Now's Not The Time

Long time readers of Without a Peer may remember that during the "tsunami" of 2011 - the one which altered the landscape of college hockey on a scope unseen in 25 years - we endorsed the idea of RPI leaving the ECAC and joining Hockey East, had they been offered a spot to go along with Notre Dame's accession.

We had previously outlined the arguments from both RPI's and Hockey East's perspective, and while it was never absolute perfection for both sides, we thought it more or less made sense on the assumption that UConn was content giving hockey the short shrift. When that changed, they became the far more common sense 12th team and Hockey East absolutely made the right call by bringing the Huskies on board.

So, now that the question's come up, where do all of the points stand five years on? A good number of them have definitely changed - and they've started making an RPI-HEA marriage look like it's not quite as good of a deal as it did back then.

From RPI's perspective:

Competition: This simply isn't as big of an issue anymore. In 2011, the ECAC had gone eight years without placing a team in the Frozen Four, and just two in the previous 15. Now, as a conference, we've had teams there in four of the last five seasons, won two national championships (including seeing an all-ECAC championship in 2013), and are standing by for a potential third. Whatever has happened, whether it's a partial function of the shuffling or simply a resurgence of the ECAC, suddenly it's not looking like being in the ECAC is necessarily a roadblock to winning a national championship. That's not to say that Hockey East isn't still a step up, it's just that it's not that big of a step anymore.

Recruiting: To some extent, we could be seeing a microcosm of how RPI might fare in Hockey East in recruiting simply by looking at Quinnipiac. While the Engineers are basically already competing with Hockey East schools for top talent, there's also the academic issue that has to be examined closely - Quinnipiac may be a very good school with higher than average selectivity, but chances are pretty good that they've got a step on the rest of the ECAC in terms of the pool of players that can academically qualify to play there. That's just one team out of 11 - now imagine it being more or less the entire rest of the league. While being in Hockey East may help attract some better players simply by association, there's no doubt RPI's already losing most recruiting battles against Boston College. It gets worse when you're in the same conference. And, honestly, one can just go back to the change in competitive balance. Why take the risk when the step up isn't as big?

Exposure: Still better exposure in Hockey East. The league just markets itself better than the ECAC does.

Alumni base: Boston's still a good focus point with tons of alums. They're well represented every time RPI's at Harvard.

Increased attendance: Probably still a net benefit thanks to new matchups and more traveling fans.

Tournament: Hmm. Maybe let's worry about getting back to the semis first, eh? That task is likely to be slightly harder in Hockey East, but at least the ECAC is back in a desirable spot with Lake Placid.

Women's hockey: Probably still a slightly better situation for the women's team, although the top end of Hockey East is starting to get as good as the top end of the ECAC.

Small school security: This more or less now is a reference to the Ivy threat which always exists but has never seemed to come close to materializing. If the Ivies left the non-Ivies, Hockey East would probably be a better spot. But if they don't, it may not be.

Traditional rivalries and Ivy connections: With the change in competitive balance, the rivalries with the Liberty League teams and the Ivy-by-association elements are a little more difficult to relinquish.

Academic profile: It also makes moving to a league with a large public school contingent a little less attractive.

Glass ceiling: This has actually changed a bit toward the positive. In 2011, the top team in Hockey East had never come outside the traditional "Big Four." In 2013, for the first (and so far, only) time, a non "Big Four" team finished in first place - Lowell. In 2011, "Big Four" teams had won 15 straight Hockey East titles. They've now failed to win three of the last four (Lowell in 2013 and 2014, Northeastern in 2016). And of course, Providence won the national championship last year. So there does appear to be a bit more parity developing in Hockey East.

From the Hockey East perspective, things have changed too.

History: There's still no potential addition that can compare to RPI's overall history, but in terms of recent history, that's all to Quinnipiac. They've become a powerhouse in the 2010s - RPI hasn't been one since the 1990s. That's mighty important, for sure.

Traditional connections: Still there, but Quinnipiac seems to be cultivating their own relationships with Hockey East teams as well. These relationships don't go far enough to make for a logical choice.

Facilities: Houston Field House would still fit, but TD Bank Sports Center in Hamden is a far more desirable place. It's another reason why Quinnipiac is winning the ECAC's recruiting war.

Resurgence: In 2011, it looked like RPI was on their way back to the upper pantheon. That hasn't yet borne out in the intervening five years, sadly. But do you know who is resurgent (or at the very least, surgent - if that's a word)?

Geography: Quinnipiac is in New England, RPI is not (although it's very nearby). 11 of 11 remaining Hockey East teams are in New England. That's pretty solid stuff.

Small school: Still a potential tripping point.

Compact conferences: This stopped being a major concern when the CCHA schools either joined the NCHC or the WCHA. There's no concern about smaller conferences being "trendy."

It all adds up to Quinnipiac being a better candidate for Hockey East than RPI is. And that's something everyone should not only be OK with, they should be glad with that. Going over the points from five years ago, it's just kind of obvious that, from where we're standing, both RPI and Hockey East have very good reasons to not be getting together.

There's another reason RPI should stay away: the school's drowning in red ink. Thanks in large part to that big white elephant sitting on the hill above 8th Street, the Institute was facing $1 billion in debts and liabilities as of 2013-14. That situation hasn't markedly improved. Is this really a good time to move the hockey team to a conference that charged Notre Dame a $250,000 entrance fee and that would likely require an additional outlay of resources in order to be competitive? It doesn't seem like a good time, especially when you look at things from a holistic standpoint - to include the fact that the Institute is now taking over the entire athletic budget from the long-held auspice of the Student Union (which now itself may be about to fall victim to a hostile takeover).

If it comes down to adding a 12th team that currently exists - that is, there's no magic intervention from a sudden varsity program at URI or Syracuse - we'd have to peg RPI as 3rd on Hockey East's calling list, behind Quinnipiac's obvious #1 and Holy Cross' "we'd find a way to make this work because you're right here" 2nd.

Fourth is probably RIT, way out of the way but with a spiffy new rink and the history to make it work. Fifth is probably Bentley, completely predicated on the Falcons getting a new on-campus arena underway. Sixth... Union, maybe? It's kind of a stretch, what with the dump they play in and their immediate downturn after winning the national championship (the only thing that even makes them a candidate), but they're probably the only other ECAC team that would appear on their radar, unless Colgate's new rink is enough to make them look interesting (probably not). Clarkson and SLU are pretty much joined at the hip due to the geography and there's only one spot available.

So yeah, if Quinnipiac wants to stay in the ECAC, and Holy Cross continues to feel like their women's team is just fine in Division III, perhaps Hockey East might come calling. But from where we're sitting, the right response is going to be the same as that of the first two... "move along."

Moving Parts

Yesterday, some big news hit the college hockey world - Notre Dame is moving out of Hockey East after the 2016-17 season concludes and joining the Big Ten as an associate member for hockey.

For those of you who have your ear to the ground, the move isn't terribly shocking. There have been murmurs that the Irish were unhappy in Hockey East for a little over a year, and obviously the Big Ten's struggles across their first three seasons have been well documented. This is a move that seems to make sense for both parties involved.

During the 2011 schism in the college hockey world caused by the formation of the Big Ten, Notre Dame's final landing spot was much debated. At the time, the Big Ten wasn't an option for them because the conference was not open to adding anyone who wasn't a member in every sport. That changed in 2013 when the Big Ten added Rutgers and Maryland to its ranks, two schools that sponsored lacrosse. With only five schools playing the sport, they added long-time independent Johns Hopkins (a D-III school in every other sport) for lacrosse only as an affiliate member to make six.

The Big Ten has lusted after Notre Dame's storied football program for decades, but that's always been a non-starter. So it's no surprise that the Big Ten, three years into a hockey experiment that has seen the conference embarrassed for basically all of the last two seasons with just one NCAA bid both years, was willing to admit the Fighting Irish this time around.

On Notre Dame's side, there's the understandable travel issue. While they had no problems financially taking a trip to New England every other weekend, and other teams didn't mind having to trek to Indiana once a year, the Irish had a problem with being the only team that had to go on long road trips all the time - a competitive balance issue. The travel within the mostly-Midwest Big 10 shouldn't be too much of an issue.

But that does now leave Hockey East with 11 teams, and moves the Big Ten to seven. The dominoes are starting to fall once more - and an odd number of teams is usually difficult to deal with on the long-term, due to issues with scheduling and playoff seeding. So what happens next?

Arizona State: The Sun Devils completed their first Division I season this year as an independent and they will do it again next year, this time with some additional home games against D-I teams. After that, they've said they want to be in a conference, and the Big Ten has long been touted as an understandable landing point. The one sticking point was considered to be the open question of whether the Big Ten would be OK with having affiliation in hockey. That question has certainly been resolved.

ASU may be in the hinterlands when it comes to hockey, but on the larger scale, they're a big deal - a power school in a power conference. But unless (until?) their Pac-12 brethren start adopting hockey, they need somewhere to reside. The only two conferences that ever made sense on a power and location basis were the Big Ten and the NCHC - the WCHA as it exists now is certainly too small to interest Arizona State.

With Notre Dame's decision and the news that ASU's discussions with the NCHC haven't been plentiful lately, it does seem like the Sun Devils becoming a second affiliate is a lot closer to reality. But it's not certain by any stretch of the imagination. ASU likely needs to start making some progress on their still nebulous plans for an on-campus rink. Their current homes are a tiny rink in Tempe that is the smallest in Division I and the Gila River Arena in Glendale (where the Coyotes play) that is the largest, impossible to fill.

But... who else could it be? Well, Miami has had some notable concerns about their travel situation in the NCHC. They've been strong enough in hockey for the last decade that the Big Ten might be willing to consider them as an affiliate (recall that Johns Hopkins is a lacrosse powerhouse, and Notre Dame is Notre Dame). That quality might open the door to North Dakota (who has traditional rivalries with Wisconsin and Minnesota) or Denver (certainly a storied enough program) as well, who would arguably have a better claim. Both of those schools, however, were among the driving forces behind the NCHC's very creation, and the NCHC certainly isn't having any problems.

Or, the Big Ten could stay with seven. It would be odd, but so is what they've already got going.

That leaves... Hockey East. With 11 teams, they're certainly going to want to get themselves back to 12. Five years ago, we pontificated on who the 12th team would be if Notre Dame was the 11th (basically at the bottom of that link). The answer ended up being UConn - but only after a serious change in their status quo fomented by their hockey loving governor.

