MIAC/NCHA Crossover Series

Based on recent history, the NCHA relinquishes the opportunity to play MIAC teams in the MIAC/NCHA crossover series. In the past few seasons, the NCHA teams have dominated this interleague play, and clearly established themselves as the better of the two conferences.

Going into the 2007-08 season, I thought this would hold true yet again, as the MIAC would provide as a nice tuneup schedule for the NCHA teams this season...boy was I wrong. Looking back on the past two weeks however, this year's edition of the MIAC/NCHA crossover series has been perhaps one, if not the best ever. Classic powerhouse teams such as St. Norbert, Superior and River Falls were challenged these past two weekends and the MIAC proved that they can play with the big boys of the NCHA.

Here's a quick recap of the NCHA's record against the MIAC in 07-08:

Friday Nov 2: 3-4-1
Saturday Nov 3: 5-3
Friday Nov 9: 5-0-1
Saturday Nov 10: 4-2-2

Overall: 17-11-7

Although the NCHA beat the MIAC, and once again took the title again as "Best D-III Hockey Conference in the West", the slim margin came as a surprise to many and shows that the MIAC has taken steps to becoming a much better hockey conference. It also pales in comparison to what happened to the NCHA conference as a whole in the 2006-07 season.

Flashing back to last year, it was the NCHA conference improving drastically, as the bottom-feeder teams who were once considered to be roadkill, showed that they could play with the classic powerhouse teams. This resulted in the NCHA having a very competitive league which ended with a three-way conference championship, and a darkhorse St. Scholastica team nearly running the table to win the Peters Cup.

This year, the MIAC is taking that step as they showed that they can play with the best in the NCHA. Every NCHA team was given fits at one time or another during the MIAC/NCHA crossover, and who would have thought that St. Norbert and UW-Superior, two powers in the NCHA would already have losses on their record this early in the season? Not me. The ultimate stat in my book that tells the tale of the rising competition of the MIAC/NCHA interconference battle is that UW-Stout was the only team to go undefeated against MIAC teams...now that's saying something.

I know that many of you are not thinking this far ahead yet, but this year's MIAC/NCHA conference crossover has me wondering what is in store for the future meetings between these two conferences. Will the MIAC continue to improve at such a great rate? Will the NCHA do the same? In my mind, I feel that both of these conferences will continue to gain strength, and compete against one another, but after this "wakeup call" to the NCHA this weekend, the MIAC has definitely sent a message that they are no longer a group of teams who should be taken lightly.