Right on the heels of my previous blog posting, the CCHA announced today that they’ll be experimenting with a few of the rule changes that the rules committee has encouraged conferences to try out, plus implementing instant replay in all arenas in the league.

The experimental rules will be used in exhibition games to open the season and include changes that mirror the changes recently made in the NHL, most notably regarding icing. In these exhibitions, icing will prevent the team that iced the puck from changing lines. In addition, icing will be called on the penalty kill on the short-handed team. We should definitely see a bump in scoring and a change in style during these games.

More exciting to me is the two official, two linesman set-up that they will use in these exhibitions. If executed properly we’ll hopefully see games called in a more consistent and accurate fashion.

A big thumbs up to the CCHA for stepping up and giving everyone else in college hockey an opportunity to take a look at the impact of these new changes.

With hockey season just a few days away, it’s apparent that officiating is not just on the minds of bitter fans who felt they were robbed last season, but also on the minds of coaches who must constantly adjust to not only the new rule changes, but also the way that the referees will interpret them.

I spoke with St. Lawrence head coach Joe Marsh last week who is entering his 21st season being the Saints bench about the upcoming season. One of the factors he named regarding how well his team will do this year is how well the coaching staff and his players can adjust to the way the game is called. Anyone that is familiar enough with college hockey, knows if it’s on someone like Coach Marsh’s mind, it’s probably on every coach’s mind.

While the only major rule change this year involves the nullification of icing on a playable pass, Coaches and players are still struggling with the referee’s interpretations of hitting from behind and obstruction-interference rules added over the past season. One game’s obstruction interference is the next game’s great defensive play.

This year, the hitting from behind penalty has been clarified, only allowing a minor to be given if the infraction is in “open ice.” It remains a major penalty along with a DQ or misconduct otherwise. The rules involving obstruction remain the same, meant to get rid of the “clutch and grab” of old, while moving hockey towards a fast and flowing style of game, reminscent of the “New NHL.”

We’ll likely be shaking our heads when our favorite player is sent off when a player turns his back at the last second, or a slight push on the back is embellished, but hopefully this will be less so if the officials call these penalties on a consistent basis.

In many cases last year a prat-fall near the boards or a forward raising his hand around a defenseman with one hand on his stick meant a trip to the box. Calling these penalties has effectively discouraged dangerous actions such as boarding, but has also increased the level of dramatic performances on the ice to an extent that De Niro would be proud.

The Rules Committee took note on this increase in embellishment and is requesting officials to penalize more often for tactics such as diving, and we’re starting to see more being called. But until referees can really get to the bottom of diving and nail people (how many diving penalties have you seen in the past two years?) this will remain a game of cat and mouse with the refs. The problem is, referees must err on the side of caution, and that always means erring on the side of the player that appeared to get hit. Until the refs can get a hold of the diving issue or are provided with stronger tools such as suspensions to deter it after the fact (see the “New NHL”) we’ll be seeing a lot of frustration and a lot of adjusting throughout the season.

How do you think the officials will pan out this season in your conference and how well do you think your team will be able to adjust to way officials call the game?

You know it’s been a slow week when the biggest press release to hit the wire was the announcement of the schedule of this year’s weekly USA Today Hockey Rankings.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Captains have been leading practices for a little over a week now and coaches are starting to get into the mix. And it’s only nine days until the University of Alaska-Fairbanks takes the ice against the U-18 Development Team to unofficially open up hockey season.

The blogosphere has been abuzz recently getting ready for the season. Western College Hockey continues to dig through their CCHA previews, as well as some interesting CCHA and WCHA situational comparisons. Hockey East Blog did the same thing early in the month, and our own Brett Gobe is breaking down the ECAC over at the Clarkson Hockey Fans Blog. We even have Atlantic Hockey previews going on with the newly established RIT Corner Crew blog.

