In basketball, teams from small leagues are able to obtain automatic births
in the tournament even though they might not have the talent to compete with
the Big East, Big Ten, SEC, et al teams.
 
Half of the fun is when one of these upstarts surprises everyone and uses a
strong game plan to make something a lot more interesting on the floor than
it should have been on paper.
 
In basketball, they do not make a distinguishment between whether you are
just labeled Division I or whether you are playing at the pundits definition
of the Division I.
 
There is no need to make a distinguishment in hockey either.
 
The MAAC is D1.  That's why they are featured so prominently on USCHO.
 
I am heartily in favor of giving the MAAC an auto birth under the plan of
action currently being pursued.
 
In a few years, the top teams in the MAAC will have the benefit of
recruiting as a D1 school for several years and their rosters will be able
to give the big boys a good game.
 
-jp
tune into the MAAC Game of the Week on Saturday at 7:55p when American Int'l
visits Fairfield at http://www.broadcast.com/sports/ncaa/maac/hockey/
 
 
---"Satow, Clay" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> According to US College Hockey Online, a proposal is being prepared to
> expand the D1 Tournament to 16 teams, with the MAAC getting an automatic
> bid.  Whaddya think?
>
> I suspect that the main proponent would be the MAAC, with the proposal to
> expand being to avoid the MAAC bid coming at the expense of another team who
> would probably be a better team than the MAAC team.
>
> I'm opposed.  First, I have trouble finding 12 teams that I think deserve a
> shot at the D1 championship, let alone 16.
>
> Second I don't think the MAAC deserves an automatic bid yet; I did a quick
> scan of their records, and found NO wins against any established D1 school,
> and a few losses to D3 and ACHA schools.  Just because they are D1 under
> NCAA rules, that doesn't make the teams D1 caliber.  The current MAAC
> leader, Quinnipiac (love that name!) has an impressive 14-2-0 record, but
> the only games they've played out of the MAAC were one goal victories over
> Army and D2 Bentley, hardly impressive credentials.
>
> Third, it's just too many teams, cheapening the regular seasoin.  Currently
> (based on number from the NCAA website) about 23% (12/52) of all D1 hockey
> teams qualify for the tournament.  FWIW that's about the same percentage as
> D1 basketball (64/277 = 23%).  Expanding to 16 would mean that 30% -- three
> out of ten -- teams would qualify for the tournament.
>
> Clay
>
        _______   ______
       |__   __| |  __  |  Jason Patton        http://www.gojp.com/jp/
 ____     | |    | |__| |      Following College Hockey Since 1991
|____|    | |    |  ____|  Boston U. 1991-1995     Princeton 1995-1998
        __| |    | |       1995 NCAA Champions     1998 ECAC Champions
       |____|    |_|        MAAC Hockey League Inaugural Season 1998-
 
MAAC Game of the Week: http://www.broadcast.com/sports/ncaa/maac/hockey/
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