Some questions for those of you who "are in the know" or who
at least can hazard some educated guesses :-/ :
 
Is there any possibility of the D-II schools having an unofficial
national championship for D-II hockey?
 
Could the D-II teams form two mini-leagues or conferences (are some of the teams already in the Northeast-10 for hockey?), and have either conference
championships and/or a Challenge Series between the winner of each
conference?  Maybe Alabama-Huntsville could host it and give out a
"Challenger Trophy" every year (Huntsville is home to NASA Marshall Space
Flight Center) :-) .
 
Aren't there some other sports that have non-NCAA-sanctioned national championships?  Wasn't that the case in the early years of D-I hockey?
 
I think the D-II schools could continue to play hockey even if they have
no national championship.  Some Division I hockey conferences were effectively
locked out of the national championship for a while, and yet most of
the schools continued to play hockey (e.g., CCHA in early 70s).
 
Tim Newman