When Air Force joined the Atlantic Hockey Association in 2005, the academy was ahead of the curve. The league’s acceptance of the Falcons was a lifeline, because its former league, College Hockey America, was dying.

When the AHA’s board of directors last week voted unanimously to accept Niagara and Robert Morris – two of Air Force’s former CHA rivals – into the AHA starting with the 2010-11 season, the lifeline was more obvious. The CHA for men will fold after next season.

“We picked up two quality hockey programs, and two cities that are easily accessible when we travel,” said Air Force associate athletic director Dermot Coll, who is the academy’s representative on the AHA’s board of directors.

But to hear Falcons coach Frank Serratore talk about it, the good samaritan never goes unpunished.

“I’m all for saving these programs. I wished we had used a strategy to better this league,” Serratore said Monday. “All we’ve done now is go from a 10-team, one-bid league to a 12-team, one-bid league.”

Serratore wants – or wanted, because he said “you have to get that going in the front door” – is a second automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament for each of the five remaining leagues.

Technically, only six teams receive automatic entry into the 16-team NCAA field, the tournament champions from the conferences. But for all practical purposes, three power conferences – the Western and Central Collegiate Hockey Associations and Hockey East – get at least two more spots each, and the ECAC gets at least one more.

That leaves three berths, which, thanks to the rather complicated systems in place, almost always go to the power conferences.

“With the exception of (commissioner) Bruce McLeod of the WCHA trying to help Bemidji, the Big 4 have said nothing, done nothing and proposed nothing,” Serratore said.

“Who’s going to benefit from the demise of the CHA? It’s going to be the Big 4, primarily the Big 3, picking up that AQ (automatic qualifier) as an at-large bid.”

That said, Serratore supports the decision by the AHA to, rather than throw four programs under the bus, take two that made the most sense.

“With Robert Morris and Niagara joining, we not only get quality hockey, we get quality recruiting opportunities when we’re out there, the ability to be seen,” Coll said.

Niagara (12-10-2 this season) is the defending CHA champion. Robert Morris (5-15-4) lost in the CHA final in 2007.

Coll said even an expanded AHA is good for the academy’s program because of its academic and philosophical fit as well as its competitive situation, even though it is so geographically separated compared to, say, the WCHA.

“For us, we’re travelling anyway,” Coll said.

“I think the WCHA is a great hockey league, and we’d be thrilled to be associated with a conference like that,” he said. “But what we’re doing with Atlantic Hockey … We’re gaining internally, we’re gaining momentum, so we can go and hang with the big boys.”

It appears as if goalie Richard Bachman and the Tigers will need March Madness to start early. Photo by KEVIN KRECK, THE GAZETTE