At 8:55 AM 10/26/95, Lerch,Chris wrote:
>The Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle reported yesterday that BU
> assistant coach Blaise MacDonald will be named head hockey coach at
> Niagara University, which plans to begin varsity play next fall.
 
Thanks for the news, Chris.  Congrats to Blaise...he is clearly very
qualified and deserving of the job, and he seems to be a good guy too.
 
My question: will he leave BU immediately, or will he stay the season and
join Niagara in the spring?  It's a tough call either way...if he leaves BU
they are stuck without an integral part of their staff, but if he does not
join Niagara until spring, he misses out on a lot of recruiting.
 
> Their ultimate goal,
> however, is to play a bonafide D-I schedule as early as 1998/1999.
> Construction of a new rink is underway.
 
It's going to be interesting to see where Niagara goes.  Jim Love has
already speculated on this.  I'll add to it by noting that "rumors" have
Niagara interested in HE as well as the ECAC, and the connection of Blaise
with BU & HE makes that an interesting possibility.
 
Of course, who knows what the makeup of either conference will be by the
time 1998 or 1999 rolls around.  Certainly Niagara is quite a hike from the
nearest HE school (UMass) and about a 9 hour drive from the Boston area.  I
don't think we can accurately gauge the receptiveness of the HE ADs to
admitting Niagara at this time.
 
But even the ECAC seems to present problems for Niagara.  Either Niagara
comes in alone, or with someone else (Chris has mentioned RIT, Elmira, and
Mercyhurst as candidates).  If alone, the travel partner system would be
thrown out of whack.  If with someone else, I can see at least two
problems.  One, if the ECAC continued to play 2 games vs each opponent,
that gives teams 2x13=26 games, probably too many for the Ivies.  And two,
since neither of the two other Ivies (Penn & Columbia) seem close to
elevating hockey to the ECAC I level, that would mean an imbalance of 8
non-Ivies vs 6 Ivies - something I'm not sure the Ivies would agree to.
 
In fact, even if Niagara came in alone, the Ivies would be outnumbered.
 
Whether Niagara winds up in HE or the ECAC, the league that accepts them
will have to make significant concessions - either in its league structure
(ECAC) or in agreeing to make a long trip to Western NY (HE).  It's still a
long way off, but I'm hopeful that something will be worked out to support
the Niagara program now that they have taken the leap.  I wish them and
Blaise the best.
 
>A further aside - with BU's title last season, Blaise becomes the
> answer to a pretty neat trivia question: he has a D-I, a D-II, and a
> D-III national championship ring.
 
BTW, I do not know of anyone else who can claim this distinction.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
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