Totally OT: The Weird World of NCAA Hockey Conferences (and a Memory Lane Stroll)
Biz,
<< Pre-war there was a Coral Gables (Miami) team in a professional hockey league. I was maybe 11 or 12 and went to a couple with my pere who was magnificent at exposing his boys to every legal experience available. >>
So did that include or exclude jai alia and the Hialeah ponies and flamingos? <g>
I would almost guarantee that if you'd attended this years Frozen Four in the nearby to you D.C. Verizon Center, you would have a better appreciation for the college sport of ice hockey, especially if someone explained some of their unique rules and their nuances for you (which lack of can be a hurdle to enjoyment). It's an addictive sport better viewed live than on TV. Personally I still like the pro game, but I much prefer the college and international game. Plenty physical but not stupidly physical (i.e. little fight for show). Faster and more team skill oriented. Often more end to end play, more strategic skating, passing, and stick handling.
As a sports fan, I now pay closest attention to: 1.) All NFL football; 2.) PGA golf; 3.) Hockey East hockey; 4.) Big East and Philly Big 5 basketball (including St. Joe's, Temple, and Penn) 5.) NHL Hockey (Flyers, Bruins, Penguins). 6.) NBA basketball (Sixers, Celtics).
I watch other NCAA basketball closely only after the NCAA seeds the March Madness tourney, MLB (including the world (?) series champion for once Phillies) only casually until close to season's end and the pennant drives solidify.
Locally, I watch UD football and lacrosse. It's great entertainment and high caliber ball. I haven't watched the golf team play since my friend Coach Scotty Duncan passed on, and attend a UD basketball game only once or twice a year if a name team is in town.
<< Eric, does your post mean that the ACC rules ice hockey as well as basketball? >>
Not too many ACC teams playing hockey (that dratted BC being the most notable exception) other than perhaps club hockey (like U. Delaware plays, or in the distant past Notre Dame, now a serious hockey power and ranked 2nd in the nation behind BU headed into this years NCAA tourney before getting thumped by a Cinderfella, played).
The 6 dedicated US collegiate hockey conferences are both historically and contemporarily different than their schools primary conferences for football, basketball, etc. That is because only a subset of NCAA schools play intercollegiate hockey and many of those that do place different emphasis on the sport relative to other sports (rink and facilities investment or access, recruiting, hockey fan and interest base, local/regional high school and prep feed, related TV markets, conflicts between schedule length and academics, etc.). There are only 6 hockey conferences that compete in NCAA Division I ice hockey. Like in basketball the hockey colleges are incubators for the pros but in the main, while drafting players very early, the NHL usually lets the majority mature at the college level rather than bringing them up as early as the overly-expanded NBA does. Basically the hockey colleges are a great supplement to the NHL's farm system, and the NBA doesn't really have a farm system.
Hockey East (e.g.) is modeled on the Big East, but it's a New England only conference of hockey powers carved out of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) in 1984, while the Big East (founded in 1979) now stretches west to Chicago (DePaul), Louisville, Milwaukee (Marquette), Notre Dame, and south to Tampa (USF). ECAC Hockey is now a 12 team hockey only conference that includes 6 Ivy League schools and the upstate NY former hockey powers (still contenders) we used to fear -- Cornell, Clarkson, RPI, and St. Lawrence -- as well as Union and Quinnipiac (CT).
The best online site to track the 6 NCAA school hockey conferences and their membership is 'Inside College Hockey' (INCH) ...
... although portions of the site aren't updated as frequently as I'd like. Click on 'Conferences' for a breakdown of membership in Atlantic Hockey, the CCHA, CHA, ECAC Hockey, Hockey East, and the WHA.
