Mike Machnik, Deron Treadwell, etc. have commented on ECAC and Hockey East expansion (and teams willingness to join Division I hockey in the East). A modest proposal follows: The ECAC already has 12 teams and the Ivies are limited to 29 games. No problem. I believe the ECAC used to have upwards of 16 teams (the Ivies, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, RPI/Rensselaer, Providence, UNH, Colgate, Vermont, BU, and BC). This was before the ECAC/Hockey East split. My apologies for missing anyone on this list. They managed 16 teams then. The league could be split two divisions. The Ivies could have their own division, play each other twice, and have their Ivy League Champion. They could limit their games to 29. The other division could have Clarkson, St. Lawrence, RPI/Rensselaer, Colgate, Vermont, Union, and up to two additional teams. Each division would play each other team in the division twice (14 games for the non-Ivies, less for the Ivies) and play each team in the other division once (8 games max.). This would leave the each team at least 7 games to schedule non-conference games as they wish, more if their school/division allowed it. The Ivies care more about who among them land on top of the Ivy pile than anything else, in my opinion (they crown their own champion amongst themselves), there is little real rivalry between RPI and the Ivies (except for Harvard, because of the strength of the team; Brown, because their seems to be some blood lust between the teams since the noisemaker rule; Cornell, because they are from New York State). The Ivies have a lot of rivalry between themselves, so let them play twice. I could care less if RPI plays Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, etc. twice or once. Once is enough in my opinion. The biggest rivalries for RPI are amongst Clarkson and St. Lawrence, and to a lesser extent UVM, Colgate, Harvard and Cornell. I am sure that Union will be a big rival sometime in the next five years, but they are not right now. (No offense to Union fans, but until you field a competitive team that has a chance at beating RPI on a consistent basis, RPI will not consider you a rival no matter what the local newspapers say - one playoff upset 2 or 3 years ago does not qualify). Is it any coincidence that these are mostly NY teams (and Vermont is right across Lake Champlain)? Why not build on this regional situation to create more rivalries? RPI used to have strong rivalries with UNH, Providence, BC and BU. Most people in the Capital district would like to see games against these teams each year. It's good for Eastern Hockey and it's good for RPI (and if RPI is competitive, it's good for Hockey East also). If Hockey East doesn't want to play us, then RPI could schedule games against CCHA or WCHA teams. At the very least, they could schedule games with Ivy Division opponents until opportunities opened up. I don't begrudge the Ivies for what they want. They seem to expect something different out of the ECAC than the rest of the ECAC does. Aside from Cornell, most fans from the Ivy schools are not that concerned with hockey. Maybe it's changed in the last 5 years, but when I announced games it was common to see a half empty 2500 seat Ivy rink when they played RPI. Maybe it was because they were playing a non-Ivy opponent, I don't know, but if that's the case, it just illustrates the point I am making. Their own division within a common league would allow them them semi-autonomy. They could have as restrictive recruiting rules as they wanted, restrict the numbers of games, etc. If Harvard wanted to play RPI twice a year, they still could. If Dartmouth wanted to play Vermont twice a year, they could also. They could nurture the rivalries they wanted without forcing the rest of the league to be forced into it across the board (sorry, but I just don't get up for the twice annual Dartmouth/RPI clash). If the ECAC got large enough that it split into two leagues, so what? It happened once already, and it wasn't the end of the world. Fact is, college hockey is growing in popularity and more teams will be seeking to move up to Division I. The existing leagues can accept this and deal with it in an intelligent manner, or they can ignore it and let something far less sensible happen (like having Canisius or Niagara play Maine, BC or BU twice a year). Eastern Hockey is becoming balkanized. Splitting the ECAC up into its natural divisions (the Ivies and everyone else) would regionalize the league. Let the non-Ivy ECAC division concentrate on New York State, Vermont and Western Massachusetts as a region. UConn would be a natural for Hockey East (less than 2 hours from Boston and certain to give them some NY City coverage). The Ivies concentrate on themselves, which is what they do in football and maybe other sports as well (I plead ignorance on this). There is plenty of hockey to go around, but why have a lot of teams traveling 8-9 hours to get to schools in their league. You'll always have the exception, but why make it the rule. Can you imagine doing this 6-7 weekends a year as a student athlete? It's not like they can fly to some of these places easily. Any comments or ideas? Does anyone from the leagues subscribe to Hockey-L? -Ken Johnson RPI/Rensselaer '87 HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.