CCHA Makes Overtures to 4 AHA Teams
When college hockey realignment happens 2 years from now, the CCHA will be one of the big losers.
But it\’s doing something about that.
The league met today with 4 schools from the Atlantic Hockey Association — Canisius, Mercyhurst, Niagara and Robert Morris — about possibly moving to the CCHA.
If they join, they\’ll be able to offer the NCAA limit of 18 hockey scholarships per team.
Atlantic Hockey has a limit of 12 per team.
With the impending departures of NMU and others, the CCHA will be down to 6 teams in 2013-13, which is the minimum number of teams a hockey conference must have in order to have an automatic NCAA tournament bid.
Notre Dame and Western Michigan are looking to get out, and rumors are tying Alaska to a possible move to the WCHA.
If any of those teams leave the CCHA in 2012 and no one else enters, the conference will lose its automatic berth.