program to Division I.
 
On the playoff format, my only criticism of the proposed format change
is that I wonder if the top seed wants to be off for two weeks before
the semifinals.  On the other hand, this was part of the league's
playoff structure from 1985-90 until the addition of Merrimack gave
the league 8 teams.  Being away from competition for two weeks would
be a minus; pluses I see would be 1) rest, 2) automatic entry into the
semifinals at the new FleetCenter, and 3) not having your RPI rating
hurt by facing a very low seed for possibly 2 or 3 games in the first
round.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93