Now, the question can be asked again, with UConn off the table. The top three answers are more or less the same.

Quinnipiac: Last time out, we thought Hockey East would arguably be more interested in RPI than in Quinnipiac despite the Bobcats having the newer facilities and the New England location. But in the last five years, there's no question that the Q has established themselves as a powerful program, and the opening in Hockey East probably couldn't have come at a better time if you're on the "Quinnipiac to Hockey East" bandwagon.

We still have to wait and see how the 2016 NCAA tournament plays out, but as the #1 overall seed, Quinnipiac have certainly made themselves the favorites to win the national championship. They played in the national championship game in 2013. The women's team is certainly on the rise, having just won the ECAC championship for the first time. Looking at things from Hockey East's perspective, there's no way at all that, among currently existing programs, they'd have anyone but the Bobcats at the top of their list.

The bigger question is this: does Quinnipiac really want to leave the ECAC? Five years ago, Hockey East was an obvious step up from the ECAC. Today it's still a step up, but it's not nearly as big - the gap has been closed slightly. And as things stand, it's hard to argue that Quinnipiac isn't one of the clear cut top programs in the league - which wouldn't necessarily be the case in Hockey East. Is it better to be a big fish in a smaller pond or a medium-sized fish in a bigger pond? That's the question that Quinnipiac will likely be asking itself.

Hockey East does have some benefits that the ECAC can't offer - national exposure is still far higher in Hockey East. But the ECAC also offers Quinnipiac guaranteed games with Yale every year, something they seem to cherish. The Yale-Quinnipiac "rivalry" is still very one-sided even despite (perhaps even because of) the 2013 national championship game. It's basically RPI-Union from the late-1990s, with Yale playing the role of RPI. Will Yale ever really care about Q though, at least enough to play them regularly in different conferences? It's hard to get an Ivy League team to care about a non-Ivy. That's just history working against the non-Ivy, and history trumps geography big time.

Holy Cross: The Crusaders are still kinda there in the discussion if only because they're right smack in the middle of the league's footprint. But nothing has changed in Worcester since 2011. They're still kinda middling in Atlantic Hockey. They're still playing in the same small rink on campus attached to their basketball court (which will be renovated soon, but not made bigger or more impressive). Their women's team is still in Division III. If anything, things may have dipped a bit for Holy Cross. Paul Pearl, an alum who was head coach of the team for almost 20 years, left in 2014 to become an assistant at Harvard. And they haven't been back to the NCAA tournament since that well-known upset of Minnesota in 2006.

The hangup in 2004 when Holy Cross applied to the ECAC was that they weren't interested in paying equal attention to their women's team. There doesn't seem to be anything that's changed there, which makes CHC a tough sell to Hockey East.

RPI: Much has changed for the Engineers in the last five years. Back then, we thought RPI might have made the most sense for Hockey East, and they probably still did if UConn's sudden epiphany had not happened. Much of what we wrote back then remains true.

But from RPI's perspective, the allure of staying in the ECAC has certainly changed. While five years ago we pondered that an RPI move to Hockey East could strengthen the program simply by playing in a higher-end conference, today the Engineers are playing in a conference that has produced two of the last three (and are favorites to make it three of the last four) national champions. The move would be slightly more lateral than it had been back then, and that makes the difference in the academic profile a bit more difficult to deal with.

And this time around, they're definitely second banana to Quinnipiac as things stand, at least from a Hockey East perspective.

More on this in the near future. As with five years ago, the topic of RPI to Hockey East deserves a more detailed look at this blog.

So... what if there's an open spot in the ECAC? What happens then?

Holy Cross: Basically, the same as above. There's no way Holy Cross goes anywhere unless they agree to move women's hockey to Division I, and if they're happy with where it is right now, they're probably happy being in Atlantic Hockey.

RIT: If only Rochester were closer to... Albany, or Worcester, or something, RIT is the totally obvious choice. Academics, history, everything's there. They'd be an 8th program without athletic scholarships.

The problem - and this is a problem - is that the ECAC has a really good thing going with its travel partner system, and RIT doesn't fit into it well. It might work if RPI ends up bailing for Hockey East, but almost certainly wouldn't if it's Quinnipiac. Without RPI, Union is orphaned, and one could see a Colgate-Union pairing and a Cornell-RIT pairing sort of working (or Colgate-RIT and Cornell-Union). If Quinnipiac bounces, Princeton could go back with Yale, but who does RIT pair with that doesn't turn that road trip (and likely, others) into a nightmare? It's a logistical problem for a league that depends on some easier travel schedules to stay a manageable bus league.

If RIT comes large with an ECAC bid, the league could certainly bend quite a bit in order to make it work, especially since they'd add a solid following. There's a lot that RIT has going for it and, geography aside, they bring everything you'd want to the table. But whatever they come up with has got to fit with the Ivy League's preferences, too. The Ivies have the power to blow up the league, so that makes their opinion matter just a little bit more.

Bentley or Sacred Heart: They fit the footprint, but not the gusto. Bentley at least is taking steps in the right direction on getting themselves an on-campus rink, but neither are ready for a step out of Atlantic Hockey.

Army: They've been in the ECAC in the past, and they're a fellow Patriot League member with Colgate, but if you can find anything that would suggest that they'd have a better time in the ECAC than the last time they were there that led to their departure, we'd love to hear about it.

Mercyhurst, Niagara, Canisius, or Robert Morris: No shot. Too far away for all of them. Canisius at least has a sparkly new rink, but that's about it.

American Interna OK, I can't even get to the joke here.

So the quick answer is that there's no really good answer to who makes the ECAC "whole" again if Quinnipiac or RPI leave. And that's problematic for the five non-Ivies that would be left - because if the Ivy League isn't satisfied with how things shake out, they've always got the option of striking out on their own, an option which arguably created Hockey East in the first place.

The real answer of "which team would best make #12" is a team that hasn't been around since 1978: Penn. The Quakers would pair supernaturally well with Princeton, and everything else would stay the same. Unfortunately there's no magic pixie dust that can be used to re-create a team at Penn in order to save the ECAC's bacon. Not to mention that Penn's addition would only make for a stronger possibility of an independent Ivy League down the road, possibly one day made whole if they ever learn about hockey in Morningside Heights.

Bottom line? It's time to tread carefully right now, especially if you're Hockey East and Quinnipiac is unavailable, because there's no other really good answer for #12. If you're Quinnipiac and RPI, you've got to ask yourself if moving to Hockey East is really the best long-term plan, and if not, is the ECAC going to stay iron clad after Hockey East gains a new member?

What If: Eastern Promises

* July 1983: Five schools plan leave the ECAC to start Hockey East, RPI stays put

Michael Jackson - Beat It


The ECAC unified eastern college hockey under a single banner since its formation in the early 1960s, but it had always been a strange brew. The Ivy League, its own conference in every other sport, made up a healthy chunk of the group. The other teams based in the east of the region were typically Division I schools with a strong pedigree in hockey, while the other teams based in the west part of the region were mainly relics of a bygone era, when small schools and large schools were lumped into one, but their hockey histories made them equals.

The league has always been a precarious combination, and when concerns over the Ivy League's potential departure from the alliance, or their stringent academic requirements becoming paramount within the ECAC, it created a rift that ultimately led to the creation of one power conference and the slow decline of the former eastern power.

In July 1983, Boston College, Boston University, New Hampshire, Northeastern, and Providence decided upon a preemptive strike to protect their programs from an Ivy split. They announced the formation of a new conference, the Hockey East Association. Maine, the lone holdout from the ECAC's Eastern Division joined in soon thereafter, along with Division II power UMass-Lowell, giving the nascent conference seven members. There were certainly room for more.

The Division III schools of the ECAC, RPI, Clarkson, and St. Lawrence, were invited to become a part of the new grouping in part thanks to their strong hockey reputations. Clarkson was the program with the highest winning percentage in college hockey history, St. Lawrence a traditionally strong program, and RPI was on the rise to what would eventually become a national championship.

The remaining schools had a conundrum. Would they abandon the Ivy League ties, with its prestigious links to outstanding education, or would they pass up the opportunity to join what was sure to be one of the new power conferences of college hockey? Ultimately, all three schools chose to maintain their connection to the ECAC, and when the Ivy League elected to remain in the ECAC, a new 12-team conference was born, minus many of its top tier programs.

RPI was offered another opportunity to join Hockey East in the 1990s, but the school again turned down the invitation, citing a satisfaction with their position in the ECAC given that the program was among the league's top teams at the time. Recent flirtations between RPI and Hockey East went nowhere after UConn chose to improve their program with scholarships and a new arena in order to become the league's 12th team.

So the Engineers have had more than their fair share of opportunities to join Hockey East - besides the usual suspects of UConn and the University of Rhode Island (as the only prominent state schools in New England not currently in the conference), the Engineers may be the program most frequently linked with Hockey East accession. With the latest development of the Huskies joining the conference, it seems to be a road now closed to RPI, at least until the next conference upheaval, if and when it happens.

But what if RPI had done what BC and BU did in 1983, and freaked out at the possibility of the Ivies striking out on their own - a scenario which continues to pop up in rumors from time to time? What if they'd chosen to accept the invitation?

Hockey East's first season was also the season RPI won the national championship, the 1984-85 campaign. Given that Hockey East played an intriguing interlocking schedule with the WCHA that season (in which games were scheduled between the conferences, to count in each conference's standings), it's likely the Engineers would have played a much more difficult regular-season schedule than they actually did. While they could have certainly finished atop the new conference, it would not have been as easy as it was in the ECAC.

RPI certainly would not have faced Providence in the national championship if they had left, as Providence was a Cinderella team in the NCAA tournament. Had the Engineers duplicated their feat of winning the ECAC regular season and tournament in the new conference, the Friars would likely have been stuck at home. That could have jumbled the entire tournament up, and seen RPI facing the likes of Minnesota-Duluth, Boston College, or Michigan State in the finals instead - the latter of which would have been a tough draw in Detroit for sure. It's hard to say exactly what would have happened - perhaps Providence's Cinderella run would have derailed RPI completely.

Further out, though, the Engineers' prospects in Hockey East as charter members are likely closer to that of the Friars than to the power quartet that has traded the regular season crown since the conference's creation. The ECAC, for all of its problems, has been a conference with a great deal of parity from year to year, but in Hockey East, it's all about the Big Four, and the rest have traditionally fought for the scraps. NCAA bids for teams outside the Big Four have been few and far between - Providence in 1985, 1989, 1991, 1996, and 2001; Northeastern in 1988, 1994, and 2009; Lowell in 1988, 1994, 1996, and 2011; UMass in 2007, Vermont in 2009 and 2010, and Merrimack in 2011. That's just 16 bids over 28 years, compared with 19 for Boston College alone and 72 between all of the Big Four schools.

