A. Berman wrote...
>And with good reason.  Any rankings you'd care to consult will, year in
>and year out, have more elite teams in Hockey East coming from a base of
>fewer teams.
>
>As I've said before, as long as I've been following college hockey (26
>years) the Ivies have imposed their priorities on the rest of the ECAC.
>I have no problems with the Ivies setting their own rules so long as they
>don't have to be followed by others.  If the ECAC wants to expand let the
>Ivies deal with it or leave.  However, don't muck about with guaranteed
>bids for a league that consistantly does poorly against out of conference
>opposition.
 
And there's good reason for that, too. The ECAC supports 12 teams, Hockey
East 9. Compeition for recruits is much stronger among teams *within* each
league than *between* teams from different leagues. That results in greater
spreading out of talent in a large league, especially with the recent rise
of programs like Colgate, Brown and Princeton. What would happen if the
ECAC dropped just its last-place team (Princeton, for now) and
re-distributed players? Put James Konte in Cornell's net. Put Jon Kelley on
Harvard's power play. Wouldn't Casson Masters look good flying down the ice
with the rest of the Clarkson team? Never mind what rugged defensemen like
Dan Brown and Brent Flahr would do for the Brown team.
 
As far as Ivies imposing their doctrine on the remainder of the ECAC
schools, keep in mind that the Ivy League self-imposes caps on number of
games and regulates the start of its own practices in October. That doesn't
prevent RPI & St. Lawrence & the other four non-Ivy schools from playing
more games, nor starting their seasons earlier and (theoretically) having a
competitive edge in November.
 
As for dropping a team or two from the league to make the ECAC more
successful on the whole--it will never happen. Why? Because with an average
of about 30 varsity sports per Ivy athletic program, the philosophy of
these schools is to encourage athletic opportunities. Fortunately the other
ECAC schools appear to share this philosophy.
 
 
 
 
--Mike J.
 
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