After boring you with talk of college football conference shifts all fall, let's switch gears so I can bore you about college hockey conference shifts.

Let's start with Vermont, which is leaving the ECAC for Hockey East. It's a smart move, as it puts them in a conference which has most of the other public universities that play division 1 hockey (UConn is in Atlantic Hockey) and with some of Vermont's fellow America East schools. Personally, I look forward to making a return trip to Burlington, as my one trip up there was a lot of fun. Good crowd and a good college town.

The move leaves the ECAC at 11, which isn't so bad, except that a vote coming this week may cut that number to 8. There's a proposal in front of athletic directors from division 3 schools that will prevent schools that "play up" to division 1 in a sport from offering scholarships to athletes in that sport. Eight schools would be affected, four in hockey, and three in the ECAC (RPI, Clarkson, and St. Lawrence). There's a possibility of grandfathering in the schools who currently fit this bill, and the main proposal may very well fail anyway. But it'll be interesting to see how this comes down.

Should the ECAC drop to 8, they may be unwittingly helped in finding new members by the University of Findlay. They announced this past week that they are going to drop hockey after the end of this season (and, in a classy move, didn't tell the head coach that until 2 hours before the press conference). This will leave Findlay's conference, College Hockey America, with just 5 teams. It will also lose its automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

CHA isn't totally screwed, as Robert Morris is joining for women's hockey and may find itself pressed to bring the men along (they are currently planning on playing independently). They may also be able to get a team or two to jump from Atlantic Hockey; there's apparently talk that Quinnipiac may join.

Part of the problem is that CHA is kind of a catch-all conference. Dismissing Findlay, memebers include Bemidji St. in Minnesota, Niagara, Alabama-Huntsville, Air Force, and Wayne State in Detroit. If CHA were to fold, it wouldn't be too hard to see Niagara go to the ECAC, Bemidji and Air Force to the WCHA, and Wayne State to the CCHA.

This assumes that those conferences would want them. Niagara and the ECAC seems like a good fit. Bemidji and Air Force would get the WCHA to 12 teams (though having three Colorado schools could make for tricky scheduling). CCHA is already at 12, though they could try to ship Alaska-Fairbanks to the WCHA. Whether or not they want to trade the Nanooks for Wayne State is another story entirely (same goes for getting Bemidji and Air Force into the WCHA).

Oh, and to make matters even odder, the ECAC could try to poach from Atlantic Hockey. There's some talk about Holy Cross and Sacred Heart having some interest. Who knows?

About the only thing for sure out of all of this is that Vermont is moving and Findlay is going bye-bye. I think there'll be a push to maintain the six conferences at levels giving each an auto bid to the tournament, especially given how hard folks worked to expand the tournament to 16 teams.

In unrelated college hockey news, an OT win by BU over Northeastern last night makes the Terriers 6-6-6. Demonic possession may just explain this team. It's also entertaining to think that they'll take their Record of the Beast to our local Jesuit friends on Friday night. It may be our best hope against BC at their rink.