On Tue, 16 Apr 1996, Mark Sonnier wrote:
 
> 1) The trip to Alaska is long and hard on players from the Lower 48.
>
> I, for one, do not see what the big deal is here.  Minneapolis to Anchorage
> is a five hour flight.  How long is the bus ride from the Madison to
> Houghton?
 
There is more to it than just time. If we look at UAA record last season,
we see the following:
 
Home: 9-6-3
Road: 0-17-2
 
These look like two different teams. There is such a thing as a "home ice
advantage", but this goes beyond that.
 
I saw Anchorage play the Gophers in Mariucci during the regular season
(and in the first round of the playoffs), and they looked disorganized,
confused, and tired. They hardly looked like a college team.
 
But then I listened to the games in Alaska over the radio (the TV crew,
note, decided it was too far to go to televise the games). The Gophers
were lackluster, and the Seawolves gave them all they could handle.
 
This is an Alaska team that was never swept at home: not by Colorado
College, Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth, nobody.
 
Yet this is the same team that did not win a game on the road. Despite 19
tries, they couldn't beat even the lowliest WCHA team after their trip.
 
Now I find it hard to believe that the trip from Alaska to Minneapolis
(or Denver, or wherever) is the same as a similar bus ride (although, to
be fair, the Gophers have a ~five hour trip to Houghton, Grand Forks, and
Madison, and they were 1-5-0 in those games).
 
> Judging from both Alaska
> squads' home records this season, the visitors from Outside should want to
> play up here as often as possible...
 
As we see from the stats for Anchorage, the home games were not bad at
all. As I said, they were never swept.
 
> 2) Should UAF and UAA end up in the same conference, double ditto on 1).
>
> Perhaps a Friday-Saturday-Sunday
> series on consecutive weekends in both towns could work.  That way, a team
> could make the Alaska trip for a week and a half every other year.  This
> three-game stint seems to work in the CCHA.  The school hosting the second
> weekend's games could even make their library and computer facilities
 
I agree that this is about the only way to go, if both schools end up in
the same conference -- with vacations, just one or two teams would have
to miss any classes at all. That is, if the conferences force the teams
to play three games vs each opponent.
 
> 3) The WCHA now plays that funky four-game/two-game series thing and calls
> it a schedule.
>
> Whoa, what a complicated picture.  I agree with John H.  I think the current
> three game schedule that UAF plays in the CCHA is a model way to deal with
> Alaska games.  Add in a divisional system and some non-conference games and
> you're there.
 
I'll wait and see how things work out, thank you. I haven't heard from
teams that have made the three day series. Certainly, the current WCHA
format has flaws -- no argument there. On the other hand, it is just as
close to parity as the CCHA schedule, IMHO. If there were a few more
games allowed by the NCAA, there would be complete parity in the schedule
(well, very close, anyway) and some room for some additional games.
 
Or, if the conferences were just a little smaller, we could be all set,
as well.
 
> This will be the real downfall, though, considering the
> WCHA's anal retentiveness on not letting members play and non-conference
> games...
 
It is not in the WCHA's mandate that they must have little to no
conference games. If they were really interested, they could make the
schedule completely balance and have no non-conference games whatsoever.
The current complicated system is in place precisely to allow some
non-conference games.
 
I think the WCHA would jump at the opportunity to play more non-conference
games. Why not? Their record in non-conference games is healthy (the few
that they have). They have an opportunity to make a little more money for
important matchups (i.e. currently Minnesota-Wisconsin vs
Michigan-Michigan State or Anchorage vs Fairbanks). Other than attempting
to make the four game per conference opponent schedule work out, is there
any evidence that the WCHA is actively interested in reducing
non-conference match ups?
 
> 4) Why not make UAF and UAA travel partners?
>
> Egad!  Putting Siamese fighting fish together in a ziplok bag would be less
> risky...  Might as well make RPI and Cornell travel partners.  Or how about
> Minnesota and Wisconsin?  (Getting the idea???)  Aside from the distance
> factor (not really a problem, as it's only a 45 minute plane ride - in fact
> during the home-and-home each fall both schools make the round trip the same
> day to save on hotel)
 
Well, being travel partners doesn't require being nice to one another. :-)
 
The distance factor is the prohibitive thing, I think. Could a Mankato
State and St. Cloud (two possible travel pairs) go to Anchorage and
Fairbanks, respectively, play on Friday, swap on Saturday, and fly home
after the weekend?
 
Could UAA and UAF travel together to Mankato State and St. Cloud,
respectively, and do the same? It certainly doesn't seem very convenient.
I must admit, though, to knowing little about the situation. Do the
Fairbanks players, in flying to the lower 48, travel through Anchorage?
 
The length of the plane ride (I am not sure how to travel 400 miles in 45
minutes, but I suppose it could be done) is not the issue. Both traveling
teams need to stay in one place and travel to another, correct?
 
> 5) How about a "western" conference with two divisions?
>
> Not a bad idea.  But this angle must feature ample inter-division play and
> non-conference games to preserve ancient rivalries, which would also appear
> to be a divine bovine for some flatlanders.
 
Going to two divisions in a conference in which any team plays an
unequal number of games with a significant portion of other teams in a
conference makes having a conference worthless at best, and absurd at worst.
 
Why not just split into two conferences, and play the other games as
non-conference games, which everyone seems to want more of? That way the
disparity of conference schedules doesn't get out of hand, and yet other
games get scheduled. Hockey East and the ECAC are thinking of an
"interlocking schedule" in the next few years, and Hockey East and the
WCHA had one as well. It doesn't require all the teams be in one conference.
 
> Did I miss any hot buttons?
 
No, I think you got them all. :-)
 
> Bottom line is this: From a fan's perspective, I don't think UAF will move
> in with Anchorage in the WCHA.  This is due mainly to the fact that the
> league powers will not think much has changed since they nixed UAF's bid to
> join 4 years ago.
 
I think you are absolutely correct on this score. I see expansion in the
west as the only way to solve this problem.
 
                                -Lee-nerd
                                [log in to unmask]
 
 
"It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is
going on - a truism that I often find damnably annoying."
                                -Robert Heinlein
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.