RPI has as many NCAA tournament appearances (four - 1985, 1994, 1995, 2011) as any non-Big Four Hockey East school with the exception of Providence during Hockey East's existence (Vermont too, if you count their three trips while they were in the ECAC). It has been argued that RPI's recruiting would improve if it were in Hockey East, but would it improve enough for them to be able to compete more frequently than Providence does? It's tough to make that assertion.

The major difference would be in October every year - RPI would be playing league games in its first month if it were in Hockey East today, and although its chances at competing for hardware would be diminished, they probably would be able to draw better non-conference opponents to play at Houston Field House as a Hockey East member, and by extension it's likely that the RPI Holiday Tournament would still exist. Non-conference games with Union, Clarkson, and St. Lawrence would be commonplace. Yearly home contests with the major schools of Hockey East would likely raise the local profile of the program.

All in all, many of the difference are things we discussed last year when the possibility of becoming the 12th team in Hockey East was thrown around. The move could have had murky effects on the 1985 championship, but all told it's hard to say for sure it would have been a net positive experience for the program. If any existed, it would likely be only incremental.

New World Order

We are in the final season of the fourth iteration of the conference system in college hockey. Next year, things are going to look mighty different.

Fourth, you ask? What were the other three? Well, here they are, roughly.

1961 - 1981: The ECAC and the WCHA rule the roost, though the latter is generally stronger. Every national championship during this time period was won by a team from one of these conferences, through to 1983. The CCHA begins as a relatively minor conference midway through this period.

1981 - 1985: Still largely a period of dominance between the ECAC and the WCHA, but the CCHA's addition of Michigan and Michigan State shifts the balance a bit away from the WCHA.

1985 - 2000: The Hockey East split leads to a shift of power between the new conference, the WCHA, and the CCHA, with the ECAC in slow decline, especially after the early 1990s.

2000 - 2013: The era of the "Big Three," as the ECAC moves out of a position of power to become the lone mid-major, while the MAAC/AHA comes to being as the lone minor conference.

2013 - ???: The Big Ten tsunami rearranges the college hockey landscape as never before.

What could we be looking at in this fifth iteration of conference paradigm in college hockey?

Well, now that every team has lost a game this season, let's look at the current KRACH ratings to see where the new conference structure would stand if it were theoretically in place today - not a perfect comparison, since conference schedules will shift, but this is what it looks like.

Hockey East - 1, 2, 6, 7, 14, 19, 26, 34, 43, 44, 45, 52
NCHC - 3, 9, 10, 11, 15, 18, 20, 39
ECAC - 4, 5, 8, 13, 16, 17, 21, 23, 31, 32, 33, 46
Big Ten - 12, 27, 37, 42, 49, 54
WCHA - 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 38, 50
Atlantic Hockey - 22, 40, 41, 47, 48, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59
Independents - 58

Look at the NCHC - that's a holy cow stat right there. Seven of its eight teams are currently among the 20 best in the nation, and the eighth (Minnesota-Duluth) won a national championship two years ago. Think that might be a power conference?

The Big Ten is having a shockingly bad season in it's year before birth (to wit - independent Penn State is ranked ahead of 1-7-2 Wisconsin, and Michigan ain't that far ahead of them), but this season is likely the exception and not the rule, considering that four of the six teams in the conference are regulars in the national tournament under the current structure.

Also, no one can deny Hockey East's excellent standing, especially with Notre Dame about to join the fold. Three of its usual "Big Four" are off to a great start (Maine... not so much), although the biggest problem Hockey East faces is its gap between haves and have nots. Providence's decent start has them somewhere in the middle (26th), but besides the Friars there's a big gap between UMass-Lowell (19th) and Merrimack (34th). Still, in recent seasons we've seen the Warriors competitive and the River Hawks not so competitive. They'll be a strong conference.

Atlantic Hockey, with all but two of its teams outside the top 2/3 of the nation, will continue their current role of providing their tournament winner an automatic bid and nothing more. They are still a cost-containment league and until that changes, they are where they are.

That leaves the fate of the original two up for ponderance... the ECAC and the WCHA.

First, the ECAC. The only changes our league needs to worry about is how the shifting paradigms affect recruiting. The last shift certainly affected things for the worse, but with five teams offering a full complement of scholarships and the league as a whole attractive for the educational side, there's only so far the ECAC will slide. It's probably already reached the bottom, really.

But the new WCHA could be in an almost worse situation than the ECAC, and quickly. A mashup of the leftovers between the CCHA and current WCHA after the Big Ten and NCHC tore away basically all of their top programs, it's hard to peg an absolute best program from this new group of nine. By KRACH, right now, it's Alaska followed by Ferris State. You'd almost have to call the Bulldogs early favorites.

The currently comprised ECAC has won only five national championships, among only three of its members, and none since 1989 (Harvard). The new WCHA will have eight, among four members, but none since 1994 (Lake Superior State). That's not overly dissimilar.

There's one other way to look at which conference has the most power teams - NCAA bids. The conferences have averaged the following total bids per season in the last 10 years (since the tournament was expanded).

WCHA - 4.4 mean, 4/5 median, 5 mode (High 6 - 2008; Low 3 - 2007 and 2009)
CCHA - 3.9 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 5 - 2004 and 2012, Low 3 - 2003)
Hockey East - 3.6 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 5 - 2007; Low 2 - 2008)
ECAC - 2.2 mean, 2 median, 2 mode (High 3 - 2005, 2009, 2011; Low 1 - 2004)

Now apply the total bids per season to the new conferences.

NCHC - 4.2 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 7 - 2011; Low 3 - 2003 and 2005)
Hockey East - 4.1 mean (High 6 - 2007; Low 3 - 2008 and 2010)
Big Ten - 3.1 mean, 3 median, 3/4 mode (High 5 - 2004; Low 1 - 2011)
ECAC - 2.2 mean, 2 median, 2 mode (High 3 - 2005, 2009, 2011; Low 1 - 2004)
WCHA - 0.9 mean, 1 median, 0/1 mode (High 3 - 2010; Low 0 - 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011)

That's astounding to see. In the new WCHA, there were four different years in the last ten that none of the teams made the tournament. In fact, between 2004 and 2009 (six consecutive years), there wasn't a single team that will play in the WCHA next year that earned an at-large bid - Bemidji State, on three occasions in that span, won the CHA's automatic bid.

What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means the WCHA is dropping off a long ways prestige-wise. But a cursory look at the numbers tells us that, at least at first, hockey's new world order is still going to consist of the "Big Three," but two of those will be brand new conferences. The ECAC will still be a mid-major, in all likelihood.

The WCHA, however, looks like it's going to have to fight - and hard - to be mid-major level. It essentially ended up as the Island of Misfit Toys after realignment, and although its autobid now represents a big chance for teams that frequently don't get to compete for either the WCHA or CCHA autobid most years in the past, the new league may be hard-pressed to pick up an at-large bid even with the regularity of the ECAC, which almost always gets one and not unfrequently snags a second.

The NCHC, once it gets assembled, will almost certainly never get 7 bids as it did in 2011 (that would be almost the entire league, and someone has to finish in last), but the mean totals could average out about right. That would likely mean, more often than not, the WCHA will probably have to settle for its autobid, but at least they'll probably grab an extra bid every once in a while, which pegs them above Atlantic Hockey. But it looks like a quick drop from the top for college hockey's oldest conference, almost certainly quicker than the ECAC's fall from grace. Their motto is "just got tougher," put in place after Bemidji State and Nebraska-Omaha joined the fold. They can keep it next year, but it'll have a different meaning.

ECAC: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The final piece of the puzzle in the upcoming conference scramble appears to be falling into place with reports last week of Hockey East and UConn inching closer together. Reports are that the Huskies are likely to join Hockey East in 2014-15, one season after what we referred to last offseason as "the tsunami" strikes college hockey's shores, irreparably changing the landscape as we know it.

With Hockey East now apparently destined for the 12 teams most everyone expected they'd finish with, there's only one question remaining - the long-term fate of Alabama-Huntsville. Given a reprieve by the school in December when the school reversed its much-maligned decision to scuttle the program, the Chargers will enter their third season without a conference this October and will still require a place to call home in order to secure their long-term existence.

With UConn set to depart Atlantic Hockey, that leaves the ECAC as the only conference to be completely untouched by "the tsunami." 12 teams when the process started, same 12 teams when it concludes.

Some, especially the powers that be in Albany, would call that a pretty good outcome. Stability is a good thing, as the schools which scrambled to find a home as the CHA and CCHA each disintegrated will tell you.

But how stable is the ECAC, really, and given the current state of the college hockey world, how much benefit is there for teams in the stable ECAC? We've long said that the league no longer qualifies as a "major conference" (at least since the very late 1990s) and that is even more likely to be true once the landscape changes in favor of the new big three: Hockey East, the NCHC, and the Big Ten. With an additional new "mid-major" likely to develop from the new WCHA and basically all of the big power schools concentrated in the Big Three, it's not out of the realm of possibility for the ECAC's decline to accelerate.

What could change things? There are two potential events on the horizon that could very well help tip the apple cart - neither are sure to happen, but neither would be a shock to the system, either.

1) The Ivy League. As we've said before, the Ivy six represent a veritable Sword of Damocles hanging over the integrity of the conference, and the sword has hung for decades, especially the last three following the Hockey East split. The Ivy League competes as its own entity in... pretty much every sport known to man. Men's and women's hockey is a very notable exception.

What would the Ivies gain from a split? They would stand to gain quite a lot, as Harvard's Brendan Roche (WHRB play-by-play announcer and all-around good guy) pointed out in a post last year while discussing the possibility of the ECAC losing RPI or Quinnipiac to Hockey East. First and foremost could well be scheduling: the Ivy League is limited to 29 regular-season games a year, and with 22 of those games earmarked for ECAC contests, that leaves them with only 7 non-conference games to play around with - just five for Harvard, which plays two of its NC games in the Beanpot every year. A six-team league could feature 4 games a season with league teams (all better draws than the non-Ivies currently are), and open two more non-conference opportunities.

