UAH Chargers throw a monkey wrench in the equation

Well the scenario that everyone feared might happen became reality in the CHA tourney this past weekend. Last week I read on line where quite a few of the self appointed hockey experts and the various hockey bloggers had penciled in the BSU Beavers as being a shoe in to take the CHA conference tourney this weekend. Many of these same people were probably left scratching their heads after the Bemidji State University Beavers lost to the Niagara University Purple Eagles in Friday’s CHA semi final game 5-4. I know this sounds like a real cheesy sports Cliché but that’s why you play to the last whistle, nothing in sports is a given, you can assume nothing, everything worth fighting for in life has a cost.

Personally, I am not surprised at all and from watching the CHA over the past 10 years know that the teams that make up the soon to be the defunct CHA are legit teams, I don't care what anyone says. A lot of their games have been tough out of conference games where they traveled to another team’s arena to play a couple of games, most times it was hard for the CHA teams to get a return visit to their home arena. Robert Morris University had 14 home games, University of Huntsville had 12 home games, Niagara University had 14 home games and finally Bemidji State University 15 home games, in comparison a typical WCHA team have the luxurary of having more games played on their home ice. In comparison the University of North Dakota had 18 regular season games at home, the University of Minnesota has 19 games at home and the Wisconsin Badgers had 19 regular season home games as well. Playing 4-5 extra games at home helps.

I think it’s only fitting that the CHA champion is the team that CCHA decided to snub this past summer. I wonder if the UAH fans are saying, “Suck it CCHA?” Maybe not!

In the coming week there is going to be a lot of grumbling that half the teams in the CHA are in the NCAA tourney. That’s 50 percent of the CHA’s teams that will be playing in the NCAA tourney, not even the WCHA can make that claim very often. The NCAA decided to give the CHA a final auto bid in their final season, a move that I thought it was the right call then and I still think it is now. It is what it is. Ironically on the only team that hasn’t found a home in one of the existing five leagues is the one that made the tourney with the CHA’s final auto bid. I think its poetic justice. If you’re a fan of a team in the 13-16 spots in the Pairwise rankings you’re probably not going to be very happy camper right now.