CNATI: Cincinnati OH Sports Journalism

The Miami hockey newsletter that was emailed out last month talked about the forthcoming scheduling changes for the CCHA.

Nebraska-Omaha is leaving the CCHA for the Western Collegiate Hockey Association at the end of this season, which means the CCHA will have 11 teams next season.

Here's part of the newsletter:

"Starting with the 2010-2011 season the Central Collegiate Hockey Association will have a new look. The conference will have one less member. The University of Nebraska-Omaha has accepted an invitation to join the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA). The WCHA currently has ten (sic) teams. Next year they (sic) will have twelve (sic) with UNO and Bemidji State to join the rest of the league institutions. The CCHA currently has 12 teams and next year will have an unbalanced 11. The University of Alabama-Huntsville, which currently competes in College Hockey America, (being disbanded after this season), (sic) applied for membership into the CCHA this past summer, but was denied.

The unbalanced 11 teams will make for an interesting league schedule. To add to the complexity, the Big 10 (sic) has asked to have more games with Big 10 (sic) institutions playing each other for exposure on the Big 10 (sic) Network. Currently Michigan and Michigan State play each other 4 (sic) times during the course of the year, but Ohio State typically only plays Michigan and Michigan State twice during the year (unless they are in each other's cluster). You could likely see a schedule that has Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State all playing each other four times every single year. The league schedule is currently being finalized, but Miami fans are likely to see a schedule that may only have two games against opponents where we (sic) have typically had four in the past."

(SIDE NOTE: I'm kind of worried about having 11 unbalanced teams in the same conference, as the newsletter implies. Miami fans all know that Michigan has mental issues, and I guess since the RedHawks have Curtis McKenzie one could make a case that they're not right, but that's pretty hardcore to call every team in the league unbalanced. Maybe they just all need tire rotations.)

If the newsletter is correct, teams in the CCHA would go from playing 28 conference games to 20 (two against the other 10 teams), which is a huge drop in a sport that only has 58 Division I teams. Which means one of the biggest issues facing the league is:

SCHEDULING: Having an odd number of teams means at least one team will not be playing in-conference games every weekend.

Also, eight more non-conference games means all 11 teams will have to work harder to fill their schedules with four more series each season.

With Miami near the top of the polls each of the past few seasons, the RedHawks should be able to complete their season schedule easily, but teams like Lake Superior State, Northern Michigan and Alaska might not have as much luck.

There's little fiscal incentive to sign a two-year home-and-home deal with a school in Fairbanks.

CCHA TOURNAMENT: Currently, all 12 teams advance to the postseason tournament. The top four teams receive byes, and the remaining eight play best-of-3 series to cut down to eight total teams, and all of them play a best-of-3 the following weekend. The four remaining teams go to Detroit for the semifinals and final.

With 11 teams, the CCHA could choose to give five byes and let the other six teams play best-of-3 to cut down to eight total and go from there, which would keep everything basically the same. I'm guessing this is the route the CCHA takes.

A better idea would be just to do away with the play-in round, and let the top eight teams qualify. Have the best-of-3 series to cut down to four and proceed as normal with the semifinals and final.

Neither Hockey East nor the WCHA allow every team to advance to their postseason tournaments, and the CCHA went with the eight-team format when it had 11 teams in 1998-99, which was coincidentally the season before UNO joined the conference.

BIG TEN NETWORK: I hate the business of sports, especially in the amateur ranks where the game is theoretically supposed to be pure.

So I admittedly know very little about how much money changes hands in college hockey, and I'm clueless about the amount of influence an entity like the Big Ten and its network have in a case like this.

If the Big Ten has indeed "asked to have more games against each other" for the Friday and Saturday night viewing pleasure of its fans of Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State, I wonder how much power the league has to make that happen?

Would that involve the Big Ten paying the CCHA for the right to meddle in its scheduling, or is it quid pro quo because of the substantial benefit to the CCHA with the added national telecasts?

POTENTIAL SOLUTION? I know far too many journalists who complain constantly but never have a solution to the object of their complaint. A lot of them even write that way, but I like to propose possible solutions when I write about potential problems.

Currently Miami and Ohio State play each other four times every season (two home, two away), and under the present "cluster" system, every team plays a geographic partner four times and two other teams that rotate four times.

So keep the league schedule at 28 games, giving each team four clustermates instead of three, but allow Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State to be permanent cluster partners like OSU and Miami are. That would basically give the Big Ten its own division within the CCHA.

Here are some pros and cons:

PROS

-- The Big Ten would be happy. Not that that should be the goal of the CCHA, but it might shut that league up about having its own conference for a couple years. I still don't understand why the Big Ten doesn't just set up its own holiday tournament.

-- All CCHA teams would still play home-and-home series with the best teams. With OSU, Michigan and Michigan State in a cluster, even those schools would still play two other teams four times each season.

-- It would make it tougher for the Big Ten schools to win the CCHA, since they would be beating up on each other more. But that assumes all three are consistent winners. Michigan certainly is and Michigan State is generally good, but Ohio State has struggled in recent years.

-- Keeping a 28-game conference schedule makes scheduling easier. Teams won't have to scramble to find eight non-league games to play each season.

-- Money? Wouldn't the CCHA be able to charge the Big Ten Network for the television rights? Money is good.

CONS

-- More non-Big Ten schools would have to make the Alaska trip. With OSU, Michigan and MSU locked into four games against each other, other teams would have to make the trip to Fairbanks more often.

-- Unbalance schedule. A purist would say it isn't right for a conference schedule not to even out. It's similar to MLB having the Cardinals play the Royals six times while the Mets face the Yankees for two series each year.

-- Could backfire if the league goes back to 12 teams. The Big Ten would insist on keeping its cluster, then it would be a rarity that a Miami would play Michigan or Michigan State, or even Ohio State in a home-and-home series. If all teams played a series against each other, that's 22 games, but the three-team cluster brings that total to 26. So only one series would rotate for each team each season.

I don't think there's a perfect solution, but this would at least satisfy the Big Ten's desire to see its teams play more games against each other with minimal affect to the other teams.

Maybe it would keep the Big Ten from trying to disband the WCHA and CCHA, and perhaps the CCHA could even cash in on the compromise.

I'd be interested in hearing feedback, even if it's to say this is the stupidest idea ever conceived.