There's a bit of a hullabaloo (or is it a foofraw?) coming in the near future for college hockey, centering around the disposition of College Hockey America, a five-team conference that will likely disband at the end of the season. The problem arises with where these teams will go, as they're pretty diverse geographically (New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Alabama) and the closest leagues to some of them are pretty full already (the ECAC and CCHA having 12 teams already).

Oh, and there's also a problem that, with 59 division I teams, one league is going to have to have an odd number of teams.

Of course, I've worked up a modest proposal, which I will bore you with now. Note that I make no claims to this being based in reality, though I'll try to keep close.

Hockey East would see the least change, only adding UConn, which currently plays in Atlantic Hockey. Given that all the other flagship state university campuses play in Hockey East, it's a logical fit. The UConn women's team also already plays in Hockey East.

This makes Hockey East the conference with the odd number (11), but they went for a few years with 9, so they've at least had some experience with the scheduling issues this would raise.

Teams: BU, BC, Northeastern, Providence, Vermont, UNH, Maine, UMass-Amherst, UMass-Lowell, Merrimack, UConn

The ECAC currently has 12 members, six who are otherwise in the Ivy League and six who are not. This suggests a couple of moves.

First move - split the six Ivies into an Ivy League hockey conference. Six is the minimum number needed, and given the reputation of the schools I think they'd be able to pull this off.

Teams: Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale

Second move - with the remaining six teams, add RIT (who has just made the jump to divison I and was this year's regular season champ in Atlantic Hockey) and Niagara. They'd both fit in well with the ECAC's core of New York teams.

Teams: Clarkson, St. Lawrence, RPI, Union, Quinnipiac, Colgate, RIT, Niagara

Atlantic Hockey stands pat as an eight-team league after losing RIT and UConn. I've kept Air Force in the league as they intentionally joined so they could play Army each year. Of course, they moved from College Hockey America, so in a way this is all their fault.

Teams: Army, Air Force, AIC, Bentley, Holy Cross, Mercyhurst, Canisius, Sacred Heart

The CCHA keeps most of its current membership, divesting itself of its two most outlying members - Nebraska-Omaha and Alaska - and taking on Robert Morris and Wayne State. The latter is a no-brainer, given its Detroit location. Robert Morris is a bit more of a stretch, but Pittsburgh is a more CCHA-friendly location than Omaha or Fairbanks, so I figure it would work.

Teams: Michigan, Michigan State, Ferris State, Western Michigan, Northern Michigan, Lake Superior State, Ohio State, Miami, Bowling Green, Notre Dame, Wayne State, Robert Morris

The WCHA gets a pretty radical makeover, in one of two options:

Option 1 sees the league take on Alaska, Nebraska-Omaha, Alabama-Huntsville, and Bemidji State and grow to a 14 team league. There is actually a decent way to split into two seven teams divisions:

Teams in the Upper Midwest Divison: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Minnesota State, Minnesota-Duluth, Bemidji State, Michigan Tech, St. Cloud State

Teams in the Everywhere Else Divison: North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College, Alaska, Alaska-Anchorage, Nebraska-Omaha, Alabama-Huntsville

Option 2 would take the two Alaska schools, the two Colorado schools, Omaha, and Huntsville and make a conference out of them (which I'm dubbing the Rocky Mountain Hockey Association; if Air Force can play in Atlantic Hockey, Huntsville and Omaha can play in the RMHA). Everyone else stays in the WCHA.

This would help to counter-balance the creation of another "Eastern" league with the Ivies spinning off. Still, the second option here would lead to seven conferences, with two of them having the minimum number of members. I did work out a plan with six conferences, but it's ugly. Let's just say the resulting Great Lakes Hockey Association is more of an organizing principle than geographic fact (and even then sees the three teams in the Buffalo area spread over three leagues).

I'm sure some of you have better ideas than me on this, so please share!