It seems to me that it would make sense for the people in charge of the
women's program at Minnesota to get together with those running other
women's programs in the Midwest and make a joint effort to move several
programs to the varsity level simultaneously.  One of the things holding
back the NC$$ from recognizing women's hockey as a sport and sanctioning a
national championship is that, as far as I know, all of the DivI programs
are in the East only.  If Minnesota and other Midwest schools could work
together to create a Midwest conference like the ECAC Women, then I am sure
this would go a long way towards convincing the NC$$ that it should
sanction women's hockey.  Obviously it would be to the benefit of the
Minnesota program to have the only varsity DivI program in the Midwest as
far as ability to recruit players, but for growth of the sport, I think they
should also look outside and push for other schools to develop their
programs too.
 
It would be odd if 1998 rolls around and women's hockey becomes a gold
medal sport in the Olympics, but there is still no NC$$ championship
offered.
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Mike Machnik    [log in to unmask]   Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.)    *HMN*