CCHA

[New at pd]

According to the CCHA website, the regular season champion (either MSU or U-M) could be determined by the fourth level of tie breaker if both schools have the same record at the end of the weekend. The tie breakers are:

1. Most CCHA wins
2. Head to head
3. Goal differential in head-to-head
4. Record against other CCHA teams in conference games, starting with 3rd place and working down.
5. Coin toss

If they end the weekend with the same record, tie breaker 1 is useless. They played to 2 ties in conference games, so tie breakers 2 and 3 are useless. If UAF is in 3rd place, U-M wins; if NMU is in 3rd place, State wins.

Pretty much, I'm just hoping that Western kicks the crap out of U-M so bad that they perform poorly in the CCHA tournament and don't even make the NCAA's. A perfectly unbiased Spartan opinion.

[urysohn]

MSU beat UM 3-1 on 2/16. The footnotes are all goofed up so I can't tell - was that game officially non-conference?

Things don't look much more set in Hockey East - two games left for all teams and three different teams could still end up regular season champs. Well, technically. UNH will be bringing home the regular season title (and hopefully the Hockey East tournament title, NCAA title, and Hobey to go along with it). But that may just be exposing _my_ bias!

[New at pd]

On 2002-02-28 16:07, urysohn wrote:
MSU beat UM 3-1 on 2/16. The footnotes are all goofed up so I can't tell - was that game officially non-conference?

Things don't look much more set in Hockey East - two games left for all teams and three different teams could still end up regular season champs. Well, technically. UNH will be bringing home the regular season title (and hopefully the Hockey East tournament title, NCAA title, and Hobey to go along with it). But that may just be exposing _my_ bias!


Yeah, that game was non-conference. They had already played on in E. Lansing (@ Spartan Stadium,) one in Ann Arbor, and the game in February was at the Joe.

This weekend in Hockey East is a moral struggle for me. I went to BU, so I hope that they win the regular season. However, to do that, I must root for BC to beat UNH at least once this weekend. I don't think I can do it. Alas, BU is solidly in the NCAA's anyway. In fact, BU and UNH would get the 2 eastern byes if the NCAA's started today.

[egg]

It didn't come down to the tiebreaker. UM won the regular season outright.
The current pairwise rankings (http://uscollegehockey.com/polls/?data=pwr1m).

If we ignored the Conference Tournaments I would expect UNH and BU to be 1 and 2 in the East and Minnesota and Denver to be 1 and 2 in the West.
Regardless, my biased opinion hopes UM gets any seed in the West since the regionals are held at Yost this year.

[urysohn]

There's no way they'll let Michigan come out East with UM hosting the regionals (Yost is UM's home ice, right?). They may get an eastern seed, but if so you'd hope they get one of the lower seeds that get shipped back out West. [I never understood the whole east seeds play out west, west seeds go east thing!] If the PWR remains unchanged, they might be looking at the 2 seed in the east right now. But that's all subjective and I strongly doubt the selection committee will let them go East regardless of the PWR.

[New at pd]

The Selection committee has latitude when seeding teams, not picking them. UM, if the get in, will play their opening round game at Yost.

[egg]

You were right they kept everyone in their home region. The story (http://uscollegehockey.com/news/2002/03/18_004303.php).

Wow, UM's one loss to LSSU in a best of 3 absolutely killed them - dropped them to 10th in the pairwise (subsequently moved to 6th) and gave them a 4th seed instead of the bye.

I don't think the bye is that big of an advantage (other than one less chance to lose). Denver gets a number 1 seed, but there is the possibility that they will face the CCHA regular season and tournament champions on their home ice.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: egg on 2002-03-18 16:59 ]</font>

[New at pd]

This could conceivably be the first year that none of the four bye teams get to the Frozen Four. In 1998, BU, BC, North Dakota, and MSU were the four bye teams. Only BC made it to the Frozen Four. With the wide open field in there this year, I don't see all four getting there.

[Cosmo]

How is New Hampshire not going to get there. Did you see who they are going to have to play?

Minnesota and Denver have difficult roads, but the teams from the East have relatively easy roads.

[urysohn]

New Hampshire is all but a lock for the Frozen Four (I hate to jinx it, considering Niagara knocked them out in the first round last time they were there). The other Eastern spot should boil down to another showndown between Maine and BU (assumes Maine takes care of Harvard, as they should). The western schools will have more problems just because there are two strong western conferences this year (each with two strong teams) and only one strong eastern conference (with three strong teams), and the new NCAA travelling rules conspired to keep all eastern teams east and western teams west.

