--- "Moller, Edward N." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I appreciate your intent, but why on earth would you
> send Merrimack over to
> the "Empire" conference.

I put Merrimack in the "Empire" conference because of
"school demographics."

The other HE schools are large universities with lots
of resources (either wealthy or state funded).  Of the
HE schools, Providence is the closest to Merrimack
size-wise, but PC has over a thousand more students
and has a big time basketball program, and are D1 in
other sports.  The other HE schools are over double --
in most cases much more -- than Merrimack's size.

With the exception of the odd duck Vermont, my
"Empire" schools are similar to Merrimack in size, and
are either liberal arts schools like Merrimack or
specialty schools.  They are not big time in sports
other than hockey.

As for competitiveness, I absolutely agree that they
are no pushover.  However, they haven't been
particularly successful either.  If Merrimack were in
an "Empire" league, they could go into every season
with a realistic belief that they could be a
consistent  .500 team and win the regular season
championship every once in a while.  I don't think
that they can say that in HE.  Any rivalries that have
been built up could be made up with non-conference
games.

As for the suggestion of UMass Amherst (Tony?), it's
once again the school demographics.  Big school with
facilities that are as good or better than anyone in
hockey east.  Haven't been there for a while, but last
time I was there they had two rinks, including a
practice rink that, other than the lack of seating,
was as nice as anybody else's game rink.

Clay

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