I've seen some discussion about adding Ohio State to the College Hockey
Showcase, and possibly creating a five team tournament.  Well I would love
to see the Big Ten schools find a way to hold some type of tournament, I
don't see it happening at all unless there are drastic changes in overall
scheduling.  The NCAA limits a team to 34 regular season games (games
played in Alaska don't count against the limit).  The WCHA currently has a
32 game regualar season, and the CCHA uses a 30 game regular season
(except for this year since UIC dropped out leaving a 27 game season).
Scheduling non-conference games is at a premium. This is one of the
reasons why the Showcase is not a tournament.  The coaches don't want to
be wasting a non-conference game against a conference opponent.  If you
add Ohio State there are 3 CCHA teams and you end playing teams you see
all year. I guess one way around this is to maybe find a way to
incorporate league games into a round robin tournament, but that itself
would be very tricky.  The one way this could work, is if the CCHA and
WCHA try some inter-leaugue scheduling where they take one or two weekends
and have all CCHA/WCHA matchups.  I heard rumors of that idea being
discussed, but have not heard any concrete plans.
 
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