[New at pd]

On 2002-03-19 10:21, urysohn wrote:
New Hampshire is all but a lock for the Frozen Four (I hate to jinx it, considering Niagara knocked them out in the first round last time they were there). The other Eastern spot should boil down to another showndown between Maine and BU (assumes Maine takes care of Harvard, as they should).

Cornell has the #1 team defense, UNH has the #1 offense. Good matchup. Both power plays are in the 30% area. I think it will be a lot closer than many think. As we all know, things don't always go according to plan in the NCAA tournament.

[Cosmo]

This new 'format' is just amazing. 6 of the top 9 Pairwise rankings are in the western bracket. The sixth seed in the west in CC is better than Cornell, and way better than Quinnipac(sp?).

Denver on the other hand is looking at playing Michigan on their home ice. Does anyone know why they NCCA did this format? Is the only purpose to sell more tickets.

This is really to bad for the WCHA, and very helpful for the eastern teams.

[urysohn]

The NCAA imposed new travel restrictions after 9/11. Not just to hockey, but with only 12 teams and two regional sites in the tournament it becomes a lot more obvious. The short version is that if a team is within 400 miles of a regional playoff site, that team MUST attend that site and drive, not fly, to it. [In most sports, 25% of teams are exempted. Hockey managed to talk this up to 4 exemptions, not the 3 which would have been 25%, which allows your four bye teams to be seeded without regard to the rule]. In the West, it's not that big a deal. But the East is really the Northeast and I believe EVERY eastern school in the tournament met that criteria. So every eastern school had to stay east. Some of the western schools would have been allowed to come east, but there would have been nobody to swap for them. In theory, if 7 eastern schools had made it in I'm not sure how they would have handled it. Since the top 4 seeds consisted of 2 east and 2 west teams (so the exemption wasn't needed), I'm not sure why they didn't use the exemptions to swap some of the lower seeds around.

[New at pd]

What is your impression of the fact that the semifinals are now east vs. east and west vs. west?

[urysohn]

I think it's horrible that the _regionals_ are all east and all west. Hockey doesn't have enough teams in it. Divisional schools play each other 3 times in the regular season (in Hockey East at least. looks like some other conferences it's only twice), plus the best schools are likely to meet in league playoff semis/finals. You end up with 3 or so of your divisional rivals in the same regional and you just end up playing the same teams over and over again. The playoffs used to be the only time us Easterners got to see any of the Western teams. Now, we don't play them. Plus, the Western regional games are not televised out here (according to the TV schedule that was released by the NCAA). Which means the only time we're going to see any of those schools is in the Semis (when hopefully we'll see a televised game between two western teams) and in the Finals. Makes it really hard to see a Western team win the Finals and not feel like half the teams in your league were better than them. [Not that it'll be a concern this year, as UNH will be claiming the title, but you Westerners will incorrectly feel UNH didn't deserve it :grin: ]

[Floyd Nootson]

UM is playing the Frozen Four on Home Ice (or 9 miles from it). UNH will be going home knowing that the Golden Gophers are the National Champs

[New at pd]

On 2002-03-21 13:29, Floyd Nootson wrote:
UM is playing the Frozen Four on Home Ice (or 9 miles from it). UNH will be going home knowing that the Golden Gophers are the National Champs


Are you thinking UNH vs. Minnesota in the finals? I have a good feeling that UNH won't make it. I like the way that Cornell's game matches up with UNH. Hopefully Cornell reminds UNH of Niagara.

I'm hoping that Maine loses to Harvard. As a BU alum, I don't want to face the team that took 5 of 6 points from BU in March.

[Maine-iac]

GO BLACK BEARS! GO BLACK BEARS!

[New at pd]

On 2002-03-21 13:44, Maine-iac wrote:
GO BLACK BEARS! GO BLACK BEARS!


I'm sure that Coach Walsh is proud of his team's performance. The hockey world misses him.

[egg]

UM-MSU played 4 times this year, with a possiblity of a 5th before the championship game (but it is probably a long shot). So I would agree with uryson that it doesn't really spread things out.

I never see any of the hockey tournament until the Frozen Four on ESPN. WFUM is carrying at least the UM games (I don't think they will cover the other Western region games). I don't think that WFUM is even on satellite.

[Tom Servo]

Michigan wins and Michigan State loses. Should make it easier for the Gophers to advance to home ice now that they play the #6 seed.

