Believe it or not, there was talk of UAH joining Hockey East not long
ago.  When attempts to put together a fifth DivI conference consisting
of the major independents failed, chiefly because most of the
independents gained admission into already existing leagues, UAH and a
couple others were left out in the cold.  My understanding is that a
couple of years ago, UAH at least inquired into the possibility of
them joining HE (maybe some other conferences, too - whether as a full
or affiliate member, I do not know), but this didn't happen and I
don't know how seriously it was pursued.  UAH had been playing HE teams
like Lowell, Providence, and Merrimack nearly every season.  Their
schedule was perhaps 25% DivI independents, 25% DivI conference teams,
and 50% Canadian/DivII-III teams.
 
Before the 1992-93 season, when the DivII tournament was reinstated by
the NC$$, UAH dropped its program back down to DivII (UAH is a DivII
school), for several reasons in my view:
1) UAH could use the ability to compete for an NC$$ title to attract
better players.  There are only 13 teams in DivII, and UAH was bound
to be one of the better teams.  The independent bid to the DivI
tourney was gone, and while UAH had given DivI teams good games and
won some of them, they still tended to be ranked near the bottom of
the division.
2) UAH was having trouble scheduling in DivI with the cutback to 34
games.  They had virtually no games vs Western DivI conference teams,
and had to scrape for the ones they did get against Eastern teams.  As
the remaining independents entered conferences, UAH had fewer and
fewer DivI opponents to play.
3) UAH couldn't get into a conference and couldn't form a new one
since there were almost no independents left.
 
Obviously, it was a good decision since they're doing well and have
people down there excited about hockey.  I expect Merrimack's trip
there Jan 1-2 will be the last time the schools meet, since the games
no longer help Merrimack in terms of DivI tourney consideration; this
meeting apparently completes the contract since UAH was up here last
year.
 
I'll finish up by relating a story still told around Merrimack about
one trip to Huntsville, where they announce a player of the weekend
for both teams after the second game.  Merrimack's was Howie
Rosenblatt, a Cam Neely type who went on to have his own fan club in
Cincinnati of the IHL and is now with Providence (AHL).  Rumor is
Howie is still wanted by the police in Kentucky for some incident that
occurred when he was in the ECHL.  Howie made it to Providence (his
hometown) when the Bruins benched several Russian players early on
this season and called Howie, who was sitting at home, to fill in for
a game.  He responded with a goal and a couple of fights, leading us
to wonder if his contract required that he draw a certain number of
penalty minutes per game.
 
Anyway, picture the announcer, heavy Southern accent: "And the Player
of the Weekend, for Mer-rie-mack, number twenty-five, Howie
Rosenblatt.  Howie, say a few words to the kind folks."  Howie (leans
into microphone that was offered to him): "Thanks."
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
<<<<<< Color Voice of the (7-7-1) Merrimack Warriors WCCM 800 AM >>>>>>