Most of Roche's other points are very well taken. It makes sense for them from a marketing standpoint. With the Big Ten coming into being next year, it would give them the ability to showcase an all-sports brand, something that could come in handy when competing with the Big Ten, the NCHC, and Hockey East for talent. They'd also gain their own autobid to the NCAA tournament, though this is a bit of a wash with 9 of the last 11 ECAC autobids going to Ivy teams (Clarkson in 2007 and Union in 2012 the exceptions).

There's nothing the six non-Ivies can do about this, not anymore. None of them would fit into the west-centric NCHC (not that the league would want them if they tried) or WCHA, Hockey East is closed, and the only way out is to a lower league in Atlantic Hockey. The only reasonable option if an Ivy exit happens would be to reconstitute with programs from Atlantic Hockey that are seeking to move up in the world. We're talking about RIT, Niagara, Robert Morris, Holy Cross, and the like.

Of course, the non-Ivies could proactively split, but it's the same scenario. Compare the Ivies to the teams mentioned. With no disrespect intended to those teams (which are honestly trying to boost their competition level), but it's a step down for the ECAC non-Ivies as much as it's a step up for those teams. The only silver lining in all of this seems to be the autobid, but this would in all eventuality be a conference with only marginally better chances of attracting at-large bids than Atlantic Hockey currently does. The ECAC, at the very least, typically draws at least one at-large bid every year, giving some incentive for the non-Ivies to hold onto the marriage as long as the Ivies are still OK with it.

2) Notre Dame and the Big Ten. This is something that has been discussed, literally, for almost a century, since the first overtures between the parties were made in 1926. While the first possibility revolves entirely around hockey, this one revolves almost entirely upon football, with ripples that could now be felt in the hockey world, given the recent changes to the landscape.

Notre Dame's independence in football is storied - it gives their historic program the opportunity to set their entire schedule, and allows them to negotiate their own national television contract (with NBC) with an exclusivity that helps keep their brand front and center. But Notre Dame football isn't what it was for decade after decade of the 20th century. They haven't won a national championship since 1988 and haven't played for one since 1991. No Heisman Trophy winners since 1987. In the 14 seasons of the BCS, they've played in a BCS bowl only three times, losing all three. They haven't finished the season in the Top 25 of the national rankings since 2006 and only four times since 2000.

What's more, Big Ten football is beginning to eclipse Notre Dame in drawing power and revenues, especially with its Big Ten network. Big Ten schools are now pulling in more TV revenue individually than Notre Dame and their exclusive contract, and as the Irish continue to struggle to be nationally relevant on the gridiron, that inequity may only increase as the years progress.

What does this have to do with hockey, you ask? Well, Notre Dame has long seemed a perfect fit for the Big Ten, and if the economics of it all push the Irish to move football (and everything else) to the Big Ten, it'll take hockey right along with it.

That would create a dilemma for Hockey East. Now back to 11 teams and missing a star attraction, what course of action do BU and BC take? Both reportedly spurned NCHC bids previously, thought in large part to be because of Notre Dame's potential addition to Hockey East. Does that suddenly become an option for those teams? Either way, you're then looking at a 9 or 11 team Hockey East, with openings once again.

These scenarios illustrate the tricky spot the ECAC finds itself in, both as an integral unit and as two different halves. For the non-Ivy League teams especially, there could be a glass ceiling forming just as Minnesota-Duluth, Ferris State, and Union were proving that the Division II and III schools still had room to succeed at the highest levels.

The NCAA Field, By Conference

We're probably going to go into relatively early hibernation mode here at WaP... which usually exists from April until late May as a bit of a "season recovery" period, but there are still a few things left to say.

First, a quick analysis of the NCAA Tournament, as it pertains to the shifting sands of league alignment. How much of each league got to the dance this year?

The tournament breaks down like this:
5/11 CCHA (Michigan, Miami, Ferris State, Western Michigan, Michigan State) - 45%
4/10 Hockey East (Boston College, Boston University, Maine, UMass-Lowell) - 40%
4/12 WCHA (North Dakota, Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth, Denver) - 33%
2/12 ECAC (Union, Cornell) - 17%
1/12 AHA (Air Force) - 8%

Or... maybe it looks like this instead:
5/9 NCHC (North Dakota, Miami, Western Michigan, Minnesota-Duluth, Denver) - 56%
3/6 Big Ten (Michigan, Minnesota, Michigan State) - 50%
4/11 Hockey East (Boston College, Boston University, Maine, UMass-Lowell) -  36%
2/12 ECAC (Union, Cornell) - 17%
1/9  WCHA (Ferris State) - 11%
1/12 AHA (Air Force) - 8%

Are we seeing the bigger picture yet? Obviously, the field probably changes once realignment actually happens, but it's fairly clear that the haves and the have nots, already well established, are about to become even moreso.

Hockey East Watch: November Update

There hasn't been an awful lot to report on the Hockey East front since the league has been focusing on, well, playing hockey, but there have at least been additional rumblings since the beginning of the season that are worth reflecting on.

We first touched on most of these schools during Tsunami Watch, here. We'll try not to rehash what we said back in September.

And, for what it's worth, we've endorsed the concept of RPI moving to Hockey East, which you can read here.

Here's the score.

RPI: The school still hasn't said publicly that it's interested in Hockey East, but it's generally known that the Engineers have at least been inquiring behind the scenes and that there have been discussions within the Hockey East ranks about RPI. There's really not much more to talk about on this level until something moves (as engineers, that probably calls for a healthy dose of WD-40), but it is important to note the early success this season of Merrimack, the #1 team in the country. They're proving, at least for the time being, that it is possible to be successful in Hockey East even from outside of the big guns.

UConn: From practically every perspective of what tends to be important in college sports, UConn is still the school that makes the most sense for Hockey East. Given the school's size and importance in the broader spectrum, as well as being the most marketable name of any of the contenders, UConn would be the best fit if only the practical concerns were not so heavily in the way. According to the Eagle Tribune's Mike McMahon, the school has at least let Atlantic Hockey know that it is exploring the option of a Hockey East move, which could potentially be the first signal that the school is looking to upgrade its program. If it does, there's not an awful lot of discussion to be had here - presuming the school builds a new facility and starts offering scholarships (with the required Title IX offsets elsewhere), UConn would be the 12th school. The question now as the school undoubtedly begins the process of deciding whether it is worthwhile for them to outlay all that money is whether it's something they want from an institutional perspective. You may have read in the news that UConn may be looking to bolt the Big East - hockey might not exactly be in the foreground.

Holy Cross: The big news on the Crusaders' front is that the city of Worcester is keen on Holy Cross moving into Hockey East from a economic standpoint - 11 games a year bringing fans from around New England into the city for hockey. The city council, led by a Holy Cross hockey alum who sits on the council, is pushing for the 12,239-seat DCU Center (formerly the Spectrum) to be a home venue for the Crusaders, though that can be lowered to 7,230 with the Times Union Center-like curtain system they have. For their part, the school has done the same as UConn, according to McMahon, in alerting Atlantic Hockey that they are exploring the Hockey East option. It's worth mentioning that on our podcast last week, RIT's Chris Lerch mentioned that RIT and Holy Cross are both looking to move their D-III women's programs into Division I in the near future, so that could indicate some budding interest in the sport at Holy Cross. Just 40 miles from Boston, the school probably fits better into the league's wheel well than any other possible candidate, but whether the Crusaders are a good fit for Hockey East from a competition standpoint remains to be seen.

Quinnipiac: Nothing new to report on Quinnipiac really, either, but the rise of interest out of UConn and Holy Cross combined with the positives that RPI has going for it as a potential target in the first place (not to mention the Tute's already existing buzz) tends to lead one to believe that the Bobcats might be falling back in the likelihood category. They've still got the shiny new arena as its best selling point.

Syracuse: The "new program" option that recurs most frequently is one of two schools that has D-I women's hockey but not men's hockey (the other being Lindenwood - the teams coincidentally meeting this coming weekend). The assumption is always made that Syracuse, as a big name school in football, basketball and lacrosse, has a giant athletic department. Nope. Seven men's sports (two being cross-country and track) and 11 women's sports (again, including XC and track). That's it. Why the low number? Because those big time sports eat up most of the budget. Why the disparity? Title IX. Syracuse had to cut men's and women's swimming and diving in order to start the women's hockey program and come into compliance with Title IX. Throw in a likely increased travel budget with the school moving to the ACC in the near future and there's really no room for men's hockey.

Cornell and Harvard: The rumors just won't die about either of these Ivy League schools, but it's worth saying again - there's nothing to them. At all. The Ivies play together in every sport they participate in, and they're not breaking apart here, either. As we've said before, there's a better chance that the Ivies leave the ECAC to maintain their own conference than any of them joining Hockey East on their own (and Hockey East isn't taking on six new teams). That's actually an increased argument for RPI leaving - it's a sword of Damocles that has hung over the ECAC for decades.

Nobody: The possibility that Hockey East could be content to sit at 11 teams indefinitely has also been advanced over the last couple of months. Commissioner Joe Bertagna has been adamant at press conferences that the league won't bring on just anyone for the sake of reaching 12 teams, even though it's obvious the league would function better with 12 than 11. Still, if there's any shot at bringing a revamped UConn program aboard, there's little doubt the league would be willing to wait a year, or even a few years, operating with 11 than bring RPI, Holy Cross, or someone else on board to suddenly have UConn have a change of heart. They probably won't take this route unless they think something is in the cards for the Huskies in the near future. Otherwise, they do have decent options.

Tsunami Watch: The Flood Recedes

This is our final edition of Tsunami Watch. Why? Because the radical changes in the college hockey world caused by the advent of varsity hockey at Penn State are over.

But, you say, the most exciting part of all could be just around the corner for RPI! Perhaps. But it will be a secondary reaction if it happens.

Here is where we currently stand for 2013-14.

* There will essentially be one new conference: the Big Ten. Thus, at the end of the day, we're back to six conferences, where we were when the CHA was still around.

* The CCHA membership will disperse into four of those six conferences - Notre Dame to Hockey East, Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State to the Big Ten, Miami and Western Michigan to the NCHC, and the balance to the WCHA.

* The WCHA, while it will continue to exist, will look radically different, with three less teams than they currently stand and, really, no programs that would be considered power programs. We could be talking about a WCHA that moves to the level of the ECAC.

* The only thing left to shake out will be autobids, which may not be back to six until 2015-16 under the rules. NCAA regulations say six teams of any league must have been playing together for two full seasons before they can have the autobid conferred upon them. That would seem to leave out the Big Ten off the bat since the rule applies to specific sports, but it could also leave the NCHC and the WCHA high and dry.

