Charles Bell wrote: > Several reports have been floating around that some of the Big 10 schools > would like to form a Big 10 hockey conference. Does anyone else think this > is > a rotten idea? It would eliminate many of the fun rivalries (UND/ UM, > UND/UW, UM/UMD...etc) and take away the one aspect which makes college > hockey > different from other sports: it allows small schools to directly compete > with > the larger schools. As far as I know, there are no plans to form a Big 10 conference in hockey. I still think that there is a possibility that the large western schhols (i.e. the Big 10 plus Notre Dame) would break off if they felt that there was enough money in it by combining their marketing strength. A sideline to this is that Big 10 rules state that if a certain number of member institutions play a given varsity sport, it must be made a conference sport. Thus, if a couple of other schools (Penn State? Illinois?) were to overcome the problems with doing so (primarily Title IX), then such a splitting off would have to happen. As to your comment about the desirability of this happening, I am quite a bit more ambivalent. I do like playing Minnesota's current conference foes, but nothing gets me revved up like meeting the other Big 10 schools. The College Hockey Showcase ranks behind only Final Four weekend in terms of excitement level for me. None of the conference match-ups come close (except for Wisconsin, which falls into both categories). As things stand now, I'm happy with the current conferences. With the change to fewer conference games that the WCHA , I'd really like to find a way to include Ohio State in some form of round-robin and decide a true Big 10 champion. Much of my opinion changes, though, if more schools keep following Mankato State and Nebraska-Omaha . If more and more new schools are admitted into the WCHA, then the tradition that holds me here is going to be diluted. I have a hard time seeing myself getting real fired up to see UNO come to town. > Also, did MSC broadcast both games on Saturday, or just the UMN vs. MSt. > game? Only the evening game was broadcast. So someone needs to post some sort of recap of the Michigan-Wisconsin game. I'd like to know what went on. J. Michael Neal HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.