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.

Monday, August 17th, 2009 - 7:51 pm | Commentary