Thanks to Beeeej for responding to Brian's Nat'l Realignment Plan in more detail than I have time to. I thought I'd just add that geography makes Eastern league-engineering somewhat different from the Western sort. If the ECAC had far-flung outlying teams that neccessitated two-game weekend series, then twelve teams might be an inconvenient number, since the only completely balanced schedule would have each team playing each other one four times. But since all pairs of ECAC schools are less than 400 miles apart (and a couple of them are in neighboring towns), we have a two-games-per-pair-per-season travel partner system that runs quite smoothly. And likewise, everyone is close enough together that there's no problem with leagues overlapping in their geographical footprints. Aside from that, I also take exception to the thought that *anyone* is in a position to tell leagues how to re-shape themselves to form a national structure. If the CCHA and WCHA want to get together and work out a plan for Western realignment, or the five or six Big Ten schools want to form their own conference, that's their prerogative, but if the teams and leagues involved don't consider their piece of the national structure broke, no one else can fix it. John Whelan, Cornell '91 <[log in to unmask]> <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html> Attention ECAC: Eight is Enough--Flush the Final Five! HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.