Charlie Shub <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
>This still boggles my mind......
>
>> 14    10  Mass Amherst        9    6- 3- 0      26.67      98.99 W32,W32
>> 15    16  Mass Lowell        11    7- 2- 2      29.09      96.28 L12,W16
>> 32    27  Air Force          10    0- 7- 3       6.00      39.09 L14,L14
>> 36    35  Illinois-Chicago   12    5- 5- 2      20.00      30.98 W37,L37
>> 39    38  Yale                8    3- 5- 0      15.00      25.71 W35,L34
>> 42    40  Rensselaer         10    3- 6- 1      14.00      22.33 T26,L24
>
>Air force tied lowell twice and illinois chicago once
>The amherst games were close
>both yale and RPI blew them away
 
Several people have already commented upon the Heal System and offered
valid criticism and support.  Let me also put in my two cents.  The Heal
system rewards a team for winning based upon the record of the team that
is beaten -- this makes sense to me.  In the case of a loss, the Heal
system does not care whom you lose to. If the Heal system had taken this
into account also, it would be equivalent to a 0.50, 0.50, 0.00 RPI-type
system.  This would have some merit.
 
The only thing that I have been able to think of is that the originators of
the Heal system wanted to encourage teams to schedule tough opponents.
Under this system, there is much to be gained from playing good opponents,
and relatively little to lose.
 
One more thing, the Heal system, like all others, suffers early in the year
because of the very unbalanced schedules that have been played to date.
Nothing can be done about this except to do like Erik Biever does and
not publish RPICH until well into the season.  I find "early returns"
interesting, but they have to be taken with more than one grain of salt.
 
Now let us look at the records that Charlie has extracted and try to
explain them, or at least the ones that I can explain without going to the
archives to look up exactly what teams have been faced.  Air Force's two
ties (equivalent to a win and a loss) against Lowell, a team with a very
good record, places them higher than teams that do not have the benefit of
an upset win.  RPI (misspelled as Rensselaer, above ;-) ) has beaten AF
twice and Dartmouth once. They also have a tie (half win) against Merrimack.
None of teams has a high winning percentage, a matter of fact they are all
quite low, and thus RPI is ranked very lowly itself.  The fact that AF's
Heal ranking is relatively high has no effect on RPI's Heal rankng (Yale's
too) -- it is the winning percentage that is used here.
 
I also need not state that scores don't enter into the Heal rankings, and so
the fact that RPI blew out AF twice has no bearing on either team.
 
Ralph Baer (who is still a proponent of a 0.50, 0.25, 0.25 RPI-type rating)
RPI '68, '70, '74
 
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