<< Eric, does your post mean that the ACC rules ice hockey as well as basketball? >>
Make no mistake, the Big East and ACC now rule collegiate basketball today (and the Big East is deeper, more physical, and more competitive across the board than the ACC, which is why they now pack so many teams into the 64 team NCAA tourney), and while the Big Ten and SEC are still consistently in play, their glory has faded somewhat. My tongue-in-cheek recent comments on that to a fellow curmudgeon that's living in his glorious UCLA and inglorious Pac-10 past (sorry 'bout that, Rich <g>) are here on a board about nothing ...
Flashback to almost a half century ago and a decidedly different era that spawned us seasoned curmudgeons: Anecdotally, in the much different era when I attended, my undergrad alma mater was NCAA division I ECAC (hoops and hockey). I played hoops as a frosh and sophn. On a good night, even when nationally ranked (which wasn't very often, but we were #10 heading into Christmas break my soph year before a not so slow fade after tiny and unheard of Stonehill beat us in OT) we might draw ~1,500 fans, only selling out when Bob Cousy brought D.C.'s Cousy-like John Austin (BC '66) and his BC Eagles down Commonwealth Ave. to our old Sargent gym which had a capacity of ~2,500. Our hockey team, otoh, that back then practiced (at 5 AM) and played in the ancient Boston Arena (capacity ~4,600 before Northeastern expanded it by ~1K seats) regularly sold out and the annual Beanpot hockey tournament in Boston Garden (13,909 seats, but 1K more standing) -- home then to the Bruins and Celtics, as Boston Arena once was -- was always packed to the rafters on both late February nights (now early March) when all four crosstown Boston area hockey powers faced off to vie for local bragging rights in a hockey town.
It was the same with pro hockey and basketball. Back then the Auerbach/Russell led Celtics dynasty which still ruled the NBA, only sold out the Garden at playoff time. The Bruins, by contrast, almost always sold out and Bruins' season tickets were willed -- still are -- to future family generations, even though in the original 6 team NHL the Bruins were a perennial losers before Orr and Esposito played. With the 'Splendid Splinter' long departed, Fenway seldom sold out although the '67 team picked things up somewhat. The AFL Boston (not yet New England) Patriots had no stadium and played on our football field (formerly Braves Field) or out of Fenway. They drew pretty well, considering the comparative quality of their play back then when Babe Parilli was chucking the ball, Terry Hanratty held the clipboard, and Gino Capillettti ran his 'Point After' gin joint, but they were capacity constrained. Hockey ruled but the city has changed dramatically since (with a heavy influx of affluent Europeans to the downtown changing its character considerably) and so have the BoSox, Celtics, and New England Patriots who now all draw great crowds.
Hockey is still king at BU, however, and its the only BU sport I follow and only cause I contribute to in alumni fund drives as much as I appreciate my fine academic education on the left bank of the Charles River across from Cambridge (MIT and Harvard) on the right side. I'm not sure we ever won an NCAA championship in any other major sport. Harry Agganis ('the Golden Greek' who died at 26 in the mid-fifties) was our only football/baseball legend when I attended which was also when we deemphasized football before abandoning it more recently. We did just hire a talented 'Nova assistant-head coach for basketball and evidently there is an intention to improve the program to consistent tournament play level. A booster rocket to our hockey rocket supposedly. Today the hockey Terriers play out of 7,200 seat Agganis Arena which also hosts basketball, tennis, and concerts ranging from rock to jazz to classical (but the rink, appropriately is Jack Parker rink, and it replaced the Walter Brown Arena rink built in '71, although the Lady Ice Terriers still play there). It's part of an exceptional complex built in 2005 that I've only driven by. I do hope to get back one of these years for at least one more Beanpot in the new in '95 TD Bankworth Garden as it remains one of Beantown's and New England's premiere annual athletic events along with Hockey East's tourney ...
Excuse all, please, for the sports chatter and personal and regional reminisces. <EOT>
Back to Qualcomm: We are getting close to earnings season, so there should be more wireless news shortly -- and hopefully some positive, which QCOM's should be. Nice to see QCOM above $40 again and Naz above 1600. Above $50 and 2000 at year end would certainly be most welcome.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
