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John T Whelan <[log in to unmask]> writes: >* A modest proposal: > Wasn't Vermont thinking about bolting to Hockey East along >with RPI? If the ECAC takes Niagra and lets HE have UVM, the >geography is preserved (ECAC=NY/NJ+Ivy; HE=New England-Ivies) and the >ECAC stays at 12 teams. I have not heard serious talk about Vermont joining HE. Many people I have talked to around HE would like to bring Vermont in, but I do not believe the university is seriously interested. I don't expect that any expansion such as that which has been discussed would involve teams from either HE or the ECAC jumping ship to the other conference. That just doesn't seem likely right now. We can talk about all sorts of ideas, but I think we should remember that this whole discussion began because of the mention of the very real possibility that three new teams would be joining HE or the ECAC soon. I want to draw the distinction between that which is grounded in fact and that which is merely speculation. The ideas about teams jumping ship are only speculation. >* UConn: > I see no reason, from the leagues' perspective, why UConn >should join the ECAC instead of HE. They're in New England, which is >HE territory just as western NY is ECAC territory, plus as we've >discussed, HE has room for new teams, the ECAC doesn't. I don't understand this concept of "territory" that some people have brought up. It almost sounds like some people want to wage a war or something. This wasn't an issue when RPI was considering switching to HE. If Niagara wishes to join HE and UConn wishes to join the ECAC because those are the conferences that those schools wish to be affiliated with (or vice versa), then I do not see what the problem is. After all, "HE territory" has five ECAC teams in it (four Ivies, but still). It is no big deal to HE. It should not matter if HE expands into New York. And don't forget that in the West, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, MTU and NMU are in the WCHA while LSSU is in the CCHA. This doesn't even begin to discuss other sports where territorial boundaries for conferences are not even an issue. I.e., the Big East, which ranges from New England to Indiana to Florida. And the Northeast-10, the DivII conference that Merrimack is a member of for its other sports, just accepted Lemoyne after Springfield left. The NE-10 used to be made up of 10 New England DivII schools. Lemoyne is in Syracuse, NY. The real issues here revolve around which conferences the new schools want to be affiliated with, and whether or not those conferences want to take them into the fold. In New England, we already have some schools that wish to be affiliated with HE and some that wish to be affiliated with the ECAC. No problem. All of the New York schools are currently affiliated with the ECAC, but that could change someday. It almost did a few years ago. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93 ***** Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at: ***** ***** http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html ***** HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.