College Hockey talks

This has been a lonely week for the news casters of college hockey. Inside College Hockey tied up their skates and called it a career. Although this is not as big of a shift change as the conference line up, it's pretty big in the sports world. Almost 75% of what INCH wrote or ranked ended up on other news feeds.

Being such, I have decided to put my money where my mouth or in this case fingers are and start my own news agency. All of the legal framework is set and I hope to have it up and running for the next season.

Since I am quite a crafty guy, I called some sports bloggers and ended up talking with some representatives from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Yes, they corrected me UAH is referred to properly as "in" rather than "at". During our talks, I spoke with a number of people sensitive to the required conference shift and in the interest of keeping peoples names out of the news I have decided to withhold all names from these talks. Basically, UAH is in a battle with the WCHA to gain acceptance. With the folding of the CCHA, no team will want to take UAH. This is because Hockey East is not looking to add teams without a name lineage (Notre Dame) far away from the bulk of their campuses. Atlantic Hockey would be a good choice, but they would reduce the allowable scholarships. The Big Ten or B1G is untouchable. No team in that league will exit or form in another conference. This leaves the WCHA as the only hope for UAH. The problem is in the travel. When the CCHA folded, they left the burden of Alaska-Fairbanks on the WCHA. Combined with Alaska-Anchorage the bills are going to add up quickly.

From what I gathered, most of the meetings with the WCHA have been positive with the general exception being getting accepted. It appears the WCHA is hinging upon Iowa State to turn their club team to varsity. As a former director of a college club team, I have played Iowa State. I know that this team is likely the best team to move up. Although the WCHA won't say it, they don't want UAH because of the travel. If the WCHA does indeed get the opportunity to strip Air Force from Atlantic Hockey, this conversation is completely over. But that likely won't happen, so if you are a UAH fan just hope that I.S. doesn't elevate their program.