>This is probably just adding fuel to the fire, and it's probably been
>discussed ad infinitum in years past, but why does there even have to b
>automatic bids?  Why can't we just have the 12 BEST TEAMS in the
>tournament?  Of course, determining the 12 best leads to all kinds of
>arguments, but that's a different story, I believe, or is that why we have
>automatic bids in the first place?
 
No, I think that's the whole story.  IMHO each conference should be guaranteed
automatic bids because there is insufficient data to judge a team's absolute
strength against other teams.  Unless a team has a strong interconference
schedule, like the one Maine has had the last few years, there is not enough
"connectivity" to be able to consistently render a judgement.  WCHA teams in
particular schedule very few non-conference games.  Thus it would be hard to
assert that the sixth best WCHA team would be better than, say, the first ECAC
team.
 
Also, I think it is safe to say that at least one team in every conference
is one of the top 12 teams in the country.  Individual conferences wax and wane
in terms of strength, i.e. one conference may have 3 or 4 teams that are
particularly talented in a given year, but every conference has one consensus
strong team, and usually two.  To make a judgement that the first 6 teams
teams in the WCHA were better than the top teams in the ECAC, even though
they have never played those teams, is impossibly subjective.  I am not
disregarding the value of strength of schedule indicators here, only that
their usefulness is limited when there is insufficient data to assess.
 
Since the majority of games a given team plays are against intra-conference
foes, any team that is successful against those teams should be considered to
be at least competitive with other teams who are similarly successful in
their own conferences.  Absent singificantly interlocking schedules, I believe
this provides sufficient rationale for one or two automatic bids.
                     _
             "NYS   // Hockey"
         Go 'Gate  //   Brian Morris
           Go RPI //      Albany, NY
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