I've been meaning to say something ever since we learned that
the NC$$ has decided to give a bye to any team that wins both the
regular season and tournament titles in their conference.
Unfortunately, I've been very busy this week, but it has also given me
a chance to look up the details in the archives from two years ago.
The last time we heard the NC$$ mention this was in 1995. The
situation was as follows: according to the ratings system used at the
time, four eastern teams were in the top 12: #1 BU, #3 Maine, who were
Hockey East regular season champions, #5 UNH, who had already been
eliminated in the conference quarterfinals, and #8 Clarkson, RS champs
in the ECAC. (These were the final rankings, so the exact numbers may
have been different in the week before the conference tournaments,
when the discussion arose, but the qualitative setup is the same. No
matter who won the ECAC tournament, a second ECAC team would have to
be added to meet the conference minumum.) Rick Comley, chair of the
selection committee mentioned in a conference call that the committee
would give an automatic bye to any team that won both titles in their
league. This was allegedly after pressure from Clarkson, who would
have had the opportunity to oust either BU or Maine from one of the
top two seeds in the East, and was known as the "Clarkson Rule". A
lot of people went more or less ballistic (check out the HOCKEY-L
archives for the weeks of March 14 and 21, 1995) about how unfair it
was that a team like Maine, who earned the bye due to their play all
season, could have their bid stolen by Clarkson. But what presumably
turned the tide was a chat that Maine head coach Shawn Walsh had with
Comley, who recanted, allegedly in writing. (Clarkson lost in the
ECAC semis anyway, so it was all irrelevant.)
Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot. Two ECAC teams
are in a position to receive the two byes, but the "Clarkson Rule" has
been re-introduced, giving BU and chance to displace one of them
(leaping over the third-ranked team in the East, UNH, in the process).
Never mind whether fans are complaining about how "unfair" it is that
BU should get the bye over Vermont, I'm surprised that UVM coach Mike
Gilligan, who doesn't strike me as a meek fellow, hasn't raised a
stink.
Two years ago I defended the Clarkson Rule, and I still think
the NC$$ should reward tournament winners, although I'm not sure this
is the best way to do it. For one thing, it means that a team from
conference A can suffer because of what happens in conference B's
tournament. This is already the case with the automatic bids for
tournament winners, but in that case it's the "bubble teams" that
suffer, and their claim to the last few tournament spots is tenuous
anyway. (This includes my team; Cornell would have been displaced by
Providence last year had they not won the ECACs, and I wouldn't have
minded seeing them lose their berth if they didn't get the job done in
Lake Placid.)
But at any rate the best objections raised then still apply:
whatever the rules are they should be laid out ahead of time. I'm not
aware that this rule was adopted *after* the 1994-5 season (which
would have been a reasonable thing to do), or that there was any
inkling of it until this week. If I'm right about that, the fact the
automatic byes have been brought back now, after it was rescinded
under similar circumastances with the conferences reversed two years
ago, seems a little fishy.
A slightly more inflammatory version of these observations can
be found in my ECAC hockey report at
<http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/ecac.970312.html>.
John Whelan, Cornell '91
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/jshock.html>
Cornell Men's Ice Hockey: 1996-7 Ivy League Champions,
ECAC regular season runners-up. WE WANT MORE! WE WANT THE ECACs!
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