Re: Atlantic Hockey Future
Food for thought: Those who lament the cost containment m.o. of the conference, what are your thoughts of the "Alaska Plan" in the nWCHA? This is clearly meant to lower travel costs for the membership. Perhaps cost containment is no longer a unique outlier in college hockey, but a trend?
This is a terrible idea, but, given the cost containment structure that the WCHA will need to have, it's the temporary fix. There is no way this will stick forever.
I think about the AHA's cost containment structure within th eplayoffs. They used the first season to see where the teams would spread out, then gave the top two division winners byes into the second round, reseeded in that round, and attempted to stunt some of the travel costs. It happened under the theory that if the eastern teams got the bye, they'd still end up on the road for the second round because the east was perceived as being weaker. Therefore, they kept eastern teams from having to travel 2 weeks in a row. By the same token, they also would then be able to have a west/west matchup in the first round with an east/east matchup, then have the eastern byes go to a western team for the 2nd round. Ergo - the western teams, who could afford travel moreso than the east, would only have to travel one of those two weekends, with the same going for the east teams (assuming the teams "expected' to win made it through).
After a year of this, they found it had no real effect on cost containment because of the teams that made it through. If memory serves right, western teams ended up traveling two weeks in a row, and somebody still ended up at Air Force. After a year of comparing actual versus expected and possible costs, they reevaluated the playoff structure and league schedule.
The Alaska PLan is precisely that same type of stopgap. I expect it to last maybe one year, then have the league figure out some type of profit share or kicker to factor out the scheduling. The biggest factor is traveling to Alaska in the playoffs, which is to say a team from Minnesota would have a brutal time coming back on a Sunday only to turn around and find a way to get out to Fairbanks on a Thursday. Bear in mind Michigan State, who's heading to the B1G, had to stagger travel across an entire day to get their team to UAF. They also couldn't fly from Detroit, meaning they bused from Lansing to Chicago and staggered flights to Fairbanks. It was not a pretty situation, and that won't change regardless of what happens in conference realignment.
This is hardly the end, but it's a stopgap solution until they can find something else.
You'd add 4 more regular season games in lieu of a post season tourney. So the regular season would be 38, not 34...something along those lines...If you eliminated conference tourneies, there would be ample time to add 2 additional weekend and still play the NCAA Tourney on the same schedule.
