Without conferences to play in, those schools would not have hockey 
programs.

Division I men's hockey has the lowest ratio of tournament teams to total 
teams (16 of 59, meaning more than 25 percent of all teams make the 
tourney). If the CHA falls apart and those schools are not absorbed by other 
leagues, which may well be the case, there are going to be 54 teams and a 
number of other sports are going to take notice of the discrepancy (even in 
the money-maker of men's basketball, fewer than 20 percent of the teams get 
in).

People may argue that the NCAA makes money off the Frozen Four (which it 
does) and would never go back to a 16-team tourney, but, in reality, they 
would make the same amount of money with a 12-team field.

-------------------------
Craig Roberts
320 Blake Road N., #606
Hopkins, MN 55343
952-930-1984 (Home/Fax)
763-442-1320 (Cell)
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----Original Message Follows----
From: NE Hampton <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: - Hockey-L - The College Hockey Discussion List              
<[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Comley: AH-CHA Play-In Game Needed
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:30:08 -0500


No, I completely disagree with this, it is a worse than wrong conclusion.
There may be correlation, but no causation. The number of schools is what
made the NCAA expand the field from 12 to 16, not the number of conferences
or the number of automatic bids. You eliminate those conferences and their
automatic bids, but keep the number of schools the same (they become
independents or join the other conferences (for example Bemidji State and
Air Force joint the WCHA) and nothing would be forced to change -- even the
16 team tournament would remain. The big winner in all of this is the ECACHL
-- they were the ones called weak sisters and poor puppies before Atlantic
Hockey and CHA came along, so now these two conferences take the heat
previously heaped upon ECACHL. But to suggest that Atlantic Hockey and CHA
are in any way, shape or form responsible for the 16 vs 12 team tournament
is at best pure fantasy.

Nathan Hampton

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