I appreciate your intent, but why on earth would you send Merrimack over to
the "Empire" conference.  They are located right smack in the middle of
Hockey East territory, have established strong rivalries throughout the
conference (particularly with BU and UML), and they are certainly no
pushover.  They've rightfully earned their place in HEA in my book.  Placing
Merrimack with New York teams makes as much sense as putting Mercyhurst in
New England.

Edward N. Moller
Controller
Mount Ida College
777 Dedham Street
Newton Centre, MA  02459-3323
Tel (617) 928-4515
Fax (617) 928-4746
[log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: Clay Satow [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 5:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Whither the ECAC


Blowing up the existing eastern conferences, stealing
the northeastern pieces of the CHA, and reassembling
according to geography and school demographics and
philosophies, I come up with

Union           Clarkson        Holy Cross      BC
Colgate         SLU             Bentley         BU
Harvard         Rensellaer      Iona            Maine
Cornell         Vermont         Q               UMA
Dartmouth       Canisius        UConn           UML
Princeton       Mercyhrst       Scrd Hrt        NU
Yale            Merrimack       Army            Prov
Brown           Niagara         Fairfield       UNH
                                AIC

Makes a lot of sense to me.  They semiIvy conference
could develop an athletic/hockey/academic philosophy
that makes sense for all of them, and which wouldn't
be a particular advantage or disadvantage for any one
of
them, because they all perceive themselves as
academically strong "name value" schools.

The second conference could have a bit more aggressive
athletic policy, but wouldn't have to compete against
much bigger schools that have more resources and/or
stronger brand names.  Merrimack would still be
competing against some traditional hockey powers, but
they would be more like  those traditional powers
resource-wise, so they'd be more consititently
competitive.

What's left of the MAAC would be more compact
geographically, and Hockey East would remain the power
conference, and would probably be even more
competitive than it is now.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/