(Thanks to Sarah for typing this in for us.  We'll get the Maine
Athletic Dept.  connected to the electronic world someday :-) wayne)
 
February 5, 1992
 
Dear Wayne:
 
I have been following the college hockey computer rating with great
interest courtesy of Sarah Michaud and I thought you would like a
"coach's impression" of the strength of schedule controversy.
 
First of all, I think it is great that you have your network going and
that so many people across the country are interested in college hockey.
A little controversy doesn't hurt as it gets people communicating about
the great sport we all love.
 
Regarding the computer strength of schedule, there is definitely
something wrong when the top 18 spots in the computer rating are
occupied by the 9 CCHA teams and 9 WCHA teams right across the board.
It is pretty obvious that what has happened is that all of the eastern
teams have had to schedule their share of independents and therefore,
their strength of schedule "suffers".
 
To say that the top eighteen strength of schedules are the western and
central teams totally skews the college hockey computer rating.  The
HOCKEY EAST, for example, has a .500 record against both the CCHA and
the WCHA, and a significant winning record against the ECAC.
Unfortunately, we haven't played enough games against the two western
conferences to be able to decide whether that, indeed, is a barometer of
each conference's strength.  Rather, I think the best barometer of all
conferences is to simply understand that all conferences have their own
three or four strong teams.  All conferences also tend to have some
weaker teams who are not as strong as the others on most nights.  One
certainly can find three strong teams in each league and, in most cases,
four teams.  At the same time, one can also pick a team or two out of
each league that is not particularly strong this season.
 
For your interest, and that of your readers, the NCAA does not use the
college hockey computer rating, but rather a different formula to
determine "strength of schedule".
 
As a coach whose team will be under consideration for an NCAA bid,
strength of schedule will become important.  It is starting to scare me
that perhaps we might be better off in the future to schedule Canadian
opponents that have no bearing on our strength of schedule than
scheduling an independent when maybe they are the only ones a team can
play.  In our league, for example, we only play 21 league games this
year, so many of us had to fill as many as 13 or 14 non-league games.
Since the Western and Central leagues had so few openings, we could only
get so many "attractive opponents", so we just try to fill the rest.
Unfortunately, it looks as though that will now hurt us.  On the other
hand, we need to play many of the independents in order to have them
continue their programs, so we are caught in a catch 22 - it hurts your
strength of schedule to play a certain independent, but do we want
college hockey to grow or not?
 
Wayne, I thought you would find this information interesting.  If you
ant to send some of this information out on the network, I don't have
any problem.
 
Thanks for your work on the computer network and here's a tip of the hat
to all of those who make college hockey what it is...the fans, the
players, the coaches, and the officials.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Shawn Walsh
Head Hockey Coach