First, on Hockeyfest history...
1990: Intended to be the first year of the format, it had to be scrapped
 after a measles outbreak at several northeastern schools including Maine.
 The ECAC tourney was held as planned with semis on Sat night and the final
 Sunday night at the Garden, while the HE games took place at campus sites.
 (I was able to take in the HE final at 5 pm at BC, then drove crosstown
 to see the ECAC final at the Garden at 8 pm.)  Note that plans were for
 the HE final to precede the ECAC final that year.
1991: HE semis were held on Fri, ECAC semis on Sat, and on Sun, the HE
 final between BU and Maine was played at 5 pm while the Clarkson-SLU game
 was played at 8 pm.
1992: HE semis on Thur, ECAC semis on Fri, and on Sat, the finals
 flipflopped with the ECAC final at 5 pm and the HE final at 8 pm.
 
The ECAC semis were always to be held on the 2nd day because fans and teams
were coming from far away.  I was under the impression the times of the
finals were flipflopped the 2nd year so HE could have the "feature" 8 pm
game like the ECAC had the previous year.  One of the many problems with
Hockeyfest was that there had to be such a feature game.  Overall, however,
I appreciated the opportunity to see both conferences' tourneys and it is
too bad the format could not be continued.
 
The main reason for the ending of the agreement seemed to be that the location
of the majority of HE teams led to more of an interest locally in the HE games
than in the ECAC games, and this was only natural.  The ECAC quite rightly
wanted to be able to showcase its tourney in a place where it would not be
overshadowed, and though there has been a lot of disagreement here and
elsewhere with the choice of Lake Placid over the Knick (likely a financial
decision), it will accomplish the ECAC's goals: it will be THE show that
weekend.
 
I don't think the perceived level of play had anything to do with it.  I
thought all of the ECAC games in Hockeyfest were just as exciting and many
(RPI-SLU, Corn-Clark) were even more exciting than the HE games.  Although
Harvard and the ECAC do get pretty good coverage in Boston despite being a
"foreign" conference to the area, Harvard has been the only local team to
make the Garden in recent years and the all-NY final four occurred in 1990
and 1992.  With 7 of 8 teams being within an hour of Boston, HE has become
the big draw and that is not unexpected.  There is still a lot of local
interest in the ECAC from fans of teams who live here and so on, but most
of the ECAC fans at the Garden seemed to come from outside New England.
 
HE VS ECAC
The relative weakness of HE this season compared to recent years wasn't
unexpected, I thought it would be this way before the season.  Greg is
quite right when he says that it looks like "Maine and everyone else".
To that extent, there has been parity in the East at least and it looks
like it's become that way in the West as well; it's like the NFL where
supposedly "any given team can win on any given night".  So, the question
is, is this peculiar to this season only or is it a trend likely to be
repeated in coming years?  Even more philosophical, have the recent NC$$
rules changes forced parity upon college hockey?  Maybe...I think it's too
soon to tell, however.
 
Back to HE vs the ECAC, again, I am not surprised at the results so far and
expect they'll end up pretty close to .500 for each league.  I have
consistently voted more ECAC teams in my top 15 in the hockey-l poll each
week than HE teams, and I don't think I have put more than 3 HE teams in
any of my top 15s.
 
The fact that so many of the HE-ECAC games have been close and that there
have been upsets on each side, and that the series is pretty equal (HE
leads 10-9-4, .522) will hopefully keep friendly interest in the games high
and we'll see more of these games in the future.
---
Mike Machnik    [log in to unmask]   Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.)    *HMN*