The NCHC might have the excuse that six of their teams have been playing together in the WCHA. The new-look WCHA, however, has only 4 teams that have played together in the previous incarnation of the league, and only 5 that played together in the CCHA.

That leaves us with four scenarios.

1) The WCHA, as the previously existing league, gets an autobid, while the NCHC has to wait two years.

2) The NCHC, as the league with six previously existing league members, gets an autobid, while the WCHA has to do without for a couple of seasons.

3) Both leagues get an autobid.

4) Neither league gets an autobid.

And, of course, the Big Ten could somehow manage to get a waiver for a supposedly unwaiverable rule.

Anyway, here's what the college hockey landscape looks like after the tsunami. The only potential secondary changes are a 12th team for Hockey East and, if that team comes from the ECAC, a move by an Atlantic Hockey team into the ECAC. Any further discussions by the discontented programs of Atlantic Hockey at a new conference would be on its own track.

Big Ten

Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin.

NCHC

Colorado College, Denver, Miami, Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota, St. Cloud State and Western Michigan.

WCHA

Alaska, Alaska-Anchorage, Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State and Northern Michigan.

Hockey East

Boston College, Boston University, Maine, Merrimack, New Hampshire, Northeastern, Notre Dame, Providence, UMass, UMass-Lowell and Vermont.

ECAC & Atlantic Hockey

Unchanged

Independents

Alabama-Huntsville

Recently discussed potential new programs

Buffalo and MSU-Moorhead

The Time is Now

For a few weeks, we've watched and we've waited while the dominoes fell, waiting to see what would happen. For a while, anything that would have affected the Engineers was tertiary to the ongoing discussions. Then they became secondary, waiting to see what Notre Dame was going to do.

It's now front and center. If there are more dominoes to fall, it will almost certainly be for a 12th Hockey East program - and of course, RPI has been prominently mentioned in those discussions.

Back in July, we cautiously endorsed the idea of RPI taking a good hard look at Hockey East accession. Given all of the evidence that we've seen, we're confident that they have.

We're now taking it a step further. Without a Peer now endorses the concept itself.

We cherish the 50 years of history that the Engineers have put together in the ECAC, and the close connections we have with every other member of the conference, including the Ivy League. There is so much that will be difficult and even painful to walk away from.

But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Sure, RPI and Hockey East have done the dance twice before, but if this chance slips by, there won't be another one.

During the Bob Ducatte years, Hockey East became a possibility twice. Both times, the coach was interested. Both times, the administration shot it down. Under Daniel Berg's guidance following the untimely death of President George Low, RPI was invited to be among the founding members of the conference. Mike Addesa was more than interested. We said no. With Byron Pipes at the helm, RPI was again part of the discussion to expand Hockey East. Buddy Powers was keen on the idea. We said no.

15 years later, the demeanor, we hope, has changed significantly. Athletic Director Jim Knowlton, from his own words, is driven to take this program to the apex of college hockey with a third national title. He has the right coach to get him there with the charismatic and talented Seth Appert. Where Hockey East was denied before, the atmosphere is ripe to finally make the move.

Knowlton and Appert were both hired under the present administration of Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson. Say what you want about Dr. Jackson, there is no denying that athletics as a whole has fared very well under her guidance. She fought for the Institute's hockey scholarships when they were threatened in 2003. She helped get the cogs moving for the construction of ECAV and the renovation of the Field House.

I believe she will be open to the idea. But the time to start moving is now. In the past few weeks, we have heard a few dodges from some of the main players when asked about the possibility, if only because the final dominoes had not yet fallen and if the door were to remain closed to us, it would not make sense to have burned bridges.

Supporters now, however, can move forward without that fear. Let your voice be heard.

My open letter to Dr. Jackson and the officers of the Board of Trustees:

To:

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson

Hon. Arthur J. Gajarsa '62

Adm. R. J. Zlatoper '63 USN (Ret.)

Paula L. Simon '68

As an alumnus, I am very proud of the advancements that have been made at Rensselaer between the moment I stepped foot on campus in August 2000 and the present day. A true transformation has taken place at RPI, from the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies to EMPAC and the East Campus Athletic Village. As the years have progressed, the pride I felt when I first associated myself with the Institute has only grown.

Since the establishment of the Rensselaer Plan, the Institute has become a shining beacon for Troy, the Capital District, and all of New York State. I firmly believe that the goals laid out in the plan have set our school up for success in every facet of its being, from research to instruction and yes, even athletics.

We are blessed as a school to be renowned throughout the country not only for our outstanding research facilities and top notch educational opportunities, but also for our historic hockey program as well - to wit, I have been told that there are two things RPI is known for: its engineers and its hockey.

When I was a student, I vividly recall attending a lecture at Russell Sage Laboratory by one of our school's greatest alums, Dr. Myles Brand '64, then President of the NCAA. To this day I remember Dr. Brand's commentary on the role of interscholastic athletics as an integral part of the educational experience, harkening back to the Athenian model of education in which development of the body was considered as important as development of the mind.

Under the guidance of athletic director Jim Knowlton and coach Seth Appert, the men's hockey program has been very much a part of the "Renaissance at Rensselaer." Having met both of these men, I find them to be as driven for success as anyone I have ever had the pleasure to know. Both of them wish to add to the RPI legacy with another national championship.

As stated in the Rensselaer Plan, "three fundamental markers will drive our actions: excellence, leadership, and community." I believe our hockey program has a golden opportunity to increase its influence in all three of these markers: accession to the Hockey East Association.

Hockey East is already one of the most competitive and most recognized hockey conferences in the nation, filled with elite programs who draw some of the most elite players to their ranks. Mr. Appert and Mr. Knowlton already do a superb job of bringing to campus men that not only excel on the ice, but in the classroom. I am confident that, in Hockey East, we will not only continue that trend, we will find student-athletes who excel even further in both arenas.

It has been said that in the modern era of college hockey, a smaller school like Rensselaer which maintains rigid academic requirements for its athletes does not have a shot at competing with larger public schools for championships, especially the national championship. But that has never been our way at RPI. We do not accept that some goals are impossible. In our research labs, we constantly find new ways to accomplish tasks. The same can certainly hold true on the ice.

I ask you to please consider the opportunity that is likely to come before us, and join our program with Hockey East.

Tsunami Watch: Eastern Effects

The tidal wave that has completely obliterated western college hockey as we know it looks to be making its way east.

While eastern hockey is unlikely to suffer any radical changes in the way the WCHA and CCHA have been completely torn to shreds - with the possible exception of Atlantic Hockey, as we've discussed - changes do seem to be on the horizon, and they could well directly affect the Engineers.

On Sunday, the NCHC (which apparently wishes to be known as "The National") announced that it would launch its first season in 2013 as an eight team conference.

Let's see... North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College, Miami, Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha, Western Michigan, and St. Cloud State. Yeah, looks like they're already at eight.

Notre Dame? Hmm... awk...ward.

"We conducted a deliberate and exhaustive process that included consideration of adding more institutions." said NCHC ringleader UND athletic director Brian Faison. "In the end, we determined it is in the best interest of the Conference to proceed with our eight outstanding programs."

So, basically, they told Notre Dame to take a hike. Or, more likely, talks with Notre Dame broke down over some issue (probably television revenue) and the NCHC decided to make it look like they never wanted Notre Dame in the first place.

The Irish have already categorically ruled out independence, and there's no chance they're interested in Bowling Green's Zombie CCHA project (which we should find out more about this week given the Falcons' October 7th deadline for joining the WCHA). That basically leaves Hockey East for Notre Dame. The Irish are reportedly making their decision known tomorrow.

It's been reported in multiple places that if Hockey East brings in Notre Dame, they will want a complimentary 12th program in the fold as well, and we've talked long and hard about the possibilities of RPI being that team.

Here are the candidates, in ascending order of likelihood, that have been mentioned.

Cornell: I don't know where this came from, but in the last week rumors have flittered around that Cornell might be in the running for #12. Most likely, the Big Red were named by someone because for the past 10 years or so they've been the most consistently solid program in the east that isn't in Hockey East. OK, that's true. But even once that's on the table, there's zero reason to expect that Cornell would be the team. They're not just in the ECAC, they're in the Ivy League, and they aren't going to break from that association on an institutional level. If, for instance, Colgate had Cornell's present profile, they'd probably be the favorites right now, but as it is, Cornell's going nowhere.

Harvard: This one isn't very recent, but it's more of a "rumor that just will never die" type thing. This one's 100% based on geography and the fact that the Crimson are the only Boston area school and Beanpot participant not in Hockey East. It's also not happening, for the exact same reason as above.

Holy Cross: The problems that plagued the Crusaders when they applied for ECAC membership in 2004 have not diminished. They still play in a tiny rink that, while on campus, wasn't enough for the ECAC and won't even be close for Hockey East. Their women's team still plays in Division III. About the only things they have going for them is their location in Worcester and that one game back in 2006 where they beat Minnesota in the national tournament, and that's it. Maybe their position as a Catholic school to go along with the four others already in HEA once Notre Dame joins (BC, Merrimack, and Providence), but that's pretty thin.

UConn: This one won't go away because every other New England state school that sponsors hockey plays in Hockey East, and UConn is also a big name school with a big-time athletic program. A hockey program costs a lot of money to operate as compared to most other sports (including basketball), and UConn doesn't spend much on their program. That would have to change. They'd have to start offering scholarships in order to have a prayer in Hockey East (and it would probably be demanded). Then they'd have to offer more scholarships in a women's sport in order to balance Title IX concerns. They'd also need a modern ice rink with increased capacity, and those don't just come around that often - ask Penn State. The amount of money UConn would have to lay out in order to join Hockey East is probably on par with that of a brand new program, and given UConn's intense focus on basketball, football, and soccer, there's just not much of a reason to expect that kind of outlay to be forthcoming.

Quinnipiac: Outside of RPI, Quinnipiac does appear to have the most attractive potential offering for Hockey East. It's a program free from distinct connections to its current situation, unlike the Ivies. It's a program that has continually improved since joining Division I. They have a fairly new arena. It's in New England. They have an up-and-coming women's program. The one thing that the Bobcats don't have, which may ultimately be the killer, is the history. There's not much of it to speak of in Hamden, and there aren't any traditional links between QU and Hockey East programs - not even really any casual links either other than a game or two here and there. Now, Notre Dame doesn't exactly have the hockey history either, but they've got the name and they've gone a lot farther with their upward trending program.

