At 09:22 AM 1/13/99 -0500, Kyle wrote:
 
>> 9 Princeton                  11-4-1   56     8
>>10 Rensselaer                 12-5-1   29     -
>>
>>Others receiving votes: Colgate 10, Ohio State 10,
>>Denver 7, Clarkson 3, Cornell 1, St Lawrence 1,
>>Wisconsin 1
>
>An interesting note is that the ECAC teams recieved five votes(including
>"others"), while the Hockey East recieved 3.  I am not familiar with the
>CCHA and WCHA, but I know that the ECAC had to have recieved more votes
>than one of those conferences too.
 
Actually, that's 6 ECAC teams in the "top 17" (what a goofy number). Totals
in the poll for each conference: 6 ECAC, 4 CCHA, 4 WCHA and 3 HEA squads.
 
17 is a bit excessive; you're best of looking at the top 14 or 15 (at most)
teams. That's good for 12 teams making the tournament and 2 or 3 "bubble"
teams.
 
DISCLAIMER: "The tournament committee does not use opinion polls to
determine tournament teams and/or seeding."
 
Not much can be said about receiving one point, except for the possible
speculation that the coach put in a vote for their own team.
 
If there's anything that can be read from the poll about the inclusion of 6
ECAC teams it's the fact that they're ranked between 9th and 16th, which
would tend to point out three things about the feelings of the voters this
week:
 
1. There's some good teams in the ECAC, but nobody has proven themselves
good enough to belong in the top half.
 
2. The ECAC is not considered a tough conference by the voters in the poll.
Why else would Princeton and Rensselaer, with records of 11-4-1 and 12-5-1
be voted so low? The three teams above them -- Boston College (.600),
Colorado College (.682), and Notre Dame (.600)-- all have lower winning
percentages than Princeton (.733). Heck, Maine (#3) has a record of 14-2-4
(.700), also lower than Princeton.
 
3. Princeton is considered by a significant margin to be the strongest team
in the ECAC, with nearly double the points of Rensselaer. Moreover, given
the margin in points between Princeton (56) and Colorado College (143),
they've got a long way to go to impress the critics. Losing 9-1 to BU
earlier in the season may just have been the "poll-killer" for Princeton.
 
 
greenie
 
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