Two points to address:
 
- The dearth of non-conf games for WCHA teams.
        The way that the WCHA is set up now, there is only room for three
or so non-conference games, usually in the holiday tournament.  As a WCHA
fan, I would
welcome more games against opponents in other leagues.  Part of the problem
is the "tradition" of playing each league team four times in the season.
Of course, the WCHA now plays an "unbalanced" schedule so that there will
be "only play a team twice" matchups every year.  With more teams talking
about trying to join the WCHA in the future, the scheduling will have to be
shuffled yet again, so perhaps some more non-conf games could be in the
picture.  The big problem with the WCHA is travel distances, which lend
themselves to the current "play a team twice in one weekend" setup when the
teams are remote. The extra hassle and cost of playing eastern teams would
be worth it for the fan interest, especially if the league can finally work
out a real TV deal to show these games to more fans.  The current situation
leaves us guessing as to the WCHA's relative strength until the big show
itself, relying on the relatively few interconference games that we do see.
 
- Friday fight as a "bright spot" for the gophers
 
>On Sun, 25 Feb 1996, Jim Love wrote:
>> > Anderson put on the player (name ?) from Wisconsin!  Man he rocked that guy
>> > with some nice over-hand rights!
>> [comments about how this is a ridiculous "bright spot"]
>        Well Jim you are one of the Few that proably don't like that kind
>of play, as far as the fan loving it, that is hockey, face it with the
>stuppid rule of DQ rule or not that is hockey. IHL, ECHL, USHL, NHL...
 
Whether fighting is "part of the game" has been discussed on Hockey-L
before, with very few people actually supporting the idea that slugging a
fellow player really contributes to the game in a positive way.  Hockey is
inherently a rough game, and the fighting rules don't remove that aspect of
it. There's a huge difference between a beautiful crunching legal check and
guys on the gopher bench taking cheap shots at players on the ice during a
brawl resulting from gopher frustration late in a blowout. Then again, I'm
not a "sports goon."  I'm a hockey fan.
 
>        If you go to a Junior Hockey game say the WHL you are going to
>see a fight......
 
Yeah.  Sure.  Whatever.
 
Puck em up Bucky!
 
-==-John R. [log in to unmask] Chem. Dept-==-
                 --- "When in doubt, roll!" ---
 
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