A couple of key points from Keith's posting (I don't think I have
them out of context too much):
 
> Shawn raises an intriguing dilemma: what is good for your team may not
> be good for college hockey, and what is good for college hockey may not
> be good for your team.
 
> But what's done is done for 1991-92 and we must live with it. The NCAA
> cutbacks from 38 to 34 games (with 6 months to implement the change!)
> really screwed up the scheduling. Let's look to the future, however,
> and implement some changes so Shawn is not forced to schedule Canada
> Tech.
 
And Keith's idea:
 
> I have been playing around with an idea for many months now, an idea I
> call "cooperative scheduling". It involves having the different LEAGUES
> work together to schedule games. ...
 
> Cooperative scheduling means the leagues need to set up agreements with
> each other to schedule games. For example, the CCHA and HEA may say,
> "Every year, we will play at least 8 games against each other". The
> leagues would help organize all of this, with perhaps the CCHA office
> calling Miami and Ohio State to see if they would want to host BC and
> BU. And as a reciprocal, maybe BG and Western Michigan could travel to
> Merrimack and Lowell.
 
	...
 
> With 3 independents joining the CCHA, and Anchorage possibly getting in
> the WCHA, this may indeed be a great time for the leagues to get their
> acts together and start cooperating with one another.
 
	...
 
> I see some problems right off the bat. The WCHA must change from its
> 32-game league schedule or else they will not be able to participate in
> this cooperation. The CCHA teams will have 4 NLGs (unless Ferris drops
> out), which may not be enough. The Ivies might have to agree to play a
> few more games. HEA is already set with 10 NC games, by the way.
 
> This is the first I have told a large number of people about my idea.
> Let me know what you think.
 
I think it is a very good idea, but I see the problems as being major.
The tradition in the WCHA is the 2-game friday-saturday series, and A
LOT OF PEOPLE (read fans, I assume also the coaches and players) really
like it.  The WCHA-HE experiment with an interlocking schedule was
interesting, but it did not win a lot of support from the fans. I don't
think fans were against the interlocking schedule, but they weren't
excited by it either.
 
Changing from the 2-game friday-saturday series "for the good of
college hockey" is not going to go over too well. There are about
15,000 hockey fans in Madison who have waiting many years to get their
*SERIES* (not season) tickets to the Badger games (you *CAN'T* get
season tickets unless you've had them for years. The other 1000 seats
are taken by people with season tickets and the remaining tickets sold
each week). Screwing around with the schedule won't please them.
Playing an occasional saturday-sunday series already causes grumbling.
 
For that reason, some WCHA schools won't like the idea. For
schools that don't sell out every game, asking them to give up
league games in order to play teams that the fans don't know much
about (and aren't excited about) means asking them to give up
money. We talk here like money is the evil behind the NCAA, but
money is very important to most athletic departments today.
Wisconsin cut 5 sports (including baseball, which doesn't bother
me but shocked a lot of people) last spring, and Ferris State is talking
about the same kind of thing, except hockey is on the list too (I
won't go on with the list of money problems at universities, it
is too long).
 
Also, remember the first point, about doing what is good for your
school or doing what is good for college hockey? The same applies to
the league. Cooperative scheduling is harder than laeving things as
they are. Plus, it doesn't help the league directly. I have no
knowledge that "the league" doesn't want to be helpful, just commenting
on human nature in general.
 
Still, something needs to be done. Probably the best idea (but
even harder to start, but with a better payoff in the long run) is
realigning all the leagues and independents... the CCHA-WCHA
merger proposed by Rick Comely begin a start....
 
	--david
 
--------
david parter				university of wisconsin -- madison
[log in to unmask]			      computer sciences department