[urysohn]

The Frozen Four is set, with two of the top seeds losing. Next round (for those casually following) will be in two weeks:
Minnesota vs. Michigan
UNH vs. Maine

Michigan took advantage of home ice to eliminate Michigan State with a shutout victory. Michigan State fans are used to seeing shutout victories, but less accustomed to Ryan Miller not being the one to earn them. Michigan then proceeded to knock out second-ranked Denver. They will see the other side of the home-ice coin as they take on Minnesota at Minnesota in the semi-finals. Look for Minnesota to capitalize and advance to the finals. [Being on the east coast, I couldn't see most of the Western games, but it sounds like we missed some good hockey]

As always, Maine stepped up huge in the big game and took out BU. It was close all game, but Maine always seemed to have the slight edge. The bigger the opponent, the better they play (see their much-closer game against a well-playing Harvard team the day before as an example).

Cornell managed to beat Quinipiac (sp?) 4-3. Unfortunately for Quinipiac, two of the goals they scored went into their own net, so the final score actually read 6-1. (Okay, the goalie had two assists, not goals, but you'd swear he was a fan of the Big Red). The horrible play by Quinipiac masked a good overall performance by Cornell, who managed to score in every way possible: even-strength, power-play, short-handed, capitalizing on errors, and running set plays. But this one was over long before the middle of the first period and could not have possibly provided Cornell the warm-up they would have like before facing UNH.

As new-at-c6 predicted, the Cornell-UNH matchup was quite a game, with neither team ever asserting any real domination. Both teams looked good on both sides of the puck, and both teams looked great on power play (early on, Cornell was 1-2 on the power play and UNH was 2-3). After early shows by the offense (score was 3-2 UNH midway through the first), the defenses knuckled down and held it that way through the end of the second. Just a good old-fashioned hockey game. Made all the better because the right team won :grin:

UNH and Maine will play in the eastern version of the semi-finals (or, if you prefer, the Eastern Regional Finals). Two archrivals. UNH just beat Maine for the Hockey East title one week ago. The last (and only) time they met in the NCAA's, Maine beat UNH in overtime to take home the national title. Which team will come into the game with the bigger chip on their shoulder? These two teams would both come out with their A-games if one of them was a unanimous #1 in the country and and 30-0-0 for the year and the other was 0-30-0 for the year with half their players injured. Call this one a toss-up. Edge goes to UNH because I want them to win.

Both semi-final games are Thursday, April 4th, with the Eastern teams getting the early game at 1:30. Not sure what time the Western teams square off, 4:30 perhaps?
(I think I'm going to have to take a half-day!)

[urysohn]

Oops - Colorado College beat Michigan State, not Michigan. Michigan had beaten St. Cloud State in the quarters. Did I mention we didn't actually see the Western games out here in the East?

[egg]

UM definitely used its home ice advantage. I went to the UM-Minnesota game earlier this year and Minnesota was head and shoulders above UM (they didn't belong on the same ice). UM has improved a lot but I don't think enough to beat Minnesota. Though this does remind me of 1998 - UM defeated #1 seed ND at Yost to make it to the final four and went on to win the NCAA championship behind a group of freshman and a senior goaltender named Marty Turco. This year 11 of the 22 players on UM's squad are freshman and we have a senior goaltender named Josh Blackburn. It is impressive that they made it this far, I would consider it a successful season.

We don't see the East out here in the "West" so I don't have any "insights" into that game, but I would be excited to see a Minnesota-UNH final - I suppose I wouldn't mind a UMich-UNH final either :smile:

[Floyd Nootson]

Who was it that picked the Gophers???
oh yeah, it was me!


On 2002-03-21 13:29, Floyd Nootson wrote:
UM is playing the Frozen Four on Home Ice (or 9 miles from it). UNH will be going home knowing that the Golden Gophers are the National Champs

[Cosmo]

Yeah it will be a turn of events on Mich. Now they will be playing a team at home.

This should be a pretty easy first two games to pick. Nothing against Michigan or Maine, but clearly NH and MN are superior. Michigan wouldn't even be here if they didn't have the home ice advantage.

The finals will be a tough game (duh) though. I could see either team winning.

I was going to buy tickets to the frozen four this year. I have a friend in MN, but I never heard when they went on sale. Oh well my boys aren't there this year, so just as well anyways.

[urysohn]

Next year's Frozen Four will be sold out before this year's tournament is over. You definitely can't wait until you know who's playing. Each team might get a couple hundred once they know who gets in, but if they do odds are you won't be able to get your hands on them.