I was hesitating to jump into this debate (I must be sick or something) because I think it is pretty clear that the ECAC is not as good as the other conferences, but I also don't think it really matters.  They are good enough to justify getting two bids to the tournament and they're certainly willing to show up and play the games.  So who cares, except for bragging rights?  Two things finally got me to join the fray.  First, the academic argument came up again and second, someone made a claim
that was fairly easy to examine.  I'll take the second of these first.
 
Adam Wodon wrote:
 
> c)  Top-to-bottom, I think the ECAC is quite competitive
>     the top teams aren't as good, but the bottom ones are better than
> the bottom of the other conferences, clearly.
 
There really isn't any evidence of this, at least not regarding western teams (I didn't take the time to do the breakdown vs. Hockey East).  ECAC teams played CCHA or WCHA teams 28 times, and went 7-20-1.  If you only count the games between teams in the lower half of the conferences (7-12 ECAC, 7-11 CCHA, 6-9 WCHA), then the ECAC teams went 3-6.
 
The wins were:
Dartmouth (11) over Bowling Green (11)
Cornell (8) over Western Michigan (9)
Vermont (9) over Lake Superior (7)
 
The losses:
Dartmouth (11) to Denver (8)
Cornell (8) to Ferris State (8)
St Lawrence (10) to Michigan Tech (7)
Vermont (9) to Lake Superior (7)
Vermont (9) to Bowling Green (11)
Vermont (9) to Denver (8)
 
Another way to look at it is to suggest that if the bottom teams are good, then they should occasionally pull off an upset of one of the top teams.  This is where it really starts to look bad for the ECAC.  In games where one of the second division ECAC teams (as defined above) played one of the top four teams in a western conference, the ECAC went 1-3.  Colgate split with Michigan the first week of the season, Cornell lost to North Dakota and St. Lawrence lost to Michigan.
 
On the other hand, second division western teams went a whopping 5-3 against top four ECAC teams.  Brown lost to Minnesota and Notre Dame.  RPI beat Western Michigan, but lost to Lake Superior and Ferris State.  Clarkson swept Bowling Green and Yale lost to Lake Superior.
 
Adam posited at one point that the west would look a lot different if Nebraska-Omaha and Mankato State were included in the WCHA.  This is a non-sequitor, as I bet he doesn't want me tagging the ECAC with Niagara, but it also doesn't seem to be the case.  It would improve the ECAC's record in the above categories, but not by much.  ECAC teams (all from the second division) went 3-2-1 against UNO and MSU.  Princeton swept UNO and Union split with them.  Union went 0-1-1 against Mankato State.
 
From what I've looked at, it may be possible for Adam to continue to believe that the bottom of the ECAC is better than the bottom of the western conferences.  It is possible to question whether or not the matchups breakdown evenly, though they do at first glance.  The west might also have a home ice edge, but again, it's not lopsided.  I don't really care enough about this issue to dig into these.  But it is far from clearly established that the bottom of the ECAC is better than those of the
CCHA and WCHA.
 
 
On the academics issue, there are two different statements that might be being made.  Posters possibly mean that the hockey players actually get more of an education at the ECAC schools.  This may or may not be true; I'm not close enough to any of the teams to really form any opinions.
 
I get the sense, though, that there are a number of ECAC fans basically claiming that they make up in academic prowess as a whole institution what they might give up on the ice.  In essence, it's a continuation of the Jock U. thread.  This argument drives me crazy.  At most, if not all, of the Big 10 schools, for instance, have at least 4,000-5,000 students (comparable to a lot of ECAC enrollments) who would fit in very well in those settings and could probably compete on an even academic
footing.  It is the mission of these schools to ALSO educate many thousands of other students who, for reasons ranging from the academic to the financial to the geographic, could not make it in the ECAC schools.  This is where examining "average" students, or the general perception of these students, makes no sense.  I'll confess, I believe that for this and other reasons, Big 10 universities (and, on a smaller scale, the other public schools in college hockey) are actually superior
educational institutions to the Princetons and the RPIs of the world.  But that's opinion, and its rooted pretty firmly in ideology.  The argument coming up again did manage to pull my trigger, though.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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