Got myself into a little back and forth with my friends on the Cornell hockey fan message board, eLynah, recently, regarding the ECAC moving its tournament to Atlantic City beginning in 2011. I have mixed feelings, but believe the ECAC needed to do something, and I see the move’s merits, as noted in a recent column.

The discussion on eLynah centered more around the geography of it, and on that score, I defended AC for a variety of reasons — mainly that, despite being in a geographic center, Albany attendance has been lousy. The move may take the tournament farther from ECAC schools, but not necessarily farther from people who actually show up — i.e. alumni, and general fans. We’ll find out.

It was interesting to note, as well, the thoughts of Cornell alum Sam Paolini. He was a senior forward on the 2003 Cornell Frozen Four team, scoring the winning OT goal, ironically enough, in the first ECAC tournament held in Albany. He went on to play some minor league hockey, including for the Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies — who played in Boardwalk Hall, the same facility that the ECAC tournament will be held at. So his thoughts are illuminating.

“When I first read about the move, I knew Boardwalk Hall was going to be a great venue for the tournment,” Paolini said. “They will sell out the place and when it is full, it gets really really loud. The acoustics in there are phenomenal.”

There was some question about locker room facilities in AC.

“I’ve been in both the home and visitor dressing rooms for games and they are nice,” Paolini said. “Both are better than the visiting Albany rooms. Not sure what they will use for the other two though. Nice training room in the home room too.

“Ice was always good except for the few occasions when we had over 8k in the building which was rare. Interesting to see how it will hold up with games back-to-back two nights in a row. My thought is it will be pretty choppy with that much play and fans in the building.

“Glass was always loud when there were hits which excited fans. It is horseshoe shaped and not having stands behind one of the nets takes away something from the fans in my opinion. Benches are huge and have plenty of room.”

Bottom line:

“Having it in AC will be great for fans too as they will be able to visit the casinos, go to shows, and have more options than Albany,” Paolini said.

The college hockey community has a history of rallying around people and programs that are in turmoil, especially turmoil not of their own doing. In this decade alone, we have seen the community rise up in support of programs at Clarkson, Colorado College, Rensselaer, and St. Lawrence when Division III’s Proposition 65 threatened to put those traditional powers at a competitive disadvantage by rescinding their ability to offer athletic scholarships. We saw friends and foes come together to support Merrimack goaltender Joe Exter and North Dakota defenseman Robbie Bina when each suffered tragic injuries that, in both cases, could have been life threatening.

Today, the community is starting to rally around a new cause – the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers.

Long considered a quirk of the college hockey world, hockey in Alabama hasn’t been some flash in the pan experiment – the Chargers celebrate 30 years as a program this year. That 30-year history includes two NCAA championships in Division II, an undefeated 1995-96 campaign (26-0-3), the development of one of college sports’ most geographically odd rivalries with Bemidji State, and a quite unexpected CHA championship in 2007 which led into a near-upset of Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament that, regardless of the result, drew comparisons with Niagara-New Hampshire and Holy Cross-Minnesota in the pantheon of tournament upsets before this season’s slew of shocking results.

The slow and agonizing death of the CHA, which began in 2005 with Air Force’s announced departure, ends nearly five years later in March when the league plays the final championship of its 11-year existence. Wayne State has already fallen victim to the CHA’s demise, as the Warriors shuttered their program in 2008. Bemidji State, Niagara, and Robert Morris have all found chairs after the music stopped.

That leaves the Chargers, alone – and their battle to find a place to call home has gained traction in the tight-knit college hockey community.

“I really do feel like folks all around the country want to see us carry on,” said Geof F. Morris, a 2002 graduate of The University of Alabama in Huntsville who is one of the leaders of the “Save UAH Hockey” movement.  “It’s been fun.  Honestly, it’s been some of the best publicity the program has ever seen.  People who haven’t taken a look at us as anything other than a curiosity are now really looking into why we’d want to stick it out.”

The effort to save Charger Hockey has taken on a nationwide feel. “Folks not affiliated with Huntsville at all have joined our Blue Line Club,” Morris said. “People have been buying ‘Save UAH Hockey’ merchandise from all over.  It’s been gratifying and humbling.”

