Here's a good article about ECAC Hockey and how they have gone from being a league that many college hockey fans scoffed at, to a league that's now looked at as being "the" power conference in college hockey. The ECAC has won the last two Frozen Four and that's an accomplishment that nothing to sneeze at. Seriously. Especially, with the academic standards that they must uphold.
Chip Malafronte, New Haven Register “I think our league is as good as any, if not the best,” said Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold, whose team finished as national runner-up to Yale in 2013. “We’re showing that we’ve got the high-end teams that can win national championships. Even more than that, the depth of our league; our bottom teams are always really good and you see every year our 11th- or 12th-place teams beating the No. 1 team in the nation. It’s a deep league and that’s a credit to our coaches and our universities and the commitment we have to our programs.”
Indeed, these are exciting times for the ECAC, once so callously referred to as the “EZ-AC” by fans of more prosperous conferences from Maine to Alaska. Yale’s title in 2013 snapped a 23-year championship drought dating back to Harvard’s run in 1989. When Union won it all in April, it marked the first time the league took consecutive crowns since Boston University went back-to-back in 1971 and 1972.
It’s clear the ECAC hasn’t been this strong since a chunk of members split off in 1984 to form Hockey East. Given the restructuring of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association and demise of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association last year, the league is as competitive as ever against the rest of the nation.
“Real strong,” Yale coach Keith Allain said. “You’re talking about the last two years because the league won national championships. But four years ago we had a team that could have won, but lost to Minnesota-Duluth, who did win the national championship that year. The league has gotten stronger; the programs within the league are stronger in terms of feeding off each other. A rising tide lifts the other ships.”
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