Air Force Joins Atlantic Hockey

[www.uscho.com]

They've been paired with RIT as their travel partner. Rochester & Colorado Springs? Man, we thought we had it tough with Princeton/Quinnipiac or Harvard/Dartmouth!

Of course, this also leaves CHA trying to find a sixth member again, or they'll lose their auto-bid.

Beeeej

I don't think they are specifically "travel" pairs. The pairs play each other four times a year, every year. The remaining opponents alternate between two and four games a year.

Ah, gotcha.

Right they called it "pair partner" (redundant oftenly much?), and essentially only means that RIT will be going to Colorado every year, as opposed to the other teams which don't have to do so as often (or at least, they'll play Air Force four times a year, I can only assume it's home and home).

This is apparently instead of AHA's attempt to make Air Force play fewer home games - they had insisted on something like 1:2 home:away, but I guess they worked out another schedule instead, whereby not every team will visit Colorado every year.

Note that this doensn't take effect until 06-07, giving CHA a year to find a way to keep their autobid. That said, this is the 2nd (or 3rd?) time that this has happened. Seems like it'd be better to have some kind of reorganization so that people aren't always jumping ship.

Let Niagra (and Navy) join AHA, and pick up some middle of the country teams to make it a midwest league (+ UAH), so that people don't always want to escape the travel situation. Say like North Dakota St and places out there.

I dont know the distances, but I guess it isn't that different from the Alaska team's travel in the WCHA and CCHA. Still seems weird that they are choosing to be in that situation though. I wonder who will enter the CHA.

Isn't Navy upgrading their program to D-1? If the timeframe works out, that seems like a logical candidate.

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:

Isn't Navy upgrading their program to D-1? If the timeframe works out, that seems like a logical candidate.[/q]

It appears they want to do this, but it will still be a while, apparently: [www.uscho.com]

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:

Isn't Navy upgrading their program to D-1? If the timeframe works out, that seems like a logical candidate.[/q]
I wouldn't expect Navy to join the CHA with both Army and AF in the AHA. The following interesting interview was linked on USCHO [www.navysports.com].

I should also say that I would imagine Navy would do everything in its power to get into Atlantic Hockey in order to play with service academy rivals Army and Air Force.

Meanwhile, I wonder if Canisius would be interested in moving to the CHA. They obviously don't hold much allegiance to Atlantic Hockey, given that they applied to the ECAC to fill Vermont's vacancy. Additionally, I would think they would want to play more regular games against local rival Niagara. Once Canisius cleans up its players' acts, gets a new coach, and basically achieves some real stability, I imagine this could become a significant possibility. My second choice among already existing teams would probably be Mercyhurst, for mostly the same reasons.

Mercyhurst would also be a decent match geographically for CHA.

At this point, other than scholarships, what incentive is there to move to an apparently "sinking ship" for schools like Mercyhurst and Canisius? Frankly a better move for all would be a conference with

Mercyhurst
Wayne St.
Robert Morris
Canisius
Niagara
RIT

Sort of a Great Lakes Conference. It would cerytainly contain travel expenses. Then let Hunstville join CCHA and Bemidji join WCHA.

Conference realignment has been a common topic on the USCHO board for quite some time now (though it usually involves bickering about the consequences of forming a Big Ten Hockey Conference ). Not too long ago someone recommended the formation of a GLIAC conference that would include Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior, Ferris State, Wayne State, and Mercyhurst. (I'm fairly certain the motivation behind this is just to put Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan in the same conference, so as to bring their historic rivalry to the forefront.) A Great Lakes conference including Mercyhurst, Wayne State, Robert Morris, Canisius, Niagara, and RIT wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea, but it would probably need a different name that doesn't include the term "Great Lakes".

All of this ignores that conferences need 6 DI schools to get an auto-bid, and w/o an autobid most of these conferences would go nowhere.

[Q]Will Wrote:

Conference realignment has been a common topic on the USCHO board for quite some time now (though it usually involves bickering about the consequences of forming a Big Ten Hockey Conference ). Not too long ago someone recommended the formation of a GLIAC conference that would include Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior, Ferris State, Wayne State, and Mercyhurst. (I'm fairly certain the motivation behind this is just to put Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan in the same conference, so as to bring their historic rivalry to the forefront.) A Great Lakes conference including Mercyhurst, Wayne State, Robert Morris, Canisius, Niagara, and RIT wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea, but it would probably need a different name that doesn't include the term "Great Lakes".[/q]A quick google search shows that there is a GLIAC conference already - a DII group that includes Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior, Ferris State, Wayne State, and Mercyhurst - but one that doesn't sponsor ice hockey. That's probably where the idea came from. The GLIAC could, I suppose, start a hockey conference with these schools and add RMU, Canisius, Niagara and RIT as hockey-only members. This is essentially what the MAAC did when it first started sponsoring ice hockey. I don't know if the fact that it's a DII conference would make any difference. The reason this definitely won't happen (well, aside from the fact that there's no way MTU, NMU, LSSU and Ferris would want to leave their current conferences) is the fact that the NCAA now requires something like a seven year wait before a new conference can be awarded an auto-bid. This is a recent development - the MAAC/AH and CHA only had to wait something like 3 years.

No idea if this would apply to the Big Ten if they ever decided to officially sponsor hockey. Hopefully so, although knowing what I do about college athletics I expect that the Big Televen would get a waiver in that instance. I'm not sure about the Ivies if we ever decided to break off from the ECAC (and if so hopefully would prevent anyone from ever thinking along these lines).

You would have to think that the Ivy League and the Big Ten would be perceived by the NCAA as existing conferences, even if their split as separate hockey conferences were new. At least that would be the rationalization of an instant autobid in the event of a split.

[Q]Jeff Hopkins '82 Wrote:

You would have to think that the Ivy League and the Big Ten would be perceived by the NCAA as existing conferences, even if their split as separate hockey conferences were new. At least that would be the rationalization of an instant autobid in the event of a split.[/q]

The Ivy League at least would have the benefit of saying that we've had six teams playing D-I varsity hockey together unofficially for about a century and officially for about 40 years within the same conference. A Big Ten Hockey Conference (affectionately known on the USCHO board as the BTHC) would only have five D-I varsity teams with established histories and at least one newcomer to the varsity D-I world, which might be problematic when it comes to gaining an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.. But given that they are the almighty Big Ten, the NCAA would probably grant them a waiver anyway.