For the last couple of days this WCHA expansion topic has brought a wide
range of thoughts and ideas. Some people say make non conference WCHA
games worth 4 points each instead of the normal 2, have traveling teams
fly in for one game and then travel out to the next nearest city. Form 3
conferences and so on and so no. All these ideas are interesting but not
practical or real. I have a proposal which is purely for discussion.
Divide the WCHA into 2 Zones, Zone A and Zone B. The Western Zone and
the Central Zone of the WCHA.
 
        Zone A.                              Zone B.
 
      1. UAF                                 1. Minnesota
 
      2. UAA                                 2. Duluth
 
      3. Colorado College                    3. St. Cloud
 
      4. Denver                              4. NMU
 
      5. North Dakota  (?)                   5. Wisconsin
 
      6. ????????????                        6. MTU
 
Teams from zone A would play teams from zone B twice and both games
would be played in the same city whether home or away. This would
account for 24 possible points.
 
Teams within the same zone or conference would play each other 4 times
each. The only problem with this is if you play each team for times,
youend up with 40 points. 40 and 24 will give you 64 points, and the
proposal has 56. Some maneuvering would have to take effect where one
team would only play 2 games instead of 4 and likewise with the rest of
the teams to equal out the 56 points.
 
The only problem is would North Dakota want to be in the Western
Conference and who would be the 6th team. This scenario is much easier
than dividing up the league into 3 zones where records will mostly
indicate the successes of the 3 conference opponents. This idea
eliminates the Top Heavyscenario and the outrageous travel which teams
would go through by splitting weekend series.
 
 
Brad Cuyler