WCHA commish Bruce McLeod said recently that he hoped a 12-team schedule for 2010-11 might be released sometime late this week.

Turns out, that might not happen.

“It’s a hard process to make 12 teams happy,” said Doug Spencer, WCHA associate commissioner for public relations.

Spencer said the league is working on it, though, and proposals are being sent back and forth between the WCHA and the 12 schools.

A hockey coaches teleconference with the media is tenatively set for 10 a.m. on Tues., Oct. 6. My guess is a schedule will be done by then at the latest.

Deciding on a new format for the Final Five is probably a much easier, but that has not been announced yet either. Again, my guess is, the WCHA will make both announcements at the same time. Issues with the Final Five are, what to call it when it has six teams, should a third-place game be dropped? That’s about it. Rest seems pretty clear cut.

Just cast my vote in the media poll on how the WCHA teams will finish this season, 1-10, and who will be the Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and first-team all-WCHA. The media poll, being compiled by two Wisconsin reporters, and the coaches poll, being compiled by the Grand Forks Herald college hockey beat reporter, will both come out about Oct. 6.

 DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

Starting this week, college hockey coaches can work with their teams for two hours per week for three weeks before official practices start the first full week in October. Coaches can choose how to break those hours down. UMD coaches are working with the Bulldogs four times per week, 30 minutes at a time. Gopher coaches are working with their players twice, one hour at a time. Read another team is meeting three times, 40 minutes per session.

Beat reporters from Wisconsin to St. Cloud are actually going to these short workouts to see what is going on. Not sure coach Don Lucia wants me to show up at one of the U’s workouts. I have not done that my first two seasons on the beat. But in the Twitter world aby scrap of information can get put out there. And quickly.

Should I go to these sessions?

 Â

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 11:07 am and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.