Out here in the ECAC, we do things a little differently (but then again,
we're a "weak" conference, so...oops, wrong topic):
 
The 7th-10th place teams play in a one-game shootout on the Tuesday before
the 1/4finals (like they did tonight).  The 10th team plays at the 7th
place team, and the 9th place team plays at the 8th place team.  The
winners of these games get seeded as 7th and 8th (depending on reg. season
finish) and the 1/4 finals are as follows:
 
#8 seed at #1
#7 seed at #2
#6 at #3
#5 at #4
 
The winners of these games are seeded 1-4 for the semis, where #4 plays #1
and #2 plays #3, and of course, the semi winners play for All The Glory.
 
For example (since this may confuse some people), let's take this year.
The finals standings (after tie-breakers, which we've all seen on this
list), are as follows:
 
#1 Clarkson
#2 Cornell
#3 St. Lawrence
#4 Harvard
#5 RPI
#6 Vermont
#7 Colgate
#8 Brown
#9 Yale
#10 Princeton
#11 Army
#12 Dartmouth
 
Army and Dartmouth don't even make it to the postseason.
Princeton played at Colgate tonight and lost to the Red Raiders 5-3
Yale played at Brown.  Yale won 2-1.
This means that Colgate is seeded #7 and Yale is seeded #8 (as Colgate finished
ahead of Yale).  Had Priceton won, Yale would be #7 and Princeton would be
#8.  So, the 1/4finals shape up like this:
 
Yale at Clarkson
Colgate at Cornell
Vermont at SLU
RPI at Harvard
 
The 1/4's are a 2-game (not total goals) affair, with a 10-minute mini-game
(not sudden death) being played if the teams split this weekend.  If there's
still a tie at the end of the mini-game, sudden death OT's are played until
someone scores.
 
Hope this answers your question.
 
Jeremy Hall
Clarkson University
LET'S GO TECH!  SQUASH THE SMURFS! (Yale, for those of you who didn't know...)