Regarding the recent discussions of how Hockey East/ECAC teams might have to
travel "great distances" to Buffalo if Niagra was to start D1 play and gain
admission to either of the conferences:
 
Has anyone looked at a map of the Midwest lately, especially Michigan?
Michigan Tech and LSSU are 5 hours away from each other, and Northern Michigan
and LSSU are 3 hours apart.  LSSU's closest CCHA rival is about 250 miles to
the south.  How about North Dakota's travel time to other league contests?
(For obvious reasons, I won't even mention the two Alaska schools)
 
We hockey fans in "the West" are especially jealous of the luxury that the
Bostonians and other New England Hockey-Lers have of being able to see all
of your away games if desired, without needing frequent flyer miles.  Given
what the Upper Michigan, Colorado, and Minnesota colleges have had to deal
with regarding travel, a short jaunt to Western New York from Boston would
seem like a quick trip.
 
As a side note: do the majority of WCHA teams fly commercial, or private
charters to get to and from destinations?  Anyone?  How does that added
expense factor in to the general athletic budget, or do the teams that
have huge travel expenses suffer in other areas of the program?
 
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