Mike writes:
>    Now you've heard everything.  Hockey East is apparently
>    petitioning to the NCAA to be allowed to change their league
>    games to two 25-minute halves!
 
*Gag*  What's going on over there?  First there was the championship game
with the two ten-minute third periods (a Shawn Walsh move -- legal, but
strange as all hell), now this.  Are the Division III games set up this way?
I swear I've heard of this before, and I THINK it was in connection with a
Division III playoff game, but I'm not sure.  If this is true, what do
Division III fans think of this setup?  Inquiring minds want to know... (or
maybe it was high school?)
 
>                                    Talk about losing all the
>    credibility that they've worked so hard to build up.  The
>    main reason for this, as expected, is the mighty dollar sign.
>    Cable tv thinks the games are too long.
 
You can't do much in college hockey (or anywhere else) without money, but
screwing up the games like this is ridiculous.  Too long?  I doubt very much
that a televised college hockey game, complete with those god-awful TV
timeouts, is any longer than a televised college football game, and it's
probably not that much longer than a televised college basketball game.  It
seems to me that cable would be more worried about the relatively smaller
number of viewers for college hockey on TV as opposed to those for the other
two sports.  I find it hard to believe that shortening the games this way
(or any way) would attract many more viewers -- in fact, I'd bet that it
would drive a fair number of them away.  Or are those cable stations in such
a hurry to get to the tractor pull and pro wrestling footage? :-)  Anyone
know how PASS feels about the CCHA games?
 
>    I have a VERY shaky copy of the 90-91 HE schedule.  It includes
>    tourneys at Providence, Maine, the Auld Lang Syne at Vermont with
>    Northeastern & UNH, BC & BU playing Harvard nonleague, and both BC
>    and BU going to RPI (!).   Next week I'll try to send out some of
>    the notable nonleague matchups.  There are still more HE-ECAC
>    matchups.
 
Someday I'd like to see Hockey East and the ECAC play some sort of inter-
locking schedule, although I don't think the games should count in the
standings of either league.  No, NOT because some of the ECAC teams would
likely get killed!  I just don't think non-league games should apply in
determining the league standings, that's all.  Anyway, it's a natural
matchup geographically, and I'd like to see some of the old pre-split
rivalries come back -- Cornell-BU, Cornell-Providence, Brown-Providence,
Dartmouth-UNH, Harvard-any Boston area team, etc.  I know some of these
games have been scheduled over the last couple of years, and it looks like
some are going to be scheduled in the future.  I'd like games like this to
become yearly events.  I'd also like to see what kind of rivalries
Merrimack, Lowell, and Maine (love those bus trips!) could get into with
ECAC teams.
 
Just a fantasy.  It's probably going to stay that way for a while, because
the ECAC limits its teams to eight non-league games, and the Ivies only play
four. (Yeesh!)  These numbers would have to increase to allow a real HE-
ECAC schecule to come about.  Anyway, the HE-ECAC matchups that Mike refers
to are steps in the right direction.  Looks like the acrimony over the 1984
split has died down.
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
 
"I have chosen not to return to the show next season.  Instead, my wife and
 I have decided to share a vacation in the relative peace and quiet of
 Beirut."
-- Former "Roseanne" executive producer Jeff Harris, in a full-page ad in
   _Daily Variety_ announcing his resignation