Some ECAC fan (sorry, I forget who) suggested I take out the bottom 2
ECAC teams and re-run TCHCR to see what happens. The theory is that,
without the 2 bottom teams, the other ECAC teams should rise to their
"proper" places in the rating, indicating that teams are hurt a lot by
playing a few low-rated opponents.
 
A little late, but I finally got a chance to study this phenomenon. What
I did was to remove Dartmouth and Union from Division I for a second. *All*
of their games were thrown out. I did the same for just Brown, as a comparison.
This is based on data from up to 3/3 (last week).
 
I looked at what happened to the top 4 ECAC teams (at that time):
 
              Everyone        No DU & Union     No Brown
Team         Record  Rank     Record  Rank      Record  Rank
St Lawrence  19-8-1   19      15-8-1   18       17-8-1   19
Clarkson     19-8-1   17      15-8-1   19       19-6-1   11
Harvard      14-6-6   23      10-6-6   23       13-5-6   14
Yale         12-6-7   26      10-6-5   26       11-6-6   26
 
 
Notice that deleting Dartmouth and Union had almost no effect of the
4 teams' rankings. Clarkson actually *fell* two spots when we took away
those 4 wins. Playing the bottom 2 teams did not hurt these top 4 very
much because they did very well against them. Also, Dartmouth and Union
did not play very many non-league games, thus their poor record was actually
due to league play and was a boon to the other ECAC teams, sort of balancing
everything out.
 
Brown is a different story, however. It finished in the middle of the pack
of the ECAC, but went 0-7 out of conference. Again, St. Lawrence is not
affected much by Brown's absence because it went 2-0 versus them. Its good
performance offset its loss in schedule. But Clarkson and Harvard really
jump up if Brown is gone. They benefit by cancelling their losses/ties with
Brown, plus Brown's lousy NC record is wiped out.
 
These are just small examples, but I would say that the top ECAC teams
are rated low in TCHCR not because they played the bottom ECAC teams, but
rather because they *lost to* the middle of the pack teams (which were
losing out of conference). The top ECAC teams were not dominating within
their league, as they have been in the past.
 
I stick by my guns: the ECAC needs to be more competitive *out of conference.*
 
Keith