Some thoughts on this whole expansion business.
 
* On Adding Niagra as an associate member of the ECAC:
        This has the major drawback that the ECAC would be forced to
do what the CCHA did with UAF and let all the other teams in the
league into the playoffs.  But in this case it would be 13 teams
rather than 11.  If I'm not mistaken, didn't the ECAC never let in
more than 8 teams (even when there were 17 in the league), before the
recent expansion to 10?
 
* Who will be Niagra's travel partner:
        Well, Canisius would be a sensible choice. :-)
 
* A modest proposal:
        Wasn't Vermont thinking about bolting to Hockey East along
with RPI?  If the ECAC takes Niagra and lets HE have UVM, the
geography is preserved (ECAC=NY/NJ+Ivy; HE=New England-Ivies) and the
ECAC stays at 12 teams.  Aside from more strained travel partnerships
(Niagra/Cornell, Colgate/Union, RPI/Princeton, Brown/Yale,
Harvard/Dartmouth in addition to Clarkson/St. Lawrence), it would lead
to an increased disparity between ECAC and HE, which is why it's not a
serious idea.
 
* UConn:
        I see no reason, from the leagues' perspective, why UConn
should join the ECAC instead of HE.  They're in New England, which is
HE territory just as western NY is ECAC territory, plus as we've
discussed, HE has room for new teams, the ECAC doesn't.
 
* Divisions:
        The ECAC used to be made up of three divisions: East, West and
Ivy, but I don't know how the scheduling worked.  Personally, I don't
see what's wrong with splitting a college conference into divisions;
it certainly makes more sense than what the Big Ten does in football,
where two teams can end up undefeated because they don't all play each
other.  Two seven-team divisions would foul up the travel partner
scenario, but a six-team Ivy division and an eight-team non-Ivy
division would mean, assuming two conference games against everyone in
your division and one each against everyone else would mean 10+8=18
games for the Ivies and 14+6=20 for everyone else, down from the
current 22, but three in the division and one out would mean 15+8=23
for the Ivies and 21+6=28 for everyone else, which would be about
right.  But then the travel partnerships get even more convoluted
(Cornell/Princeton, Yale/Brown, Harvard/Dartmouth and
Colgate/Canisius, Union/CWPost, RPI/Vermont, plus Clarkson/St.
Lawrence.)
 
* Fewer NC games for the Ivies:
        A 14-team ECAC with a 26-game schedule would mean three NC
games for the Ivies.  Six years ago, the Ivy limit was 26 games, which
meant four NC games.  I don't know if the Ivy League plans to keep
increasing the limit, but a 30-game limit would bring it back to the
four NC games we had before.  Still a bummer for Ivies who have been
enjoying the addition of more games with outside rivals.  For Cornell,
for example, games with Army and BU would use up most of the NC
allotment right there.
 
        In the end, I have to say agree with the idea of adding Niagra
to the CCHA and CW Post to Hockey East.  Adding Niagra to HE would be
a bad precedent for the ECAC and make little sense geographically.
But the CCHA plan gives all four conferences an even number of teams:
10/12/12/10 compared to the current 10/11/12/9.  But how do folks in
the CCHA feel about it?
 
                                        John Whelan
                                        Cornell '91
                                        <[log in to unmask]>
        <http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/people/john_whelan/jphock.html>
 
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