On 9/26/07, Todd Nielson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This is certainly not good news.  Its never good to see a team fold,
> especially a new-ish program.  For one, I don't want to see  the dominoes
> start to fall if the CHA can't find another member.  And the league hasn't
> had any luck finding a sixth for at least the past year.  Not a good
> prognosis.

I'm not sure what the ramifications are on the other four CHA teams.
The only nice thing is that (like the players) they have a year to
figure it out. Syracuse might be a very short-term answer, but I'm not
sure if they're starting up next year.

> Even more curious, I see from WSU's press release that they are keeping
> women's hockey.  This is said to be a financial decision, but doesn't
> keeping the women's team diminish the cost savings significantly?

Not necessarily. I suspect one of the big expenses for the WSU men's
team was travel, especially being in a league as far-flung as the CHA.

Taking a quick look at the women's schedule, it looks like they travel
seven times. Six of those are overnight (, all overnight, but all but
one being bus trips. (The exception would be Northeastern, where they
would likely fly.) The Women's CHA is a bus league, and (this year at
least) Wayne doesn't make any trips west.

The men, OTOH, rack up the frequent flyer miles.  They have 12 trips,
only one of which is a same-day trip. Five of the remaining 11 are
flights (Anchorage, Minnesota, Bemidji twice and Huntsville), and
three of those are for conference games. This means that the men would
likely be on the hook for a couple of flights per year every year.

WSU may also choose to move the women's program to a smaller (and
cheaper) rink, realizing some savings on ice time costs in addition to
the savings realized by dropping the men's program entirely.

John

-- 
John Edwards
I used to put quotes here.