2010 NCAA Hockey Tourney: Alabama-Huntsville Punches First Ticket; Is That A Joke?

College Hockey America is a fledgling conference in the NCAA Division 1 ranks. Only four teams call it home -- Alabama-Huntsville, Niagara, Robert Morris and Bemidji State -- and following the 2009/10 season, they’ll fold up shop. For this reason, many believe that the conference doesn’t deserve to have an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament handed out to it’s tournament champion.

The Bemidji State Beavers are a top 10 team in the country and would have received an at-large bid to the national tournament regardless of their performance in the CHA tournament. When they were upset by Niagara on Friday night, it ensured that two of the CHA’s four teams would make the NCAA’s -- the conference champion and Bemidji.

As SBN’s Western College Hockey Blog put it, it means ‘an extra team from a real conference hoping for an at-large bid will be left on the outside looking in.’ For people that share this ideology, Alabama-Huntsville beating Niagara in the championship on Saturday night and punching their ticket to the NCAA’s is truly a nightmare scenario.

But is there any weight to this argument? Jayson Moy, bracketologist at US College Hockey Online, doesn’t think so.

Yes, there can be an argument made that the CHA should not have had their autobid extended to this season, but, the Championship Committee thought it was best for the game. So that’s where the argument should lie. Not whether or not Niagara, UAH or Bemidji deserve to be in the tournament, but whether or not, in the best interests of college hockey, that the Championship Committee should have recommended that the CHA keep the autobid with only four teams in the league.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum with regards to this issue, however, the win is quite the accomplishment for the Chargers of Alabama-Huntsville. They get no respect among college hockey people because of their locale and their conference. When it became public knowledge that CHA would be folding following this season, the other three teams successfully found new homes in other established conferences.

UAH was left out to fend for themselves. They’ll operate as an independent team next season, but making the national tournament for the second time in their storied yet tumultuous could give them the boost they need to get into one of the ‘real’ conferences sooner rather than later.