Quoth Tony Buffa:

> Exactly. I think league tourneys are just extra games to make more
> money. They balloon the season for some teams up to the mid 40s in game
> numbers ... something I think should be reigned in. They show nothing to
> me about which team in the league should get the bid.

I prefer to look at league tournaments on their own merits.  Almost
every American sport has a playoff following the regular season; many
of us would find it rather anticlimactic to have a team have wrapped
up the championship before the season is over.  The elimination nature
of playoffs and tournaments adds to the excitement, and the semifinals
and finals at a single site provide a climactic event where fans from
different teams can come together in a special atmosphere and enjoy
championship hockey.  The one drawback to the system in college hockey
is that since nearly all the teams in a given league make the
playoffs, the importance of the regular season is diminished and a
team can still have a chance to get hot and steal the title even if
they didn't earn that chance by at least playing respectably
throughout the season.  But the best-of-three series entirely at the
site of the higher seed do provide a strong incentive to finish high
enough in the standings to get home ice.

                                          John Whelan, Cornell '91
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                                     http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/