I have to profess a little bewilderment at this entire thread. First, OUR game? I always thought of myself as a fan of a great sport who was fortunate enough to make contact with others who are more involved in college hockey than I. Somehow I don't see Hockey-l taking out ownership of college hockey, now or in the future. Maybe we could buy out the Illinois-Chicago franchise though. :-) The point of my response is that all this talk about a super conference for college hockey seems ridiculous. How many big schools are there? I count six (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Boston College, UMass--OK I'm not a math major.) That leaves how many schools--20, 25 small schools? And these small schools will then support this super conference of the TV elite? And the big schools will provide all the fans to fill the stands for the phinal phour (tell that to Maine, Vermont, RPI, adn the rest who have strong fan contingents). At these big schools hockey isn't even the major spectator port, with the exception of Minnesota. Even hockey mad Wisconsin was more excited about its recent success at basketball, and of course football. I can't imagine these seven schools providing a base from which college hockey would grow. I don't even think they would want to. You can look at the success that certain small schools hav with their programs the Maines, the LSSU's, to see that big isn't necessarily best in college hockey. And the opportunity to perform on national TV certainly isn't a major reason why a recruit would elect to attend a Big School. One can consider all the basics in running a good program, coaching, tradition, (gasp!) educational opportunities, as strong drawing points for the potential recruit. In fact playing on national TV would seem to have negligable appeal-who would actually be watching other than your family, friends and Hockey-l? I'm a big proponent of growing college hockey, at least to the point where it registers on the ESPN Richter (Mike, Barry) Scale. But re-painting the sport to showcase the Big Seven--clearly a non-starter. ******************************************************************************** Brian Morris RPI Engineers--Who Knows About Next Year [log in to unmask] HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.