Bloggers from across the college hockey spectrum have weighed in on the UAH situation, from Alaska to Massachusetts and back again, and the support has overwhelmingly been for the Chargers, most hoping for eventual admission to the CCHA.

Most supporters are quick to display their disgust with the CCHA for declining the Chargers’ application. Thus, a recent commentary by CHN managing editor Adam Wodon entitled “CCHA Not to Blame” ruffled a few feathers.

“We weren’t a perfect fit for the CCHA,” Morris said. “If we were, they would have taken us.  We knew that we weren’t, which is why we offered a high five-figure travel guarantee in perpetuity to the league to help offset the costs of travel to Huntsville. Do I hold the member schools blameless?  Not really.  I do hold [CCHA commissioner] Tom Anastos blameless, which puts me in the minority with a number of folks here in town, but Tom didn’t have a vote.  My biggest disappointment is that they took the vote via acclimation and really didn’t give us any feedback as to why we didn’t fit the league.  Did we need to offer more money?  Were they just interested at staying at 11?”

But piling on the CCHA, Morris insists, isn’t the right attitude to take either, considering the school’s continued goal of CCHA membership. “[The community's reaction] turned into the usual dumping-on-the-CCHA stuff that I really find disdainful… I’m still hopeful that we can work something out with the CCHA, even if it’s just a scheduling alliance.”

Save UAH Hockey is officially a movement. It’s got its own Twitter feed. It’s got its own Facebook page, replete with 3,800 fans. And, of course, its own website and blog, complete with a true rallying cry: “Thirty years of hockey means we won’t go without a fight.”

It’s a true grassroots movement, with plenty of assistance from the powers that be in Huntsville. “I talk to coach [Danton] Cole on the phone more than I do my own mother these days,” Morris said. “We are forever sending emails, making phone calls, bouncing ideas off of each other.  Danton is a dynamic personality and an inspiring leader… we’ve got an administration, from President Dave Williams on down, that’s committed to keeping hockey as the flagship sport at UAH.  Unlike most public universities in the state, we don’t have a football team, so this really does lead around here – not just because it’s the only D-I sport at the school.”

The Chargers may be secure for the near future, if only because they’ve received similar support from around the NCAA in the form of agreements for games as an independent. “Last time I sat down and had lunch with Coach,” Morris said, “we had enough games to be NCAA eligible for each of the next three seasons.  Ideally, we want to get to at least 30 games a season, and we need at least 10-12 of those to be home games to hold interest.  Lots of schools are entertaining us with home-and-home arrangements right now, and that’s really helping us to fill out our schedule.”

Thus, there’s still time left on the clock to save the Chargers, who will host the 2012 Frozen Four in Tampa. There’s still time to welcome the oddity fully into the fold.

“I think it would help NCAA growth in all sports if schools off the beaten path wanted to start what are currently regional sports,” Morris said. “I’m not holding my breath though.”

No one — that’s the answer to the headline.

This is a little addendum to my recent column about the CCHA turning down Alabama-Huntsville’s bid to join the conference.

Apparently, I didn’t make my point clear enough about the intent.

Personally, it would/will stink if UAH’s program is jeopardized as the result of having no conference. And I would’ve had no problem with the CCHA taking UAH on board. In fact, I would have loved for the CCHA to believe it could make that work. I don’t want UAH to go away, and neither do people in the CCHA.

The point of my article was to defend the CCHA’s decision — or, their right, if you will, to make that decision. Point being, I can’t decide for the members of the CCHA what is right and wrong in that scenario — and if they determined that it’s not a good idea, for any number of completely valid reasons, then it’s their prerogative.

The further point being that — every conference and every school always acts in their own best interests. Perhaps hockey tries to be more altruistic than other sports, historically — but only to a point. At the end of the day, no one is going to harm themselves — and the CCHA believed it would be harmful to the members that were already there.

I can assure you they didn’t come to that conclusion lightly.

Parker (l.) and York celebrate the last two NCAA championships.

Anyone who has followed college hockey for years know how entwined Boston University coach Jack Parker is to Boston College coach Jerry York. It’s not just because they are the respective coaches now of two arch rivals. It goes way back and way deeper.

There was no better person to sum this up than our friend and Boston Herald writer John Connolly, in a recent piece for the Herald. It’s a must read. You should check it out.

