Friday, May 25, 2012

UCONN to Hockey East

Hockey East Association logo
Hockey East Association logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It would appear that the Huskies of the University of Connecticut will probably be leaving the AHA and moving to Hockey East, it has been thrown around a bit the past couple of months. One of the interesting things that I found in this article was that Hockey East actually wanted to add the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Miami University Redhawks. It almost appears that the UCONN Huskies were the third choice of Hockey East. 
Allen Lessels, New Hampshire Union Leader --- Talks between Hockey East and UConn officials have heated up in recent months and both sides have been studying the feasibility of teaming up. While no formal invitation has been extended to the Huskies yet, it's clear that — barring any last-minute hitches — it's only a matter of time before one will be.

“Right now, we're looking very closely at UConn,” said Marty Scarano, the director of athletics at UNH. “I think it's safe to say that it's very close to being consummated.”

Hockey East started out as a seven-team league for the 1984-85 season and added Merrimack for the 1989-90 season, Massachusetts (1994-95) and Vermont brought it to 10 teams in 2006-07.

A major overhaul of the college hockey landscape — including the creation of Big 10 hockey for 2013-14 that will include Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin — led to Notre Dame coming to Hockey East.

“Once we made the move to 11, we had to make the move to 12,” Scarano said. “We knew that. We had talked to Notre Dame and Miami of Ohio and when Miami elected not to join us, we had to cast our attention elsewhere.”
So with an extra spot in AHA Hockey - there's an open slot as well in the WCHA - does one of these two  conferences step up and offer the University of Alabama Huntsville Chargers a spot in their conference? The Chargers still need a conference to call home. I get the feeling that all of the movement we have seen the last two summers might not entirely be over yet. Or is it?  
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