RPI: We've already mentioned everything the Engineers offer Hockey East. By itself, it's not enough. RPI would never have been #11, at least, not right now. But overall, RPI presents the most complete package for Hockey East. A resurgent program. A just-renovated arena with plenty of capacity. History, with a pair of national titles (only BU, BC, and Maine can claim those in HEA right now) and historical links with most of the league's members. The ability to leave other teams in the ECAC behind. Geography isn't perfect, but it's not too far away from most of the league. Throw in the large alumni base in New England and it's basically the best match out there. That doesn't mean that Hockey East is dying to include RPI, but when it comes to meeting their goal of a 12-team league, RPI makes the most sense.

Any other possibilities out there? Well, there's the rest of the non-Ivies in the ECAC. Clarkson or St. Lawrence? Both were offered places in Hockey East in the mid-80s, but neither are attractive candidates now - they're isolated in the North Country, so they'd almost certainly be a combo set and there's only one spot available. Combine that with both programs' recent downturn and there you go.

Union? A program moving up in the world to be sure, but it's a lot easier to compete without scholarships in the ECAC than it would be in Hockey East, they have no real history to speak of before about three years ago, and their rink would not be something HEA's looking for.

Colgate? The rink's a problem here too, it's farther out from New England than RPI is, and their history is closer to Quinnipiac's than it is to RPI or the North Country.

A new program? The University of Rhode Island and Syracuse are two perpetual candidates for a new setup, but URI probably wouldn't be able to put something together in time for 2013 even if they started now, and Syracuse isn't a likely candidate in the near future anyway because of Title IX concerns.

Now, RPI hasn't shown any outward indication that they are interested in leaving the ECAC. We here at WaP are a little bit conflicted about the idea - which you know if you've read our thorough examination of the pros and cons. But the buzz continues to grow. Given the NCHC's press release, we are projecting that Notre Dame will join Hockey East, and that, at some point, RPI will be invited to Hockey East and will accept that invitation. If not RPI, which could have some qualms about leaving 50 years of history in the ECAC behind, Quinnipiac probably wouldn't think twice.

That will leave the ECAC with an 11-team set up, and that would result in a new team sliding into the position vacated by RPI or Quinnipiac. Those contenders? Well, they're pretty easy to identify.

RIT: The natural selection, in our view. RIT is a Liberty League member, just like the North Country and Union (and RPI, for that matter). The academic profile fits well. Geographically they're farther west than any team in the league. You'd have to expect that the Liberty League schools, Colgate, and probably Cornell would be interested in bringing RIT in. The Tigers would almost certainly have to agree to bring women's hockey along for the ride (which, right now, plays in Division III). They've been hoping for an opportunity to move to the ECAC anyway, which probably explains their lack of interest in the Zombie CCHA.

Holy Cross: While the Crusaders won't fit into Hockey East, there could be room for them in the ECAC as long as they bring women's hockey along for the ride. The geography works, especially with Dartmouth, Harvard, and Brown all rather close by. The academics fit. The rink's still a concern here, but not nearly as much as it would be in Hockey East. There was some sentiment within the ECAC for Holy Cross back in 2004, and they could well be interest from the New England contingent of the league this time around. If Holy Cross wants to get out of the scholarship-limited Atlantic Hockey, this is their only reasonable option, so expect them to at least inquire.

Zombie CCHA: Would any of the teams trying to build the Zombie CCHA out of Atlantic Hockey be interested? Perhaps, but probably only if Bowling Green decides against that route and goes to the WCHA. If that happens, the ECAC position becomes like gold for some of these programs, although Robert Morris would almost certainly be completely behind the eight-ball compared to the other three given their distant location.

----

Women's hockey

It's interesting to note that with all of the massive changes in men's hockey, there have been a whopping two moves in women's hockey: Penn State will join the CHA in 2013, and Lindenwood became an independent program (for this year) with an application to the CHA. That's it.

The Big Ten has only four women's programs: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Penn State. Thus, those first three will stay within the WCHA on the women's side. Thus, there's no NCHC equivalent on the women's side, either (since Denver, CC, Miami, Nebraska-Omaha, and Western Michigan don't have women's hockey). So the women's WCHA is intact. Notre Dame doesn't have women's hockey, so their move has no impact as well.

The first tsunami related move could well be with Hockey East's #12. We'll have to see if RPI or Quinnipiac's women's team moves along with the men's team. There's certainly no requirement, since Hockey East's women's conference isn't exactly the same as the men's conference, and, as we mentioned above, RIT and Holy Cross don't have D-I women's programs yet anyway. RPI or Quinnipiac could easily stay in the ECAC on the women's side. We'll have to wait and see.

Excellence, Leadership, and Community

You know what today is? It's Monday. Yes, it's the first of the mooooooooonth. First day of August. Last full month without college hockey since the women get underway with an exhibition game in late September. Freshmen will begin arriving on campus this month, with captain's practices and then classes shortly to follow.

There's one other thing going on today that should be considered, however - the lifting of the NCAA's four-year moratorium on Division I membership. For the last four years, no school has been allowed to move their athletic program from D-II or D-III (or the NAIA) into the nation's top level.

With all that's going on in this offseason, it does beg the question - is this something RPI should consider?

During the Prop 65 debates in late 2003, the Institute began investigating contingency options for the proposal's passage. Having been a minor party to some of the discussions at the time, the option to move the entire athletic program to Division I was certainly explored. One of the more popular rumors had RPI and Johns Hopkins (which was similarly fighting for its lacrosse scholarships) joining the Patriot League, a D-I conference which consists of American University, Army, Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh, and Navy as full members, with Fordham and Georgetown included for football (replacing Army and Navy, which play as independents at the highest D-I level).

A couple of weeks back, we discussed the possibility of RPI having the opportunity and the option to move to Hockey East. We discussed some of the pros and cons from both RPI and Hockey East's vantage point. BC Interruption, an all-BC blog, examined those pros and cons a few days later, coming to the conclusion that the con of RPI's Division III status might be a hurdle that would keep them from being considered, which was one of the things we expected Hockey East might not be too thrilled with.

But even if we lay Hockey East aside for a moment, is Division I a good fit for RPI? It's not outside the realm of possibility, especially if we're still talking about the Patriot League, which in many ways is Division I's answer to Atlantic Hockey. It started out as a cost-containment league without any athletic scholarships to speak of whatsoever, but that changed a little over a decade ago when American University was added to the conference's numbers. Today, athletic aid is available in every sport but the usually scholarship-heavy sport of football, which is limited to need-based aid, just as with all aid in Division III.

In 2003, when the idea was approached, it was obvious that the Institute's facilities were a huge stumbling block moving forward. The East Campus Athletic Village only existed on paper - but now that it is a reality, it is far less of a concern. ECAV Stadium and ECAV Arena are admittedly small by Division I standards, but neither would be the smallest and both have room for growth. Houston Field House, too, is just yards away if a much bigger capacity is needed for basketball games - they have been held there in the past, and the renovated Field House has been called a centerpiece of the ECAV.

RPI's position as a "small school" in the grander scheme of things, is largely linked to their Division III status. Yet, in the Patriot League, by enrollment, the Institute would be outpaced only by Lehigh and American. By selectivity, if that's an important metric, RPI actually fits better in the Patriot League than it does in the Liberty League, its current home.

There are a number of positives that could be gained from a move to Division I. Remember that Ivy League connection we said the school cherished about its ECAC membership? Well, basically every Patriot League program has at least one or two non-conference games against the Ivy League on a yearly basis.

Locally, there's really not much of a college football scene outside of RPI and Union - though UAlbany's clearly trying to grab the brass ring with their new stadium proposal. A Division I (FCS) program, even one without scholarships, would be an instant attraction.

Division I would also potentially grant RPI access to the biggest sport scene of all in the Capital District - college basketball. It's owned by Siena, but UAlbany has their own following, and a third team could make for some very interesting local rivalries indeed.

The impetus for ECAV is found in the pages of the Rensselaer Plan, a set of operational guidelines the school has followed for over a decade which has as its stated goal, "[t]o achieve greater prominence in the 21st century as a top-tier world-class technological research university with global reach and global impact." Now, athletics doesn't directly make us that world-class technological research university. But at its core, the Rensselaer Plan is about striving to be the best in everything that we do as a school, as students, faculty, and alumni alike. It could be argued that Division I athletics would be a part of that aim. As the plan says, "three fundamental markers will drive our actions: excellence, leadership, and community."

Of course, there are plenty of downsides to the idea, too. Those traditional rivalries we talked about in the Hockey East discussion wouldn't just be compromised, they'd be gone. No more Dutchmen's Shoes. No more baseball and basketball rivalries with Union and Clarkson. Those would definitely be a thing of the past, and that definitely wouldn't be easy to say goodbye to.

Hockey's special status would potentially be in jeopardy as well. Hockey is part of the school's identity in part because its Division I separation from the rest of the athletic program sets it apart. If the school were to change that, it would potentially be threatened by the two sports much more followed nationally - football and basketball.

There's also the scholarship question. Does the school want to commit to scholarships for its athletes in other sports? Would some sports get the shaft - to include a potential ax? If so, which ones?

This is all just food for thought as the possibility becomes real again. We don't have an opinion on whether RPI should try to make this move, because the negatives are very difficult to tangle with, and the positives are far from assured. What do you think?

Wagons East?

On Friday, we dropped a bit of a bomb - and steered our site back towards its main focus, which we haven't been able to touch on in a few weeks thanks to all of the explosions going on in the world of college hockey (we figured, hey, another bomb probably wouldn't even be picked up on in this atmosphere).

RPI, a Hockey East school?

It sounds weird to say it. Sounds weird to think it, at first. Even once you've been over the rationales, it'll still seem bizarre. Regular games against Boston College and Maine? Regular trips to Notre Dame, even? Playing Vermont every seas... well, maybe not too bizarre. Those games against Providence and UNH won't be over the top strange either for long-time fans who remember when those teams were among the beasts of the ECAC, but given the way the last quarter-century or so has played out, the concept does seem very foreign.

First, a little background. Hockey East's split with the ECAC came in 1984, when the Engineers were just about to climb to the top of the college hockey world for the second time. The impetus for the split was, in part, a response to a rumored Ivy League breakoff. That never happened, but the eastern schools still left anyway, and had an invitation to RPI (as well as Clarkson and St. Lawrence) to join the new conference, but they chose to stay in the ECAC - much to the chagrin of head coach Mike Addesa. The invitation was extended again in the mid-1990s, but the school again chose to turn down the offer.

