College Hockey:

2006-07 CCHA Season Preview

The 2006-07 CCHA: It’s All Academic

This year, thanks to the wonderment of technology, anyone with high-speed Internet access could have viewed — and then reviewed, endlessly — the league’s preseason Media Day.

Finally, fans across the league were privy to the inner workings of CCHA Media Day, from the jovial atmosphere to the short, short, short presentation of carefully spun information.

See how glamorous life is on the inside?

In fairness, what the league’s live stream may have shown fans was the actual camaraderie among the league’s coaches; for the most part, these guys really like and respect each other, they’re very supportive of each other off the ice, and they absolutely are company men.

But the rest of the press conference — if that’s what it can be called — felt as scripted as yesterday’s news, every participant as spontaneous and fresh as history itself.

In fact, much of it felt like last year’s Media Day, complete with the annual chestnuts about the toughness of the league.

Scott Parse, the 2005-06 CCHA Player of the Year, returns to lead Nebraska-Omaha’s push to the top of the league.

“It’s going to be another challenge, it’s going to be another great year in the CCHA,” said Alaska head coach Tavis MacMillan.

“As has been said already, it’s going to be a tough, tough year in the CCHA,” said Nebraska-Omaha head coach Mike Kemp.

And Michigan State head coach Rick Comley, one of the most enthusiastic spokesmen for the league, took the rhetoric to the next level.

“I know polls are out, but believe me, I expect every game just to be a war,” said Comley. “There’s not a building that we go in, or a team that comes into our building that you don’t have to fight for your life. So regardless of what expectations are going in, we’re going to have a tremendous season within the CCHA.”

Hyperbole aside, Comley and I agree on one thing: It will be a tremendous season within the CCHA, and that too is history repeating. There was exciting league hockey played during the 2005-06 season, with 26 tied games in league play. But the hockey that everyone was hoping would translate into NCAA gold (or silver, or bronze at the very least) ultimately resulted in same old, same old.

Even this year’s preseason polls have an historical slant, in spite of Fred Pletsch’s attempt at creating drama. “For the first time in recent memory,” said Pletsch, director of communication for the league, “[There is] disagreement between the media and the coaches as to who’s going to finish No. 1.”

That disagreement amounts to a flip-flop in the polls between Nos. 1 and 2, but this is a cast of characters you’ve already memorized. Michigan State and Michigan were at the top, with the Spartans getting the nod from the coaches and the Wolverines endorsed by the media. Of course, MSU was No. 2 in the media poll, Michigan No. 2 in the coaches poll.

Seems as though we can, like, use notes from last year’s test to study for this year’s final.

(The one surprise of the preseason is that Miami, the regular-season champs by a relative long shot last year, were picked third in both polls. But perhaps that shouldn’t at all be surprising, given the history of this league and the way that it thinks about itself.)

Looking at the CCHA for the 2006-07 season is as easy as One, Two, Three:

One Reason to Buy into the League’s Competitiveness

As in, give us one reason to do so. Although talk of NCAA chances was kept to a blessed minimum at this year’s Media Day — right down to commissioner Tom Anastos’s giving the NCAA selection criteria short shrift in his prologue — the question near the top of nearly every fan’s list is, “When is the CCHA going to show up to play in the NCAA tournament?”

According to Comley, the CCHA actually gained some ground in this respect last season.

“Our league took tremendous sides last year nationally. We helped out everybody in the league by how well we did in all our nonconference play. It helps tremendously when it comes time for the selection process.”

I don’t really see the ground that was gained. Perhaps the 2005-06 NCAA tournament is a text I need to review:

Boston College 5, Miami 0
Boston University 9, Nebraska-Omaha 2
North Dakota 5, Michigan 1
Michigan State 1, New Hampshire 0
Maine 5, Michigan State 4

That’s one win and one heartbreakingly close loss — both by the team whose coach claims the league made strides nationally last season. The rest? One and out. The CCHA’s 2005-06 NCAA postseason record: 1-4-0, outscored by those nonconference opponents 24-8.

In the past few seasons, the CCHA has given ample evidence to disprove two treasured paradigms. The first, of course, is that the toughness of the league from top to bottom often hits the member teams in the old PairWise, something that last year’s new playoff format was designed to address. An implied extension of that, of course, is that CCHA teams have such a tough time escaping from league play into the NCAA postseason that they’re spent by the time they get there.

The second paradigm is generally accepted among most sports everywhere, and yet the CCHA has — through extensive empirical research — finally proven it wrong as well: Defense wins games.

Of course it doesn’t. The CCHA has many fine examples of teams with solid overall team defense, as well as an exceptionally high number of excellent goaltenders. What did that earn the league last year? One NCAA win and eight tournament goals.

Something’s not working here, and unless the league can provide solid scholarship — with, say, its first Frozen Four appearance since 2003? — nothing is going to convince fans that the league has learned anything from the repeated lessons that history has offered.

The Perennial Two: Michigan, Michigan State

The coaches picked the Spartans. The media picked the Wolverines. This is nothing new.

Given that MSU and Michigan share one of the most exciting rivalries in all of sports, who are we to complain? And I’m not complaining. It’s a simple fact of the CCHA; there is no keeping the Spartans and Wolverines down.

Michigan State’s Jeff Lerg accepts the CCHA postseason tournament MVP award (photo: Matt Mackinder).

Before the early departure of Spartan captain Drew Miller, I would have put money (were I a betting woman) on Michigan State in the 2007 NCAA title game. And I’m still not convinced they won’t get there.

Last year, the Spartans dominated the second half of the CCHA season, winning their 11th CCHA championship and contending until the final buzzer against Maine in Albany. Both their championship and their appearance in that game (their 15th) set league records.

Nearly equally storied are the Michigan Wolverines, whose third-place 2005-06 league finish was their first below second place since the 1990-91 season. Since and including 1992 — the first time the Wolverines appeared in the Frozen Four under the tutelage of Red Berenson — Michigan has made a league-leading nine FF appearance.

Since 1990, Michigan State and Lake Superior State have each made three FF appearances, and Ohio State its one and only.

Given the league dominance each team has shown — separately and simultaneously — in the league and college hockey, the Spartans and Wolverines are sure bets to be near the top at the end of the year.

Again, nothing new. League dominance. Presence in the national scene. Good (we hop