The article was written because today, the pair are being enshrined, together, in the New England Sports Museum Hall of Fame. It’s only fitting, as the bond continues.

Both Boston-area natives, the same age, but from two different towns, went to two different rival colleges — yet here they, having been responsible for winning the last two NCAA championships. Each one of those was the third for each coach. They flip flop as to who has the most wins — they are 1-2 among active coaches, each with over 800 — and they show no signs of slowing down as they chase Ron Mason’s record of 924.

This chart shows the current leaders (it doesn’t yet include this past season).

I seem to be in the minority among hockey “purists” about the Phoenix NHL situation, and about Sun Belt hockey in general. They seem to ally with the cause of Canadians who lament the NHL’s Southward drift, at the expense of old-school NHL places like Winnipeg and Quebec, and perhaps new ones like Hamilton.

But, perhaps because I have seen the boon to college hockey in recent years, I don’t look at it that way. All you have to do is take a quantitative look at college hockey rosters over the last 10 years to see the impact of the game being grown in non-traditional places. First it was places like Long Island and Pittsburgh that started getting more and more college players on the rosters. But then it becames places like Washington, then Texas just exploded, followed by the Carolinas and California, and yes, even Phoenix.

The Phoenix franchise itself might stink on the ice, but they could’ve stunk anywhere. (And let’s not forget — Winnipeg and Quebec were not NHL cities until 1980.)

The fact that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman gets so roundly booed everywhere he goes in a clueless reaction, I think, on the part of most fans. I don’t even think they know what they’re booing. It’s like the Canadians who boo the American anthem.

Recently Bettman met with the NHL Players’ Association, and I found it refreshing that player rep Michael Peca (a Canadian) chose a contrarian viewpoint to many of his fellow players.

“I actually share a lot of the feelings that the commissioner conveyed about the Phoenix situation,” Peca told ESPN.com. “When you’ve got a kid that plays hockey and you know hockey’s their life, you don’t want to ever see that taken away. You’ve got to build roots in communities.

“It’s easy to transplant a team into Toronto or Southern Ontario and it would succeed, but there’s a growing base of kids that are playing hockey and in minor hockey systems that are thriving now in these communities that you don’t want to rip away. It’s a touchy thing and hopefully those organizations work out.”

Here here to that.

Brian Leetch accepts the Conn Smythe Trophy as Stanley Cup playoff MVP in 1994.

Their stays may have been brief, but college hockey has its mark all over this year’s NHL Hall of Fame class. Brett Hull and Brian Leetch each had short, yet remarkable, college hockey careers before heading to the make their impact elsewhere. And as members of the iconic 1996 U.S. World Cup team, they will forever be remembered fondly by those who follow the college game so closely.

Hull, playing for Minnesota-Duluth, was the last college player to score 50 goals — an incredible number, even given the higher-scoring era. The pros weren’t sure he could handle the NHL at first — him not being the most adept skater, and so on, but soon his sniping skills were unstoppable in the NHL as well, as well as his mouth.

Leetch was dominant at Boston College for one season, before heading off with the 1988 U.S. Olympic team. In short order, he was leading the Rangers, winning the Rookie of the Year honors then a couple of Norris Trophies as the NHL’s top defenseman. And in 1994, became the first American to win the Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, leading the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup in 54 years.

Also inducted was Lou Lamoriello, and his legacy in college hockey goes deeper than either of the two players. Lamoriello, the former coach and then-AD at Providence, led the charge in creating Hockey East, when five teams split off from the ECAC to form the new league in 1984. The team that wins the Hockey East championship is now awarded a cup in Lamoriello’s name. He continued that legacy by being one of the first GMs to sign a lot of ex-college hockey players. His willingness to do that, when most of his peers were not, was part of the reason for the Devils’ edge, which led them to three Stanley Cup championships. He paved the way for teams to not be afraid of guys like Brian Gionta, and it has worked out for everyone. Lamoriello has a reputation for surliness and penny-pinching behind the scenes, but any time I’ve been able to talk to him about college hockey — whether at a World Cup or the draft — he’s been cordial and forthcoming with information.