For those of you into the Women’s game, the USCHO pre-season poll is out with defendin champion Wisconsin leading the way, taking 13 of 14 first place votes along with the other usual suspects. Last year’s strong Mercyhurst squad comes in at 5th, and surprisingly a Hockey East squad, Boston College comes in at #10. We’ll come back to this in a month to see what kind of impact the Olympians return on the rankings and game in general.

Lets Go DU found some choice YouTube videos over at Boston University which deserves some mentioning. These will likely go to supplement various arguments around hockey forums across the country.

Apparently everyone else is talking about some guy that shares the same name as a musician, but I challenged myself not to address it any further in this posting.

Adam tossed this one in front of us a week or two ago and we all kind of shrugged, but several weeks later and still no word on the University of British-Columbia’s pending application to join the NCAA. CSTV’s Rink Rat, Elliot Olshansky breaks it down a bit further, taking a look at some of the conference and recruiting scenarios UBC and other teams might face should their application get approved.

There’s a great article on ESPN.com about RPI captain Kirk MacDonald’s fight to overcome testicular cancer. Many who keep track of the ECACHL have been following this story closely, and Ken Schott does an excellent job of pulling it all together for us as MacDonald gets ready to take the ice for his senior season against York and then Boston University. Definitely something for all fans of college hockey to look forward to.

A quick shout-out to Terrier Hockey covering Boston University and the Hockey East Blog which have both recently joined the blogosphere. It’s good to see more eastern schools getting involved in something that was previously reserved for parts of the country that win NCAA championships. Brutal? Yes sir! Regardless we hope to see more and more schools featuring some of that sweet sweet blogging action.

You know it’s a slow time of year when dggoddard over at Lets Go DU, an always enjoyable blog / Colorado College bashing site, takes the time to breakdown the 2006 NCAA Champion Wisconsin Badgers championship ring. Of course he couldn’t help but put up comparison shots of Denver’s 2004 AND 2005 rings as well. Cubic Zirconia has never looked so good!

While we were busy celebrating Labor Day Weekend by being as lazy as we possibly could, Adam was busy putting together this article on the NCAA Selection Committee changes for the upcoming season.

As the article points out, the biggest changes involve trying to remove negative-impact wins and doomsday scenarios. Last year, conference winners automatically became “Teams Under Consideration” and had Bentley defeated Holy Cross, would’ve created havok in the pairwise. This is no longer the case. In addition, The RPI weighting has now changed taking a significant portion of the RPI that was based on winning percentage and moving it over to strength of schedule. The committee believes this will encourage a wider variety of non-conference games.

Is it just me or am I missing something? I don’t see top-tier teams scheduling Atlantic or CHA teams more because of this, I actually see them scheduling them less. Adam is busy writing a manifesto on these changes (as well as expousing the virtues of KRACH i’m sure,) which may shed more light on this. In the meantime, my immediate reaction is to chalk this one up to the rich getting richer.

The folks over at Western College Hockey have taken note of some interesting recruits being picked up for the 2009 season as reported by the illustrious Chris Heisenberg

A quick glance at the list shows Nebraska-Omaha picking up two players already for the 2009 season. Let us remind you that those players are probably 15-16 years old. How much is a verbal commitment worth at this stage of the game? Is it really worth anything if the player turns into a blue-chip recruit and bolts for Minnesota, or if he bombs out and the team doesn’t want him anymore? Or will all teams just start establishing their entire rosters four years in advance and Nebraska is just getting a head start?

An interesting article today on Yahoo! Games providing some details on the new NHL 07 for the XBox 360, which should be pretty amazing, featuring a new control scheme that should create the most authentic ice hockey game since NHL 94′ for the Genesis. (Bleed Gretzky! Bleed!)

Of note in the article, at least three members of development team played NCAA Division I hockey or higher. The only identifiable name was Jason Wong, who played goalie for Dartmouth in the late 90’s. Still, the mention of some college hockey blood as part of the development squad can only mean that we have been successful in infiltrating the EA regime and that we’ll see EA NCAA Hockey ’15 someday.