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! 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. If I hear that there's a serious chance of this actually happening, I'm going right up to the commish's office myself and voice my opinion. It would give me a good excuse for a vacation in Maine. There are so many reason this is wrong: bad ice at the end of the game, players having to get used to two different game lengths for league & nonleague games, the NCAA committee possibly looking at HE teams differently because of their shorter games, having to throw all the record books out the window, and so on. On the positive side of things (unrelated), it looks like HE teams will be setting up some kind of schedule with the Alaska teams so that each year, several HE teams will go to Alaska and they will in turn come here to play several teams. It won't be anything like the old interlocking schedule with the WCHA, though. It's just an unwritten agreement to schedule more games against each other. 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. As for recruiting, I have the list at home, but Merrimack has signed seven HUGE players (all over 6'0", 200) for next year. A couple are real blue-chippers, big forwards who can score and hit. Two other guys they really wanted were lost to BC and BU. Merrimack was close to getting them but when one suddenly had a great Hockey Night in Boston tourney a month ago, BC came a-calling and said they'd take him if the kid went to prep school for a year - so guess where he's going next year. Could be a risk, but those kids just can't say no to BC. Another kid, Matt Smith, a star with state champ Catholic Memorial, was all but signed when BU expressed an interest, and since almost all CM kids want to go to BU, he was lost. Ron Anderson is learning how hard it can be to recruit in Hockey East. Before, everyone ignored him so he was able to get the kids like Jim Vesey, Jim Hrivnak, Mark Ziliotto, Richard Pion, Chris Kiene, etc. but now when BC/BU hears Merrimack is interested in a kid, they go take a look too, and more often than not if they really want him, they can get him. That's why almost all of Merrimack's recruits for next year are from Canada - two from Saskatchewan and one from Nova Scotia. Here's hoping Shawn stays in Maine! Somehow I think he'd be against the two halves. But that's another reason he might go to Denver - if he thinks they're really going to do it... - mike (one more final to go! and this one's a killer...)