Alan Harder writes:
>>>>>> " " == Dave Hendrickson <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>>> Is there another state with as many highly regarded
>>> hockey programs as Michigan?
>
> > Well... yeah.  Massachusetts has Boston University, Northeastern,
> > Boston College, Merrimack, UMass-Lowell, UMass-Amherst within its
> > borders.
>
>Not that my list of Michigan Div 1 programs were all nationally-ranked
>teams, but you've named some arguably no-name (nationally-speaking)
>colleges here.  Or am I wrong on this?
 
Hmm...are we talking about hockey programs or colleges here?  Even if
the focus turns to "no-name schools", it seems to me that both states
have several which none of us had ever heard of before following DivI
hockey.
 
At any rate, in matching up the 7 programs from the two states, they
seem to be very equal at this point in time.  A slight edge would go
to Michigan only because UMass-Amherst is in the infancy of its
program, although it is already regarded highly enough to be able to
steal away top recruits from the other established programs.
 
I've got to make this comment on a related post that just rolled in
from DaveH:
 
>Merrimack - no school that has Mike yapping about it can be considered no-name
>            :-) but admittedly they have not yet attained national success in
>            Division 1.
 
Not true!  In 1988, as the first team to receive an Independent bid to
the DivI tourney, Merrimack upset Hockey East champ Northeastern on
the road in a two game, total goals series.  After winning that first
round series (3-5, 7-3), Merrimack went on to play at eventual
national champ Lake Superior in the quarterfinals and posted a 4-3 win
in the first game of that total goals series.  LSSU came back to win
the second night, 5-0, and took the series...but Merrimack was one of
only *3* teams to beat the Lakers at home all year (record: 17-2-2
before the split with Merrimack; other losses to FSU and WMU).
 
I'll argue that this qualifies as national success. :-)  Getting the
bid was not such a big deal, despite the 32-4-0 record (25-0-0 against
teams considered to be DivII-III), but going to the tourney and
notching victories on the road against two of the top teams in the
country *was*.  That proved they belonged.  Especially when the
Independents tended to fare poorly in the remaining years the bid was
awarded, except of course for UAA's stunning upset of BC in 1991.
 
In fact, in the last 7 years, 6 of the 7 Mass programs have made
appearances in the DivI tourney (all but UMass).  This is true for
only 5 of the 7 programs in each of NY and Michigan.  So take
that. :-) <friendly jab>
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93