As mentioned last week, Hockey East expansion almost certainly revolves around Notre Dame choosing the conference. They're doing just fine at ten, but would surely love to grab the Irish and 12 certainly works better than 11 - ask the CCHA.

But why RPI? What would we get out of it? What would they get out of it? What are the risks and obstacles?

There are two ways one would need to look at this question - from RPI's perspective, and from Hockey East's perspective. Presuming a Notre Dame move to Hockey East, this is what the sides would see.

RPI's perspective

In Favor

Competition: The bottom line is that Hockey East is one of the elite leagues of the nation, and the ECAC just isn't anymore - it hasn't been for a good 20 years. A move to Hockey East would immediately provide RPI with a more difficult strength of schedule, making a solid team more likely to be competing for an NCAA bid at the end of the season - 9 of the league's 10 teams have been to the NCAA tournament in the last 10 years. A tougher schedule means having to play better hockey to win on a more regular basis, which is what top teams need in order to play for a national championship. For the Engineers, who won't be getting an NCHC invitation anytime soon (nor would they necessarily be looking for one), Hockey East represents the most elite conference that they could potentially have access to. Life in Hockey East wouldn't be a picnic by any stretch of the imagination - but it would provide the means and the opportunity to shoot for the stars that the ECAC just can't provide anymore.

Recruiting: It's been a fact of life for quite some time now in the college hockey world - recruits are frequently well aware of what conferences are among the best in the nation and which programs offer them the best hope not only for growth but for attention from scouts. Hockey East is the most scouted eastern league out there, which means top players and solid talents looking to attract attention are most likely to choose Hockey East programs to ply their trade. RPI already competes with many Hockey East teams for recruits, but stands at a competitive disadvantage for the very best recruits because they compete in an inferior league.

Exposure: Along with the better competition and increased attention from the professional ranks, being associated with Hockey East would provide the program and the school with an increased amount of regional exposure through the conference's television deal, and national exposure through association with a power conference.

Alumni base: For the purposes of increasing fan interest in the program, it's always best to give those who would have a natural interest the most opportunities to see the team in action, and the Boston metropolitan area is one of the largest RPI alumni bases out there, certainly the strongest with a vibrant college hockey scene.

Consider the Engineers' 2011-12 schedule - they will be in the Boston area precisely one time this season, when they play at Harvard in February (two if you count the game at Brown in January). Now, that's actually a bit abnormal, since they usually get a non-conference game or two at BU, Northeastern, UNH, Lowell, Providence, etc. to throw in there. Now consider the possible effect of the Engineers playing all of those teams in a single season, every season. Those alums will be able to come out all season, drawing a much closer connection with the program than a single game in a year's time could possibly create.

Increased attendance: Even if RPI fans are unenthused by a newer, stronger conference - and we don't think that would be terribly likely to happen - Hockey East has more teams with solid, traveling fanbases than the ECAC can claim, and that fact alone would likely lead to more ticket sales on an average night where a league game was on the docket.

Tournament: The ECAC has had issues with its tournament location for well over a decade, and for good reason - with a weaker overall profile than Hockey East, interest among the general public in the east for the ECAC has waned somewhat. Throw in the paltry number of teams that travel well - it's always Cornell, Clarkson and RPI when you ask the question - and the tournament becomes a dicey proposition no matter where it's held if you can't get those teams there, which has been the case for quite some time now. We still believe Albany is probably the best place for the ECAC tournament to be from a logistical and central standpoint, but there's nowhere the ECAC could choose to hold the tournament that would be a fair comparison to the Hockey East tournament in Boston. The excitement of the final three games of the tournament at TD Garden is currently matched only by the WCHA's Final Five in St. Paul. It's not a reason on its own, but it does sweeten the attraction.

Women's hockey: While the men's team would relish the opportunity to grow in a stronger atmosphere, a move to Hockey East would potentially bear fruit for the women's team as well. The women's game is seeking and increase in the amount of parity - and top to bottom, there may not be a conference that has more parity than Hockey East. In the ECAC, there are some exceptional teams, and there are some extremely bad teams. In Hockey East, you still have the dominant programs and the dormant ones, but the extremes are not nearly as great. It creates a more competitive atmosphere - not to mention that there are fewer teams in Hockey East than there are in the ECAC. RPI would still have to tangle with BC, BU, and UNH as opposed to Cornell, Harvard, and Dartmouth, but the autobid would be more of a possibility in the smaller league.

Small school security: One of the more startling elements of the western splitting going on is the stark manner in which the "small schools," defined as those institutions who are not full Division I members, have been treated. Each western D-I school with the exception of Western Michigan and Bowling Green is now a member of one of the two new power conferences (and Notre Dame, of course, but they're a special case since they're going to end up somewhere secure). Every small school, with the exception of Duluth and Colorado College, are among the "leftovers." It's entirely possible that, generally, small schools are going to need to fight to be in a position to compete with Division I schools, and this would be a step in that direction - security for the future.

Against

Traditional rivalries: RPI has played in a league of some sort with Clarkson and St. Lawrence for over 60 years. That's not something you easily walk away from, especially when one is a long-time rival. Throw in the budding rivalry with Union, and it's very clear that RPI has some deep roots in the ECAC. That said, leaving these teams behind isn't completely saying goodbye. Union and RPI already sacrifice a non-conference game every year to play each other a third time, there's no reason that game couldn't continue. And just as much as the Engineers have certain teams outside the conference that they play on a regular basis, there's no reason why regular games with Clarkson and St. Lawrence couldn't be part of the mix.

Ivy League connections: There's little doubt that the RPI administration cherishes the fact that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell come to campus once a year. It's a little something extra to trumpet when you're talking about athletics and the association with the Ivy League, as tentative as it might be, is pretty obviously something that the powers that be enjoy - it's long been held as one of the reasons they prefer to call the school "Rensselaer," that single name being indicative of an elite status.

Academic profile: The ECAC consists of 12 very elite, mostly very selective schools. If nothing else, the league and its members pride themselves on that fact. Leaving the ECAC would mean moving to a conference in which half of its current members are public schools, and even some of the private schools of the conference have a much higher enrollment than RPI.

Glass ceiling: The glass ceiling in this case isn't gender based, but power based. In 26 years, there have been a grand total of four teams that have finished the regular season in first place in Hockey East - they are known as the "Big Four," and Maine hasn't done it since 1995. Notre Dame may threaten to crash that party, but RPI probably wouldn't in the near future. The conference tournament isn't really that much better - Providence in 1985 and 1996, and Northeastern in 1988 are the only tournament champions outside the "Big Four."

Hockey East's perspective

In Favor

History: No other potential Hockey East program out there, even Notre Dame, can claim a national championship - RPI claims two, as well as a history that dates back over 100 years. The Engineers carry with them that bit of gravitas over other prospective candidates, for whatever that's worth; roots that can be pointed to as part of a long-standing commitment to the sport. There may be questions about the future of hockey at a number of smaller schools, but hockey is an integral part of the identity of the Institute, perhaps more so than any other candidate out there.

Traditional connection: There's been a pretty firm connection between RPI and the majority of Hockey East. Not only were the Engineers former league-mates with many of the teams in the conference, they also play many of them on a regular basis. In fact, the Engineers have played every team in the conference at least once since 2006, and have faced all but Merrimack, Providence, and UMass-Lowell in the last four seasons. Rare is the season where an RPI-BU game is not on the schedule (though that will happen in this coming year, there is supposed to be a game in 2012-13), and Northeastern and UNH are both common opponents. This compares positively with Quinnipiac, who have only played half of the league (and none of the power programs) in the same time frame.

Facilities: Houston Field House isn't the newest building on the block, but then again, it wouldn't be the oldest in the league, not when Northeastern has the oldest indoor hockey rink on the planet - something they are quite proud of, so it's not like having an old building is an automatic hindrance anyway. HFH, as we've well noted here, is undergoing a very solid facelift, with a lot of the elements already in place like a new scoreboard and new locker room facilities. Capacity-wise, it has ample space to welcome the larger fanbases when their team comes into town, reaching about midway on Hockey East's current list of rinks by how many spectators can be squeezed in.

Resurgence: Ask around in the college hockey world, and people will tell you that RPI is a program in the midst of a renaissance under the leadership of Seth Appert and James Knowlton. You only need to talk to either man for a short time to understand that both are driven for success. Even the attitude of the RPI administration seems to have turned more toward support for the program as well. Combined with the program's history, this aspect certainly is something that would not be overlooked - just look at Western Michigan, which apparently has a standing invite to the NCHC. Just a year ago, it's unlikely the Broncos would have even been in the discussion, but a strong campaign from the WMU administration to redouble support for hockey, combined with an outstanding season last year, has Western drawing attention. The same could well be said for RPI.

Against

Geography: This isn't an overly huge concern, especially since we're talking about a situation in which the conference is accepting a team from Indiana of all places, but Hockey East has defined itself in the past as a conference of New England teams. Now, RPI is the closest program to New England - you can be there in about 25 to 30 minutes if you hustle - but there are other options out there that wouldn't require the conference to step further outside of niche. Most notable among these options are Holy Cross and Quinnipiac, the latter of which would establish a foothold in the state of Connecticut, the only New England state where Hockey East doesn't have a men's team.

Quinnipiac would also offer access to the elusive New York City market, although the degree they can actually deliver any tangible benefits of that untapped area is highly questionable. RPI being in the Albany market doesn't exactly add a gold star to the resume, but it is what it is.

Small school: Hockey East is burgeoning with Division I programs - of the current five conferences, none boast more fully D-I schools than Hockey East at 80% of its present membership (AHA and ECAC 66%, CCHA 64%, WCHA 33%). Though that will change when the Big Ten gets underway, the formation of the two new western leagues that are largely filled with big schools may put RPI at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing itself to a power conference as opposed to a D-I school like Quinnipiac or Holy Cross. That said, there's clearly room for small schools in these power conferences, especially those with an established history of excellence, as Minnesota-Duluth and Colorado College were invited to join the NCHC.

Compact conferences: With all of this new horse-trading going on out west, the trend is now on smaller conferences - only six in the Big Ten and the NCHC, and likely a similarly limited number in the WCHA and CCHA if those leagues are able to draw in/hold in enough teams to stay solvent. The eastern leagues now look packed by comparison, and while there could now be four conferences with autobids in the west with a limited number of teams fighting for each of those autobids, there are only three in the east, all chock full.

