The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference officially put their name out there last Wednesday at Woodstone Country Club, as the 18 joining members of the former Lehigh Valley Conference and Mountain Valley Conference all met in harmony to introduce the "EPC 18."

The details of the day were more of recycled news originally reported by the Bethlehem Press back in October.

Wednesday's outing was full of the proverbial fluff that press conferences like this adhere to, as all parties played the part to be in accordance with each other.

While the league does offer more flexibility in scheduling and better seeding in district playoffs, since there will only be one champion to account for in higher classifications, it still doesn't answer if everyone is happy about this coalition.

That's an answer that will never be made publicly on anyone's own accord, but everyone played the part of all smiles last week.

"What I think is going to keep this [EPC] together is what we've learned in the past," said Emmaus athletic director Dennis Ramella when asked about keeping this league together. "All of us have learned in the past. The MVC at one time was a larger conference. The old EPC became a smaller a conference and then the LVC. Through each one of those experiences, we've all learned something. One of the things that I'm going to take from it, is how to work collaboratively. We need to learn to not take things personally. As long as you have what's best for the kids, then you can work things out."

Football will feature two divisions of nine teams, as Bethlehem Catholic, Dieruff and Allen will join the former MVC contingent of East Stroudsburg South, East Stroudsburg North, Stroudsburg, Pleasant Valley, Pocono Mountain East and Pocono Mountain West.

The other division would be comprised of Whitehall, Emmaus, Parkland, Easton, Liberty, Nazareth, Northampton, Freedom and Central Catholic.

Each team would play eight games within their division, plus two other cross divisional games, which would rotate on a two-year cycle.

In the case of Becahi, they would play their eight division opponents every year, along with a rotating member from the current LVC, as well as Central Catholic every year as the final contest to keep their rivalry in tact.

This gives teams a total of 10 regular season games in a closed schedule as each division will crown a champion. The main problem with a closed schedule is that it eliminates teams from playing opponents from other districts, which could benefit them.

Parkland, for instance, would benefit playing a team like St. Joe's Prep in the season opener, in preparation for an expected postseason run.

As far as other sports are concerned, soccer, field hockey, basketball, girls volleyball and softball will incorporate a three division alignment of six teams is in place.

The divisions don't appear to have names as of yet, but they will look like this:

Division 1 - East Stroudsburg South, East Stroudsburg North, Stroudsburg, Pleasant Valley, Pocono Mountain East and Pocono Mountain West.

Division 2 - Easton, Bethlehem Catholic, Liberty, Freedom, Allen and Dieruff.

Division 3 - Whitehall, Emmaus, Parkland, Nazareth, Northampton and Central Catholic.

The aforementioned sports will play a total of 10 divisional games and six cross-divisional games against three opponents each from the other two divisions, giving teams a total of 16 contests within the league itself. Teams would then have two nonleague dates for a total of 18 games.

The LVC playoffs would then expand to an eight team tournament, featuring three division winners and five wildcard teams featuring the best records.

"We will add a quarterfinal round to the league playoffs, which gives student-athletes more of an opportunity to participate," said Scott Cooperman, athletic director of William Allen. "We'll have our golf tournament here at Woodstone, we'll be looking at the new arena in Allentown for events and we'll continue to have our playday for baseball at Coca-Cola Park."

In wrestling, a three-division alignment will occur every year, but the teams will change yearly, based on how they performed the previous year. To start things off, Bethlehem Catholic, Emmaus, Liberty, Parkland, Nazareth and Stroudsburg round out the top tier division of teams.

Dieruff, Easton, Freedom, Northampton, Pocono Mountain East and Pocono Mountain West shape the second division, while Allen, Central Catholic, Pleasant Valley, East Stroudsburg North and Whitehall fill out the bottom tier.

Under this alignment, teams will wrestle each opponent in their division once, as well as two crossover matches against opponents from the other two divisions.

Cross country, track, boys volleyball, swimming, tennis and golf won't have any new changes to divisional alignment.