Sid Whitaker writes:
>Mike Machnik wrote in a recent posting: "Hockey East is a much stronger league
>than the ECAC, and I don't know anybody who'd argue this."
>Well, I will. I believe that the ECAC is every bit as strong as Hockey East
>in any aspect. There may have been some claim for HE when they still played
>the CCHA and WCHA teams on a regular basis, but I really fail to see any
>aspect of HE now that makes it superior to the ECAC. For one thing, the ECAC
>has sent at least one team to the Final Four every year but one, while
>HE has yet to even have a National Champion.
 
    Here are the leagues' interconference records over the past three years:
 
               HE v. ECAC
    1990-91   28-14-0 .667
    1989-90   25-12-2 .667
    1988-89   18-13-1 .578
 
    1988-89 was the last year of the interlocking schedule agreement between
    the WCHA and Hockey East.  So, Hockey East has actually consistently won
    a larger percentage of games against the ECAC since it began playing more
    Eastern teams.  The last two years, Hockey East teams have won 2 of every 3
    games played against ECAC teams.  That is pretty dominant.
 
    As for the ECAC sending teams to the Final Four: since the split in 1984,
    the ECAC has sent six teams in total to the Final Four in six years.
    Hockey East has also sent six.  The leagues seem pretty even in that
    department.  The ECAC does have the advantage in getting teams to the
    NCAA Championship Game, 5 to 1.  The ECAC has two national champions,
    and Hockey East has none.  Again, advantage ECAC.
 
    But, I never said the ECAC has no quality teams.  I have *always* said
    that while approximately half the ECAC teams can play with just about
    anyone in the country, the other half are far below the other
    conferences' bottom half of teams.  For example, there are many more
    blowouts in the ECAC than there are in Hockey East.  22 of 132 ECAC
    games this year were decided by five or more goals; that's about 17%.
    In contrast, only six of 84 Hockey East games were blowouts by this
    definition, or 7%.  From top to bottom, Hockey East is a more
    competitive conference.
 
>Furthermore, the 1985 NCAA Championship-winning ECAC RPI Engineers (who
>finished the year at 35-2-1),habitual playoff contenders, are arguably
>the greatest college hockey team ever assembled. Hockey East has never
>had any team comparable to that.
 
    I don't know, that year Providence only lost to the Greatest College
    Hockey Team by a goal in the finals - and that goal came on an offsides
    faceoff.
 
    While I agree that the 1985 RPI team was a great one, maybe the best
    ever (don't count out 1987 North Dakota with Belfour, Hrkac, Joyce, and
    Kidd), remember that they were given a run for their money by Duluth
    and PC in the Final Four (two one-goal wins, Duluth in 3 ots).
 
    Also, fans of the 1987 BC team might argue with you - Brian Leetch,
    Craig Janney, Kevin Stevens, Dan Shea, Ken Hodge, Tim Sweeney, David
    Littman.  Their 31-8-0 record is only worse than RPI's 35-2-1 because
    BC played so many more games against the WCHA.  They were knocked out
    of the NCAAs by a great Minnesota team.  By the luck of the draw,
    RPI never ran up against anyone of Minnesota's caliber on its way
    to the title.
 
>                   Yet, the ECAC has had a slew of championship-calibre
>teams in the past several years while HE has had relatively few.
 
    Really?  In the six Hockey East postseason tourneys, five different
    teams have won the championship game.  Did you forget Providence in 1985
    and Northeastern in 1988?  Or, are you talking about the national
    championship?  The ECAC has sent RPI, Harvard, SLU and Colgate to the
    Final Four since 1985, and Hockey East has sent BC, BU, Maine, and
    Providence.  4-4.
 
    You'll get no argument from me as to which league's teams have come
    through; for some unexplainable reason, Hockey East teams have
    struggled at the Final Four.  The ECAC has the definite advantage there.
 
>                   In essence, ECAC teams can skate with teams from any
>league in the country.
 
    I agree completely as long as you change that to "half of the ECAC
    teams".
 
>                       If Hockey East is supposedly the stronger of the
>two, I've yet to see any reason for this. Hopefully, in the years to
>come, we will see more inter-league play between HE and the ECAC.
 
    As long as HE is winning games at a 67% clip, I would rather see
    them schedule more games against some of the Western teams.  It's
    hard enough as it is to gauge how good teams from different areas
    of the nation, and to this extent teams like Maine are to be commended
    for scheduling top Western competition.  However, games against the
    ECAC's top teams are also exciting and draw well, and I would like
    to see some of those continue too.  It will be more and more difficult
    to schedule games with the 34-game limit, so we will see how the
    teams get around this.
 
 
    - mike