Starting in 2009-2010, the Lake Forest Foresters will join the MCHA conference leaving one-less team in the NCHA.  This has brought on a new scheduling system for the NCHA conference now that it has an odd number of teams.  Each team in the conference will now play each other three times, with two of those three coming in a back-to-back weekend series. 

This use to be how the scheduling system was set before the adoption of the travel partner system.  Matthew Webb of USCHO.com explains…

When the NCHA adopted the travel partner system ten years ago, many long-time NCHA fans lamented the fact it meant the elimination of the two-game weekend sets against the same opponent.

Though the travel partner setup made sense in terms of both geography and finances, gone was the potential for storyline development that could only exist when the same teams met on back-to-back nights.

I suspect the NCHA may be looking at the ECACW as a model for this. The ECACW, a six team league, currently plays 15 conference games. The ECACW has also been able to land three teams in the NCAA tournament (a clear goal of the NCHA) the past two seasons. The ECACW’s ability to to this has largely been fueled by very high strength-of-schedule ratings league-wide, thanks in part to a relatively insular league schedule and some fairly significant non-conference success.

The nuts and bolts: If the NCHA can continue to dominate the MCHA and MIAC the way it has the past four seasons, it’s conceivable that more games against itself will only bolster the selection criteria (particularly SOS) for the top NCHA teams come selection time.
Read the full blog from Matthew Webb

So why should fans be rejoicing?  The two-game series scheduling can make for some real great Saturday games!  Words are exchanged, faces are washed and jabs are thrown all of which typically boils over into game two of the series on Saturday night, not to downplay any Friday night game of course!

“We have the best league in the country and the kids get to play great games every single weekend.  It’s not like you have a weekend off and then a tough weekend, every weekend is a battle.” said UW-Stout head coach Terry Watkins via telephone.

This series schedule will bring back old rivalries and maybe even spark some new ones. 

“I think there are so many rivalries in our league that I don’t know that one is any bigger than another one.  All the teams in the conference are just so good.  I think it’s awesome.” Watkins added.

You can check out UW-Stout’s series-formatted schedule for 2009-2010 here.