I must agree with Mike on this one, at least to a point.  Certainly,
major conference membership has relieved both UAF and UAA of their past
scheduling problems, which required the Alaska schools to offer
additional "enticements" to attract Lower 48 opponents.  (As if an
all-day plane ride and Alaska winter weather wasn't enough...)  In fact,
with both schools picking up a major portion of travel expenses and
making other accomodations (3-game series to minimize absences from
class, etc.) there seems to be far less need to exempt conference games
played in Alaska from the 34-game limit.
 
However, I still think that non-conference games (hey, let's don't kill
those tourney plans yet) should remain exempt from the cap.  Like Mike, I
am very disppointed that UAF (and UAA) will not have the latitude to
schedule teams like Maine, Harvard, Merrimack, Lowell and the long list
of other fine Eastern teams which have made the trip to Alaska in past
years.  The fans love it and (I hope) the teams enjoyed the chance to
visit Alaska, many for the first time.  The logical means to continue
this fine tradition is using a tournament format.  In the past, both UAF
and UAA have hosted some excellent tournaments, as both schools have
great facilities and fan support.
 
Barring that, I would personally rather see fewer conference games and
more non-conference (read that Eastern) games.  After all, why must
conference teams play each other 4 times a season?  Football and
basketball don't do it that way.
 
Finally, as for other Alaska team sports, there are no similar exemptions
to my knowledge.  Mainly this is due to the fact that we only support
small team sports (basketball, x-c skiing/running, rifle, volleyball,
etc.) at the Div. II level.  There are well established "western" leagues
for these sports (sorry, Washington and Oregon are western states, not
Minnesota and Wisconsin...) and the teams are much smaller and have less
gear to transport, resulting in less cost to visiting schools.
 
I'd be happy to give any additional unsanctioned insight into this
subject, as I am very concerned with the impact of conference games on
Div. I hockey in Alaska.  Don't misunderstand, I think everyone here is
100% thrilled with conference membership.  Let's just not sever our
historic ties with our Eastern friends completely.
 
Mark Sonnier
UAF '90, '96 (?)