Add Steve Yzerman and Luc Robitaille into the mix — two class players, with outstanding skills — and this is a Hall of Fame induction class for the ages. Congratulations to all on a well-deserved honor.

It’s hardly a secret now. Former North Dakota coach Dean Blais — a two-time NCAA champion — is returning to college hockey.

The Nebraska-Omaha program will get an infusion of enthusiasm and — very soon — talent. Expectations should ratchet upward, and Blais will hold everyone accountable from Day One.

It’s somewhat surprising in a way. New Omaha athletic director Trev Alberts has dropped some hints about making sure the school can afford the guy he decides to hire to run the hockey program. Blais is likely not coming cheap, but his pricetag was obviously not too high for UNO.

Nor should it be.

Omaha is a solid market, and it’s one this university can tap into with the right coach. While Blais might make a lot of money in his position, he will put a winning product on the ice, and he will do what it takes to make sure the program is successful.

Not only that, but you shouldn’t discount the experiences Blais has had in hockey. Among them was the work he did at North Dakota, a program that is as much a part of its home city as any other in the country. The North Dakota men could play a scrimmage against the Kentucky club team, and it would still sell a large number of tickets at the Ralph. Blais worked every day with a support staff that knows how to market a college hockey program.

In Fargo, he helped build a USHL franchise from scratch, and they just played for the Clark Cup title this spring.

With all this in mind, does UNO’s decision regarding the WCHA become easier with Blais on board?

There’s no question that Blais has a great amount of respect for the WCHA, and vice versa. I remember seeing him in Denver before a UMD game there a few years ago, when he had a chance to catch up with former Blais assistant and current UMD coach Scott Sandelin. Current North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol got the gig after Blais left, and he was an assistant prior to that. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone within the WCHA who doesn’t respect Blais.

Alberts admits he is learning about college hockey. That said, he is well-aware of the prestige of the WCHA. More importantly, the financial advantage the WCHA offers (for example, their per-school guarantee for the Final Five is much higher than the CCHA’s is for their league finals in Detroit) could really tip the scales in favor of this move. After all, Alberts talked at his introductory press conference about making a bigger deal out of hockey — UNO’s only Division I sport.

This might not be a slam dunk, but it’s as close as you’re going to get to one. Barring a major philosophical upset, I would expect Nebraska-Omaha to join Bemidji State in the WCHA. Not to brag, but it’s a solution I predicted nearly two years ago.

For years, one of the more entertaining college hockey discussions has been: Who will be the next coach at Boston University after Jack Parker? This conversation always has legs because — a) there was a time when Parker seemed closer to leaving (because of flirtations with the Boston Bruins, administrative jobs, etc…) … and b) because there are so many qualified candidates out there.

Parker wound up settling back in at BU, but, of course, he’s also getting older. Various candidates have come and gone since then, BU alumni and/or former Parker assistant coaches.

With today’s announcement that former BU All-American Joe Sacco has been named the new head coach of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, that list just got bigger, and more interesting.

Names that used to lead the charge, have fallen off. Current Massachusetts head coach Don Cahoon, a BU player in the early ’70s, is not appreciably younger, relatively, than Parker at this point. Blaise McDonald, a former assistant, now head coach at Massachusetts-Lowell, has not distinguished himself, necessarily. Buddy Powers, former head coach at RPI and Bowling Green — same thing. Former assistant Brian Durocher now is head coach of BU’s women’s team, and seems ensconced there.

In the current sweepstakes lead, many consider it to be current top assistant David Quinn, a BU alum and one-time first round NHL pick. Though he is currently a candidate for Nebraska-Omaha’s opening. But he has the experience, and, perhaps, at 42, the right age.

Another lead name is BU alum Mike Sullivan, formerly head coach of the Boston Bruins. He didn’t take the amateur coaching route, like others did, but he had a long playing career, then went into coaching the AHL and quickly got the Bruins job, before losing it after a couple of years. This is akin to the route Ted Donato took at Harvard, although Donato had even less head coaching experience.

Which brings us to Sacco. Sacco also had a long playing career, a brief stint as an AHL head coach, and now the NHL.

BU may ultimately go with people who have stuck around the college game, which would keep Quinn at the forefront. But by being BU alums and NHL head coaches, Sullivan, and now Sacco, immediately thrust themselves into the discussion as well.

