Steve Weisfeldt writes: >Mike Machnik <[log in to unmask]> writes: > >>A while ago in talking to HE commissioner Bob DeGregorio, I wondered >>if it would be possible for HE and the CCHA to set up some sort of >>nonconference agreement. Bob said that although this would be nice, >>the league really only has jurisdiction over conference games. Any >>nonconference games would have to be arranged by the schools >>themselves. > >A few years ago Hockey East and the WCHA had an interlocking schedule in >which every team from HE played every team from the WCHA once and the >games counted as conference games for both conferences. How did this >arrangement come about? Actually, this agreement began with the HE & WCHA teams playing each other twice a year in games that counted in both teams' league records. This continued for two seasons, long enough for one home series and one away series, until, I believe, the WCHA's desire to play more games vs WCHA members led to the change whereby everyone played everyone from the other conference once instead. I was not a follower of HE in 1983 when the agreement was set up, but I am sure that it was arranged by the conferences themselves. However, we are still talking about conference games here. A CCHA-HE agreement like the one I mentioned above would involve *nonconference* games since you aren't going to be able to set up an interlocking CCHA-HE schedule now w/o someone cutting back on league schedules. Just wanted to point out the difference between the two situations. BTW, note that when the agreement was announced on 12/2/83 (according to the HE chronology), the WCHA had 6 teams and HE had 7. That made it much easier to set up such a schedule. But the WCHA would expand before HE even began its first season of play, adding MTU & NMU from the CCHA. Looking back, I think it's kind of amazing that the interlocking schedule lasted as long as it did (5 years), and I think it would be nearly impossible to do something like that today. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93