1.  The fifth conference is rumored to be guaranteed a bid starting in two
years.  Will this rearrange the current guaranteed bids, or will it simply
add another?  Does the rumor reflect fact, even?
 
2.  With several additional teams being added to the Div I total, is there
still a movement towards a 16 team tourny?  A 14 team tourny?  Is there
actually a specific ratio the NC$$ looks at when computing number of
contenders and number of slots?
 
For example, in basketball, there are about 310 teams competing for 64
slots -- 4.84 teams per slot.  For hockey to achieve a 16 team tournament
under this ratio, it would need *77* teams.  This in turn can't happen
without a severe watering down of Div. I, unless the talent base expands
with massive migration of talent from the CHL into the colleges, turning
college hockey into a non-academic, de facto professional development
league no different from the other NC$$ cash cows.
 
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