---

It's likely that the first feelers on membership may already have been put out by one side or the other (or both), especially given the swirling cloud of reorganization that hover over all of college hockey. The time is now for RPI to evaluate its position in the college hockey world, what it wants to achieve, and the best methods for achieving those goals.

The ECAC has been our home for 50 seasons. It is a great league that has provided great memories. The creation of even greater memories, however, will likely require a change, and we believe that Hockey East could very well be the change that would be needed to chase the dream of a third national championship.

If the situation presents itself, we believe our school should give very serious consideration to a move to Hockey East, given the potential benefits to both sides, which truly seem to outweigh the negatives.

Tsunami Watch: ECAC and Hockey East

The finale for our initial Tsunami Watch examination of the nation's teams brings us back home to the leagues RPI fans will find the most familiar - Hockey East, one of the nation's most powerful conferences, and the ECAC, RPI's home for the past 50 years.

These conferences are inextricably linked by the college hockey world's last major reorganization over a quarter-century ago, when Hockey East separated itself from the ECAC. Since then, the once powerful ECAC has been on a generally slow decline, though recent years have been much better for the nation's oldest conference.

We'll talk about both the ECAC and Hockey East in this edition, because when it comes to the teams of these conferences, there doesn't seem (at first) to be a great deal to talk about. Some variation in where they stand, but for the most part, the leagues on their face are not going to have to worry about seismic changes as western leagues are enduring.

Though, what there is to talk about is fairly similar all around.

Our very own ECAC is, perhaps, one of the most insulated from Big Ten inspired change in the nation given the "full" nature of the 12-team league (though that is subject to the opinion of the member schools - it's not like 12 is a firm limit) and the highly unlikely possibility that Notre Dame would consider the league, but there are possibilities out there.

Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale: Collectively, of course, the Ivy League. They basically exist as a unit - that means Harvard isn't breaking off from the ECAC to join Hockey East, one of the idiotic suggestions that simply will not go away no matter how much it gets explained. If anyone ever suggests this, laugh at them.

There have been rumors since... well, since practically the beginning of time that the Ivies could break off and start their own league, most notably in the mid-1980s when the possibility was one of the factors that led to the creation of Hockey East's secession from the ECAC. Could it happen? Sure. Will it? If it hasn't happened yet, there's no reason to believe that the creation of the Big Ten or the NCHC "superconference" is going to foment it.

Unless it does.

How, you ask? Well, it could well come down to the matter of automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. Out west, you've got a six-team Big Ten and a (currently) six-team NCHC. Rumor has it that the WCHA will be taking on a sixth team relatively shortly, and the possibility exists that the CCHA will bring in enough teams to return to six as well. Those conferences would all get autobids, moving the west from two autobids to a possible four (and at least three), each dedicated to a relatively small number of teams.

Meanwhile, the ECAC is limited to one autobid for 12 teams. Would the Ivies, as unified as six teams could possibly be, consider breaking down the conference in order to snag a guaranteed autobid for themselves? Perhaps - but it's worth noting that Ivies have won the ECAC championship, and therefore the autobid, in nine of the last ten seasons. For them, it could be a solution without a problem.

Clarkson, RPI, St. Lawrence and Union: Collectively, the Liberty League teams, although RIT joins the D-III league in the next academic year. These schools are fairly interconnected with one another through their common bond as small schools (athletically) and the first three are charter members of the ECAC. It seems as though none of these schools will be seeking to leave the conference in order to start their own new thing despite one of the minor, unsubstantiated realignment rumors that have floated surrounding a D-I Liberty League conference with RIT and an unnamed sixth team. They've got no reason to leave the security of the ECAC for the instability of a smaller league with no (or only one) Division I schools.

Unless they do.

We did just mention the 9 Ivy champions in 10 years bit, which cuts two ways - one, it could be seen as an impediment to the national tournament, since there is one autobid for 12 members, or it could be seen as the Ivies strengthening their shot at an at-large, since each of these four schools has now earned an at-large NCAA bid in the last five seasons. If the Ivies are more powerful right now, it would make choosing to breakaway from them a risky proposition.

Colgate and Quinnipiac: The same goes for the two non-Ivy, non-D-III schools. Colgate is just fine where they are, given that Holy Cross and Army are the only two fellow Patriot League schools playing hockey, and the same holds true for Quinnipiac with Robert Morris and Sacred Heart the only NEC cohorts (say! All six together for the Northeast Patriot... no, that's not even funny as a joke). They could, of course, be part of a six (or seven) team league with the Liberty League squads.

Expansion?

As we said at the very beginning of Tsunami Watch, it is worth throwing out some of the preconceptions about how conferences come together - and the NCHC has already done that, throwing out some of the popular notions that schools will frequently consider the well-being of other programs before making decisions. In that same way, the preconception that the ECAC is "full" at 12 teams could potentially be up for being scrapped as well.

RIT: If the ECAC reopens for expansion, the Tigers will be first in line. As mentioned in the Atlantic Hockey examination, RIT covets a spot in the ECAC, which would offer them the best balance of competitiveness (given their lack of athletic scholarships, which is the same position reigning regular season champs Union are in) and academic profile. If expansion happens under any possible circumstance, there aren't too many scenarios out there where RIT would get left behind, because the ECAC doesn't have much of a reason not to embrace the Tigers if given the opportunity.

Holy Cross, Mercyhurst and Niagara: These programs have to get mentioned next if only because they've tried to join the ECAC in the past. Niagara, for many of the same reasons they could be attractive to the CCHA, may be attractive to the ECAC, especially as a potential travel partner for RIT. The Crusaders and Lakers, as mentioned in the AHA profile, would continue to have some hurdles to clear, although Mercyhurst's powerful women's team could be a wildcard to the ECAC, which has that consideration that the CCHA would not. In the same vein, Holy Cross (in addition to needing new digs) would need to commit their women's team to Division I, which they still haven't done.

-------------------------------------------

Moving on to Hockey East. The only power conference untouched by the current shakeup, the strongest eastern league nonetheless has had at least a little bit of intrigue, in part due to the rumored potential expansion that could be coming down the line.

Boston College and Boston University: According to the Eagle Tribune's Mike McMahon, the schools that would eventually call themselves the NCHC offered BC and BU the opportunity to join the new "superconference." They declined that opportunity. What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means Hockey East's solidarity is practically unquestioned right now, but it also means BC and BU are unlikely to go anywhere. Where would they go? There'd be no real ability to start an analogous eastern superconference, since Hockey East is so clearly established as the top conference in the east. The only real option would be to kick other Hockey East teams to the curb in an even more baldfaced manner than the NCHC largely did to the WCHA.

Maine, New Hampshire, Northeastern, Providence, UMass, and Vermont: The fact that we can basically lump much of the league together in one group speaks volumes about the relative stability of Hockey East. None of these schools, the other D-I institutions of the league, will be looking to go anywhere anytime soon either.

Merrimack and UMass-Lowell: Hockey East's only two non D-I schools. They get split off only because with the rise of the NCHC, they are really two of the only Division II schools "playing up" that are in a secure position looking into the future, with Minnesota-Duluth the only other one that can honestly make that claim. It's highly, highly unlikely that the D-II uncertainty will affect these teams, however. Even in the doomsday scenario where multiple D-II schools drop down (perhaps even enough to motivate a return of the D-II championship), the Warriors and River Hawks are very secure where they are - a turn of the tables from just a few scant years ago where both schools had some questions about their futures floating about.

Expansion?

We've already talked about why UConn isn't coming to Hockey East, but there are teams out there that need to be discussed.

Notre Dame: The most obvious one. With Miami off to the superconference, there's no way the Irish can stay in the CCHA - it was highly unlikely before, and basically impossible now. With the gutting of the WCHA, that conference is now also highly unlikely. They do have a standing invite to the superconference, and Hockey East, it is now known, has also basically extended an invite as well. Which will it be? And for the purpose of this discussion, why would the Irish go to Hockey East?

Hockey East presents Notre Dame with the opportunity to be part of an established power conference, and puts their team more in the eastward-looking view that most of their athletic programs enjoy playing in the Big East (though Providence and UConn are the only Big East teams with a hockey program). It places the Irish in the same conference as Boston College, an institutional and traditional rival as the two most prominent Catholic schools in the United States.

The move would be a bit radical for Hockey East to be sure, given the present relatively compact nature of the conference (with Maine a bit of an outlier), but it would be a move that could potentially secure Hockey East's position against the two new upstart leagues in terms of power... if Notre Dame decides their future lies there.

Quinnipiac: If the Irish join Hockey East, the conference is likely (though not certain) to seek a 12th team to round out what would probably be an even schedule, possibly helping the league alleviate its notorious current issue of a small number of available non-conference games, and upon first glance, the Bobcats could be an attractive team. They have an almost brand spanking new facility. They're in New England. They're close to the largely untapped New York City market. They've pretty much been on the rise for the last decade plus since moving to Division I (though they're starting to plateau a bit). The women's team is improving steadily. What they lack is depth in terms of their program's history, alumni base, and fan interest outside of campus, but if Quinnipiac applied to Hockey East (and they almost certainly would), they wouldn't be turned down out of hand.

Holy Cross: Geographically, the Crusaders fit right into Hockey East's wheel well in Worcester, practically surrounded on all sides by other HEA schools. Institutionally, they'd be a great fit with Boston College (a fellow Jesuit school with which a traditional rivalry exists), not to mention Catholic schools in Providence and Merrimack, to which Notre Dame would be added to the mix as well. They have a leg up on UConn in that A) they at least have some hockey history, providing one of the bigger upsets ever in the NCAA tournament when they beat Minnesota in 2006 and B) have some displayed desire to offer more scholarships and improve the position of the program. However, they do have two of UConn's problems - a rink that's far too small and not enough community support. The latter could probably be handled if the team were to join Hockey East, but a facility is lacking. They could move to Worcester's DCU Center, but they'd never be able to fill the lower bowl, plus they'd have to share with the Worcester Sharks. Their women's team still plays in Division III, which is another problem.

RPI: Ohh no. We're not discussing this here. We can't. The concept of RPI leaving the ECAC and going to Hockey East is... too much to briefly discuss in a paragraph or two at Without a Peer. No, this is absolutely getting its own post. Suffice it to say for now that... the possibility exists, and could be very real.

Tease? Oh, yes. Ohhhhhh yes.