For all the concern about what could happen to Alabama-Huntsville in the near future, and for all the gloom and doom over its attempt to find room in the CCHA … the more it’s investigated, the more it might make sense.

However, this is only because of Nebraska-Omaha’s potential departure from the CCHA for the WCHA.

See, we’ve been part of the uproar here. We wrote recently that the WCHA’s open courting of Nebraska-Omaha, as a way of making Bemidji State’s WCHA entrance more palateable, was very unseemly. After all, if the WCHA was truly only trying to do what was best for college hockey as a whole — and bring in Bemidji State in order to save that program (with the impending dissolution of the CHA) — then how could it claim that while also robbing another conference of one of their teams? At best, it was a 50-50 proposition, from the big picture view of college hockey.

However, maybe not.

Huntsville’s longshot bid becomes a lot more intriguing vis-a-vis UNO, specifically. Huntsville has been labeled a longshot because of the distance from CCHA schools. In this economy especially, flying schools to Huntsville is an expense most schools don’t want.

When the discussion swirled around Bowling Green’s potential demise, replacing BGSU with Huntsville was a costly difference.

But in terms of UNO, there is no cost difference. And this is the huge key.

A check of Google Maps shows that the driving mileage distance from Detroit to Omaha, Nebraska, is 732 miles. The driving distance from Detroit to Huntsville, Alabama, is only 663 miles.

True, the airport situation may be trickier, but the end result may be no more expensive for CCHA teams.

So perhaps UNO to the WCHA, while a rough “see ya later” to the CCHA, may be the one scenario that is best for college hockey right now.  Let’s face it, everyone’s between a rock and a hard place, but at least there is some semblance of a solution that would benefit everyone, somewhat — and potentially save two programs.

Update: And, as UAH SID Jamie Gilliam points out, Huntsville was just named the top place to live!

It’s a little early, but we’re approaching the next round of Frozen Four bids in the near future. Bids will officially be taken this fall for the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Frozen Fours, and will be announced in spring or summer 2010.

To date, the only four cities which have officially announced as preparing to bid are Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Omaha, Neb.

The traditional selection criteria are as follows:

• Facility Requirements and Needs (Seating Capacities, etc.)
• Locker Room Space
• Media Facilities
• Hotel Facilities
• Headquarters Hotel
• Media Hotel
• Officials Accommodations
• Team Accommodations
• Fan Accommodations
• Financial Projections
• Ticket Prices
• Projected Ticket Sales

So here’s a somewhat exhaustive primer for the 2010 round.  I’ve included most of the cities that bid in 2000 (which awarded Frozen Fours to Boston, Columbus, and Milwaukee), 2003 (St. Louis and Denver), and 2005 (Washington, Detroit, St. Paul, and Tampa), along with some words on recent host cities.

The “Big Hockey City” Picks

New York – Madison Square Garden is an oft-rumored venue for the Frozen Four, but despite the fact that six different locations in Upstate New York have hosted the event, it still has never come to the Crossroads of the World. Quinnipiac and Atlantic Hockey were rumored to be putting together a bid in 2003, but nothing ever materialized. If MSG puts forward a bid, it’ll almost certainly get very close consideration – there are few cities in the world, let alone in the hockey-playing United States, that can compare with NYC, and few hockey meccas left out there that compare with MSG. On top of that, a recent BU-Cornell game there sold out, leading to a rematch there next season. Even if MSG doesn’t put a bid forward, there are still viable options across the Hudson in the Izod Center at the Meadowlands (which bid in 2000 and made the short list) or the Devils’ new digs at Prudential Center in Newark.

Pittsburgh – Robert Morris is backing a bid for the Frozen Four from the replacement for “The Igloo,” Consol Energy Arena, which will be the Penguins’ new building starting in the 2010-11 season. With the trend toward NHL arenas (by 2012, 7 of 10 Frozen Fours will have been in pro buildings), a local college hockey team with neighbors, plus a number of regular-season college hockey games taking place already at Mellon Arena in the recent past and near future, a strong support for the sport in the area, and a state-of-the-art brand new building to boot, and the Pittsburgh bid will look very, very strong indeed. The one drawback could be the fact that the building won’t be finished by the time the bids are decided upon, a fact which has caused problems for other bids in the past.

