Ryan Stone writes: >with a question. Actually this has always bothered me. What posesses a league >to want to play each other so many times during a season. Don't you think 2 >games would be sufficient, 1 home 1 away. Traveling partners as is done in >the ECAC can be arranged to make travel easier, and those teams who WANT to play >an extra game with a conference RIVAL can schedule it in the many extra games >left over for non-league play. This 3 game 2 year cylce is ridiculous and >playing each other 4 times is worse. If I am correct, if Michigan had beaten >Wisconsin in the Semi-Final, they would be playing a National Championship >against a team they had ALREADY faced 5 times. That probably would have been > First of all, Wisconsin is in the WCHA and Michigan is in the CCHA. I don't believe they met during the regular season. I assume you mean LSSU and Michigan. Traveling partners for a 1 home 1 away series may be fine for the ECAC, but it's not quite so easy out west. Look at the WCHA. The first problem is that you've got 9 teams, but beyond that, who would you pair North Dakota with? I'm just guessing distances, but I can't imagine there's any school within less than about 4 hours drive of Grand Forks. Same problem with Wisconsin. Minnesota is probably the closest rival, but that's still 250 miles off. I can't speak for the CCHA, but there are reasons the western schools have stuck with this scheduling as long as they have. I don't know if you should really say it's ridiculous until you've tried it. It builds up some exciting rivalries. Pam Sweeney Go Gophers!!!