Source: http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1281&dept_id=517518&newsid=11421773&PAG=461&rfi=9
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ECAC WILL REPLACE VERMONT
The Eastern College Athletic Conference decided it will replace departing Vermont in time for the 2005-06 season, and may add two members to become a 13-team conference.
The league had mulled over remaining at 11 teams when Vermont leaves for Hockey East following the upcoming season.
Quinnipiac has been rumored as one of the teams being considered by the ECAC. Holy Cross, Niagara and Canisius have also been mentioned.
"We want to explore every option we have," said Yale Senior Associate Athletic Director Wayne Dean, the chairman of the ECAC expansion committee. "We still don’t know if we want 12 teams or 13."
The league will accept formal applications until May 15. Dean said the ECAC hopes to have all decisions finalized by July 1.
Now let's point out how the top half of that article looks eerily similar to the one that ran on USCHO.com two days earlier.
If the Ivy schools have a cap on regular season games, then adding two ECAC teams and four games to replace the one departed (Vermont) team could mean two games less out of (ECAC) conference that you could otherwise play against the likes of a Michigan State or Denver or BU. Since many of the ECAC teams aren't quality teams (less depth than the WCHA or Hockey East), it's hard to rack up quality wins in the conference. Cornell has the added disadvantage of not being able to play itself, which is the ECAC's most likely quality / top fifteen team most years.
Plus, who would be Dartmouth's travel partner? Vermont (the former partner) was about 100 miles away (and they felt like a natural pair). Quinnipiac is about 200 miles away from Dartmouth. I believe Dartmouth-Harvard (125 miles) is the basketball travel pairing along with Brown-Yale. Yale-Quinnipiac hockey would let teams use the same hotel both nights.
Would the ECAC ever consider not playing every other team in the league? In the (football) leagues where you don't play, say, two of your league's 11 other opponents, somebody can back into the title by having the good luck not to play, say, the #1 and #3 teams in the league.
I don't think ECAC hockey would go to an unbalanced schedule unless they split into divisions (at least, I hope not, and certainly not by choice). And the problems with divisions is that you have to keep the Ivies together - i.e. Cornell-Hahvahd, and, geographically, those divisions would make little sense .
I gotta think that common sense will win out and they'll return to 12 .
Dartmouth-Harvard will happen unless the added team is near Dartmouth - i.e. Holy Cross - in which case we'll see Dartmouth-new team, and everyone else will remain the same.
Yale-QU would make a logical pair, but then what do you do with Princeton? Do you say, "eh, it's a long trip anyway, stick Princeton and Brown together", or do you decide that Yale-QU would be nice but it'll have to be sacraficed, and keep Princeton-Yale and do QU-Brown, Harvard-Dartmouth .
I was thinking if Mercyhurst ever jumped to the ECAC, Pennsylvania is adjacent to NJ and Mercyhurst would make a good travel partner with Princeton. Excepting that Mercyhurst lies at the other end of Pennsylvania (400 miles from Erie to Princeton) and really should be a travel partner with Ohio State or the Cleveland Barons.
Holy Cross would be okay for travel pairing purposes, just as good as Quinnipiac. Niagara and Canisius or Mercyhurst would be a horror show if they came in on their own. And it's 500 to 550 miles to Cambridge. Maybe the ECAC will line up a couple used 737s (preferably ones never used by rock stars, because you know what happens when you put together rocks stars and smallish planes).
I'm guessing logical pairs such as QU-Yale would be bypassed to avoid some horrendous weekend trip pairing such as Princeton-Brown (230 miles).
The longest possible road trips (not pairings) right now I believe are SLU/Clarkson - Harvard at 400 (and not all Interstate miles either), SLU/Clarkson - Princeton at 375, and Cornell-Harvard and Dartmouth-Princeton both at around 325 miles. Yale really lucks out being in the geographic center of the Ivy League. Of course, that does mean you have to live in New Haven, which is basically (I'm not claiming this as original thought) Bridgeport plus a college.
[I just looked out the window. It's sunny and mild (well, a little humid.) What the heck am I doing online? Sheesh, this is too addictive.]
New Haven used to be crap, but it's gotten a lot nicer, especially around the center of town/New Haven green/Yale area. It's not a place I'd be too afraid to walk at night and I regularly go to dinner on Howe St when I'm at home in Ct... I spent a few days (well, just over a week) doing Jury Duty at the New Haven courthouse just off the green and it's a nice area.
But as much as I'll always be a Hartford hockey fan... downtown Hartford *is* crap, and all the revitilization projects have hit a dead end, mainly cause none of them are actually really downtown, within walking distance of the Hartford CC, so it wouldn't do $#i^ for what is still Hartford's biggest regular 'event', that being hockey.
Edit: and I know what I'm doing inside. Six page, single-spaced paper, corresponding poster, another project, and a final this week... woohoo.
That said, I agree with the main point there that HC or QU are the best, and pretty much only, geographic matches.
The faculty ghetto outside New Haven looks like the ones in Palo Alto or Chapel Hill.
Faculty could not afford to live in Palo Alto unless they inherited (the Bush way), married well (the Kerry way), or have university sponsored housing.
[Q]billhoward Wrote:
Faculty could not afford to live in Palo Alto unless they inherited (the Bush way), married well (the Kerry way), or have university sponsored housing.
[/q]
Or you could be this guy http://www.stanford.edu/dept/english/cw/facultybios/wolff.html ;-)
[Q]jeh25 Wrote:
Or you could be this guy http://www.stanford.edu/dept/english/cw/facultybios/wolff.html[/q]
I don't understand your reference.
Wolff's success in writing and getting a movie made from "This Boy’s Life" has made him more, ah, comfortable than many of his peers at Stanford. (Stanford actually has been good about letting the technically minded professors do startups on the side and get rich on the side rather than lose them all to Silicon Valley. They would be more likely poster children for profs who can live comfortably off their own skills.)
[Q]billhoward Wrote:
Since many of the ECAC teams aren't quality teams (less depth than the WCHA or Hockey East), it's hard to rack up quality wins in the conference. Cornell has the added disadvantage of not being able to play itself, which is the ECAC's most likely quality / top fifteen team most years.[/q]
The NCAA's "quality wins" kludge doesn't include wins against teams from your own conference.