Philadelphia – The soon-to-be-yet-again-renamed Wachovia Center failed to earn a bid in both 2003 and 2005 despite making the short-list both times. Hotel accommodations near the stadium were a tripping point, but this should be resolved by the middle of the next decade thanks to a new hotel being planned at the current location of the old Spectrum across the street. This time, the building would have to face competition from Pittsburgh, which would be a tough sell. There’s practically no chance that the NCAA would hold two Frozen Fours in three years in the same state when there’s never been even one there.

The Recent Hosts

Buffalo – HSBC Arena has the benefit of being a modern NHL arena and being close to the Canadian hotbed of Southern Ontario. I don’t know how well received the city was in 2003, but Buffalo and HSBC Arena are probably interested in hosting again if their bid in 2005 is any indication. They weren’t shortlisted, probably because it was considered to be too soon. Anything prior to 2015 is probably still too soon.

Boston – The biggest shock of the last round of Frozen Four bids was that despite the unexpected decision to award the 2012 Frozen Four in addition to the planned awards for 2009-11, Boston was not among the cities chosen to host. At the time, the popular sentiment was that Boston might as well already be penciled in for 2013, and there hasn’t been anything in the last four years that would lead a person to presume that this has changed at all. Boston could submit a bid written in crayon comprised of nothing but “we want to host the Frozen Four” and they’d probably still be the favorites for 2013. The bottom line here is that if TD Garden submits a bid, they are practically assured to host by 2014 at the very latest.

Columbus – Maybe this is just me, but perhaps Nationwide Arena would be a better choice for Columbus down the road if they seek to host the Frozen Four again, which they probably will given that they submitted a bid for 2005, but like Buffalo, they were too soon then and probably would still be too soon this time. The relatively nearby bid of Pittsburgh could be tough to overcome, too.

Milwaukee – The Bradley Center has hosted the Frozen Four three times successfully and probably will get another crack at it in the near future, but they’d have better luck waiting until next time. The building did host its first two Frozen Fours just four years apart, but that was in the mid-90s – a lot has changed since then.

St. Louis – The Scottrade Center hosted the 2007 edition of the Frozen Four, and by most accounts did a pretty good job with it. According to reports, the city’s planning to give it another shot already, but this is definitely too early for the Gateway city to be hosting again.

Denver – I’m tempted to say that Denver might be able to get a little quicker of a turn-around time that Boston and the Twin Cities are entitled to as the two epicenters of college hockey, but given recent history, where St. Paul will have spent 9 years waiting for the Frozen Four’s return and with Boston having to wait at least that long, I don’t think Denver will have a shot until the next round of bidding.

The Odder Picks, With History

Omaha – Nebraska-Omaha’s home building, Qwest Center, bid just before opening in 2003 and are planning for a bid in this cycle already. Although it probably wouldn’t seem like it to an outsider, Omaha is actually a pretty decent hockey city, with strong junior hockey roots as well as strong support for the Mavericks. Omaha is still probably a darkhorse for the Frozen Four, though, as the area and the facility may both be a touch small for the tournament.

Kansas City – KC has been patiently waiting for their chance to host a Frozen Four, missing out in 2000 and 2005 for different reasons. The city was short-listed in 2000, but lost on a bid centered around Kemper Arena, an older facility. 2005 was instead centered around the Sprint Center, a newer, state-of-the-art facility which hopes to attract an NBA or NHL team, but in 2005 the building existed only on paper, breaking ground just days after failing to make the short-list cut. Now the building is a reality and has drawn rave reviews. With another bid in the works, and with the Hockey Commissioners Association placing the 2012 IceBreaker there, KC may just make the short-list again and could be a favorite for a bid if everything shakes out well.

San Antonio – The Alamodome has been a part of the last two bid processes, in 2003 and 2005. Both times the bid was supported by the University of Texas-San Antonio. In the past, there had been some hesitance to place the Frozen Four in a location without a hockey-connected host, but the 2009 Frozen Four was hosted by Navy with no problems. San Antonio would combine the NCAA’s penchant for including non-traditional locations with size – according to Wikipedia, the building seats 36,000 for hockey, which would make it as accessible as Ford Field will be next year, only with fewer empty seats and likely, better sight lines, since the facility has two permanent Olympic-sized rinks. Could they get that many to make the trip to San Antonio, though? Questions still abound, and San Antonio definitely isn’t a “hockey city” even by looser southern standards.

