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IMO, unless you're a fan of the perennial champion of a bad conference, you should not advocate for six-team conferences. Unless the number of new programs keeps adding bids to the tourney, they just cannibalize at large bids.
The NEHC could have continued and was ready to continue until Norwich pulled chute and Babson followed.
Exactly. "We" forced everyone's hand.
And plenty of others it gives the same D rating to, including Elmira, Alvernia, Augsburg, Aurora, Manhattanville, Utica.
With the LEC being made up of many former ECAC D3 teams, wonder if the LEC would go the old school route of splitting into two regions. Number of members would have to go up to 12 at least (and 14 probably to build a buffer). Doubt the NCAA would give each region a bid especially if schools try to game their placement, but a conference tourney would fundamentally work.
They won't. It had already been tried in another sport. The NCAA will not recognize divisions within a conference. No matter how the conference organizes/schedules itself. One conference. One AQ.
www.vermontpublic.org
Interesting. Sad for St. Mike's and their students and alumni.St. Michael’s accreditation now at risk due to declining enrollment and worsening financial challenges. Issues at the college have been publicized for a bit now as the school has openly been working to right their financial situation. NECHE stepping in and the school liquidating restricted funds is not a good sign of what’s to come.
Faced with a cash crisis, St. Michael’s gets judge’s approval to tap restricted funds
The unusual move to repurpose up to $30 million of its restricted endowment signals a do-or-die moment for the private Catholic college.
Hadn't even considered the domino effect on the entire NE-10. If St. Michael's goes under, I think the only path forward is if a NE-10 school like Bentley drops their hockey program down (like AIC)... but that's never happening.
Talked to a number of NE10 folks this summer, across multiple sports. They all expect the NE10 to fold. I assumed a few would go up (Bentley, maybe Assumption) and the others would go down to d3. Was told no one was planning to move up ($$$) and most would move down (which is scary for d3 hockey given Bentley’s hockey upgrades). Time will tell.
Do remember, in order to move down, the whole entire school's athletic department has to move down. (The only reason they can play up is because there is no D2 national championship for hockey; otherwise they would have to move their entire athletic department up to D1 as well.) I don't necessarily see this happening for all the schools involved. For those schools, they either just continue their hockey program as a D2 independent, or shut down their hockey program all together.
A few years ago, I would have agreed with you. I don't necessarily now. NYS finally released money for a funding boost to the SUNY colleges (before, they were just putting extra money into the University campuses). This has put the "problem" schools such as Potsdam and Fredonia (who at one time was eyed in a buyout by Univeristy of Buffalo) into better standing.
Besides hockey though, the NE-10 would still have 6 full time members to keep going even without St. A's and St. Michael's.