{"id":24802,"date":"2002-10-08T22:46:48","date_gmt":"2002-10-09T03:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2002\/10\/08\/the-new-season-a-primer\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:54:30","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:54:30","slug":"the-new-season-a-primer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2002\/10\/08\/the-new-season-a-primer\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Season: A Primer"},"content":{"rendered":"
A year ago at this time, we were writing articles about how things had changed. Attitudes, fears, perspective, politics, religion … we, as Americans, it seemed, were changed in many ways. College hockey, too, had lost three ex-players in the September 11 terrorist attacks, and coaches were grappling with uncertainty as their players (kids) came back to school. In the aftermath, the NCAA made a change, implementing a policy that forced a reduction in travel for the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n
Unrelated, but equally unsettling in many ways, was the news that Maine coach Shawn Walsh had succombed to cancer, and Merrimack coach Chris Serino was also afflicted with a cancer scare of his own.<\/p>\n
In some ways, that all seems like yesterday, and in others, like it happened so long ago.<\/p>\n
One year later, while many of the same issues hover like a surreal fog — with still plenty of darkness in the geo-political realm — there is a noticeably more optimistic atmosphere as the 2002-03 college hockey season begins. For one, this summer, coach Serino received a clean bill of health. That was a nice start.<\/p>\n
Life always changes, and sports does too.<\/p>\n
This year, we again are writing about changes. Thankfully, this year’s changes are all about college
\nhockey, and they’re for the better. <\/p>\n
Ding, dong, regionalization’s dead.<\/p>\n
The NCAA’s Management Council, thanks to near-universal agreement on the issue, decided to eliminate the controversial one-year practice that came to be known as “Regionalization.”<\/p>\n
This policy required that any team within 300 miles of a regional site, must be placed there, and could not fly. Especially in a sport like hockey, that had, at the time, just two regionals and 12 teams, it made things very inflexible. And because there was such an imbalance of power between East and West last year, the regional brackets were lopsided.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, we weren’t the only ones criticizing this policy<\/a>. When the NCAA asked for opinions from its members, the response was overwhelmingly against the practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n The fear was that a practice begun because of a noble, though misguided, intent to deal with the travel issues in the aftermath of 9\/11, would be maintained solely because of the residual monetary benefits.<\/p>\n For college hockey, the move to four regionals only made the elimination of this policy that much more imperative.<\/p>\n From the day the 12-team tournament was approved in the late ’80s, college hockey people pined for the day the first-round byes could be eliminated and the tournament expanded to 16 teams.<\/p>\n Over the last few offseasons, the momentum built for this, finally reaching the highest levels of the NCAA. This summer, the expansion of the Division I men’s tournament was officially approved.<\/p>\n So here we are. Four regionals, 16 teams.<\/p>\n The positives are obvious. Hopefully we don’t have to hear any more whining from a school’s fans who don’t make the tournament because a MAAC or CHA team did.<\/p>\n The only question was whether there would be four four-team regionals, or two eight-team regionals.<\/p>\n It ultimately came down in favor of the former, because of the beauty of having four distinct regional champions, giving it a March Madness appeal.<\/p>\n But there is a concern that the relatively limited college hockey audience will be spread too thin over four regional locations. Long term, considering the growth of the sport over the years, that will cease to be a concern.<\/p>\n College Hockey America is a full-fledged member of the college hockey family now, thanks to its automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. It’s hard to foresee what the long-term makeup of college hockey’s “secondary”-level conferences will be, whether there will be more or less, or whatever, but for right now, it’s all looking up for the CHA.<\/p>\n In fact, the conference already has an NCAA win, thanks to Niagara’s victory over New Hampshire in 2000.<\/p>\n Right now, however, the favorite for the first-ever automatic berth is Wayne State, under the leadership of the only coach in the conference who’s been to a Division I tournament, Bill Wilkinson, who last took Western Michigan there in 1996.<\/p>\n The ECAC now allows its teams to play a full complement of 34 regular-season games allowed by the NCAA, which is a big step in the right direction.<\/p>\n Ivy League schools, on the other hand, are still restricted to 29 games. It was a magnanimous move on the Ivies’ part to allow the switch for the good of the league, even if their own schools would be at a further disadvantage.<\/p>\n Of course, no one is crying for a pair of Ivies — Cornell and Harvard — who are expected to be the class of the league this season.<\/p>\n The ECAC has also followed in the CCHA’s footsteps by allowing all 12 of its teams into the ECAC tournament. But after some hue and cry, the league decided against the Final 6 format, and instead is adding another weekend of best-of-three playoffs that will allow just four teams to make the final weekend.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, that final weekend moves to Albany this year, from Lake Placid — which is like moving the Yankees out of The Bronx (although it’s not like that’s never been talked about).<\/p>\nThe Tournament<\/h4>\n
Join the Club<\/h4>\n
Join the Club, Part Deux<\/h4>\n
Changing the Rules<\/h4>\n