Miami – BankAtlantic Center in nearby Sunrise failed to make the short list in 2005, probably thanks to Tampa making the cut. I wouldn’t expect the NCAA to be so quick to return to Florida after 2012, especially since this bid will be awarded prior to that event.

Orlando – TD Waterhouse Center, now Amway  Arena, bid in 2000, supported by Disney, Quinnipiac, and what was then the MAAC. While I’m sure a Disney Frozen Four would be magical indeed, the same reasoning applies to Orlando as it does to Miami.

Atlanta – Philips Arena bid in 2000 with Georgia State as the sponsor, and didn’t make the cut. If a bid gets put forward there could be interest, but since they didn’t put forward bids in 2003 or 2005, perhaps the interest isn’t there.

Phoenix – The Coyotes’ Jobing.com Arena in Glendale failed to make the short-list in 2005. Speaking from personal experience, Arizona’s a great place to watch a hockey game (especially in February), but with all of the turmoil going on with the Coyotes right now, there are probably better choices for a non-traditional location.

Los Angeles – The 1999 Frozen Four in nearby Anaheim was a success financially for the NCAA, but the cost of transporting the teams there – three of them were Hockey East teams – put a damper on the net return. Fan reaction tended to be negative to the area at the time as well, leading me to believe that LA probably isn’t a strong contender.

San Jose – A bid backed by RPI was put forward in 2000 and made the NCAA’s short-list, but the financial issues surrounding the then-recent 1999 Frozen Four in Anaheim may have helped put the kibosh on the HP Pavilion’s chances. With the time that’s passed in the interim, if the interest is there and there’s a sponsor, the Shark Tank might have a decent shot if California as a whole isn’t “poisoned” by the ’99 event. Just as with Atlanta, no bids in the last two cycles may indicate that the interest isn’t there anymore.

My Own Odder Picks

Dallas – If the NCAA is insistent on following the NHL’s lead by showcasing itself in warm-weather, non-traditional sites, it stands to reason that a Frozen Four in Dallas, which has been one of the most successful warm-weather success stories, would be an intriguing idea, and, to be honest, American Airlines Center is a very nice facility for hockey. If the interest is there for a bid, I have to think it would get some very serious consideration.

Chicago – So while we’re listing off practically every NHL arena out there, especially in traditional climates, why not the United Center? Right now, the sole sports focus of the city of Chicago – other than the Blackhawks’ current playoff run and the Cubs – is on the 2016 Olympics. That bid won’t be over until October, and it wouldn’t give much time to throw something together in the interim.

Toronto – OK, I admit it, now I’m just getting weird, but given some of the picks we’ve seen, why not Toronto? Actually, here’s a couple of good reasons why not Toronto – the NCAA hasn’t, to my knowledge, ever crowned a champion outside of the lower 48, and it would be a logistical nightmare for fans with passport requirements now in place for returning to the United States. But if you could throw those two considerations out, you know there’d be a lot to love about a Frozen Four at the Air Canada Centre.

Sorry

Detroit, St. Paul, Tampa, and Washington – It’ll be much too early for these four cities, even though Washington Capitals manager George McPhee has already indicated after the very successful event there this year that he’d like to host the Frozen Four again, and soon. Detroit and St. Paul will probably have another shot to host sometime in the late 2010s, though, for Detroit hopefully before Joe Louis Arena closes, since the building will be going on 40 years old by that point. We won’t know about Tampa’s chances for the future until 2012.

Albany and Providence – The party’s over for both of these cities. The Times Union Center in Albany seems to submit a bid practically every time they are requested, and Providence is one of those true college hockey destinations, but neither the Dunkin’ Donuts Center nor the TUC are big enough for what the Frozen Four has become since they last hosted the event in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

That’s It

So how about it? What do YOU think? Any place I left out? Any city not getting its due props? Feel free to drop a comment or two before I make my “Way Too Early Picks for the 2013-15 Frozen Fours, Like My Opinion Mattered” predictions.