Announcing this year's Pick the Post-season Tournaments contest!  Try out your prognosticating skills by predicting the game results and champions of each of the six Division I conference tournaments!

This year's contest will be in two parts.  The ECACH, CCHA, and Atlantic Hockey regular seasons have ended, while the other three leagues will continue through this weekend.  So this part of the contest will deal only with the ECACH, CCHA, and Atlantic Hockey.  After next weekend, I'll send out a separate mailing for Hockey East, the WCHA, and CHA.

As in the past, I'll be running two contests in one.  The first will give higher weighting to the latter stages of the tournaments, and the second will give equal weight to all results (see under Scoring below).  There will be contest #1 and #2 winners for each of the six tournaments, plus #1 and #2 overall Prognosticating Superheroes.

Just to preserve their immortality, last year's winners were:

                   Contest #1             Contest #2
ECACH:             William Sangrey        Andy Weise
Hockey East:       Bill Fenwick           William Groskreutz
CCHA:              Bill Fenwick           Bill Fenwick   
WCHA:              CHODR Rating           CHODR Rating      
Atlantic Hockey:   Jim Dixon              Jim Dixon
CHA:               Troy D. Mills          Troy D. Mills
Overall:           Nathan Hampton         Bill Fenwick

The first playoff games are on Friday, March 5th at 7:00 PM EST, so the deadline for this part of the contest will be Friday, March 5th at 6:00 PM EST.

The tournament formats are as follows:

ECACH:

All twelve teams make the playoffs.  The top four seeds receive a bye into the quarterfinals, while the remaining eight meet in the first round in a best-of-three series.  Seeds 5 through 8 host the first-round games.  All games are played "to conclusion".
The four first-round winners advance and are reseeded.
The top four seeds host the quarterfinal round, which is a best-of-three series.  The lowest-remaining seed plays at #1, the second-lowest at #2, and so on.
The four quarterfinal winners advance and are reseeded.
The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal.
The semifinal losers meet in the consolation game.
The semifinal winners meet in the championship game.


CCHA:

All twelve teams make the playoffs.  The top four seeds receive a bye into the quarterfinals, while the remaining eight meet in the first round in a best-of-three series.  Seeds 5 through 8 host the first-round games.  All games are played "to conclusion".
The four first-round winners advance and are reseeded.
The top four seeds host the quarterfinal round, which is a best-of-three series.  The lowest-remaining seed plays at #1, the second-lowest at #2, and so on.
The four quarterfinal winners advance and are reseeded.
The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal.
The semifinal losers meet in the consolation game.
The semifinal winners meet in the championship game.


Atlantic Hockey:

All ten teams make the playoffs.  The four lowest seeds meet in the first round, with #7 hosting #10 and #8 hosting #9.  They play a single game "to conclusion".
The winners advance to the quarterfinal round and are reseeded.  In the quarterfinal round, the lowest-remaining seed plays at #1 and the second-lowest plays at #2, with #3 hosting #6 and #4 hosting #5.  This round is a best-of-three series.
The four quarterfinal winners advance and are reseeded.
The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal.
The semifinal winners meet in the championship game.   There is no consolation game.


Hockey East (starts next week):

Eight teams meet in the quarterfinals, with the top four seeds hosting a best-of-three series.  All games are played "to conclusion".
The four winners advance and are reseeded.
The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal.
The semifinal winners meet in the championship game.   There is no consolation game.


WCHA (starts next week):

All ten teams make the playoffs.  In the first round, the top five seeds host a best-of-three series.  All games are played "to conclusion".
The five winners advance and are reseeded.
The lowest and second-lowest seeds meet in a Finals Qualifier (5 vs 4 play-in game).
The winner of that game advances to the semifinals and plays the highest remaining seed.  The other two seeds meet in the other semifinal.
The semifinal losers meet in the consolation game.
The semifinal winners meet in the championship game.


CHA (starts next week):

All four teams make the playoffs.  The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal.
The semifinal losers meet in the consolation game.
The semifinal winners meet in the championship game.


Scoring:

Contest #1:

Each correct quarterfinal/first-round winner is worth 3 points.  Giving the correct number of games in the series is worth an additional point.  Sorry, but if you get the winner wrong, you get zippo, even if you get the number of games right.  Since the Atlantic Hockey first round is a single-game format, there are no bonus points there.  The CHA has no quarterfinal/first round; their tournament starts with the semifinals.

Correct play-in game winners are worth 4 points.  (WCHA only)

Correct semifinal game winners are worth 8 points.

Correct consolation game winners are worth 4 points.  (ECACH, CCHA, WCHA, and CHA only)  Note that it is possible for a consolation game to end in a tie, as happened twice last year (ECACH and CHA).  In this case, if you picked either of the tied teams to be the consolation-game winner, you will get 2 points.

Correct championship game winners are worth 16 points.

So the maximum total points for each league would be:

ECACH            68
Hockey East      48
CCHA             68
WCHA             60
Atlantic Hockey  54
CHA              36


There will also be two tiebreakers for each conference.  The first will be the predicted final score of the championship game, with the closest score winning.  For example, if you predict 5-2 and the actual score is 4-2, you're one off; if the actual score is 4-3, you're two off.

The second tiebreaker will be the total number of goals scored in the entire tournament.

If there is a tie for the overall winner, the tiebreaker will be who performed best in the greater number of individual tournaments.


Contest #2:

In a slight scoring change from years past, each correct result from each round is now worth 2 points.  So you get 2 points for each quarterfinal/first round winner you pick (regardless of whether or not you forecast the correct number of games), 2 points for each semifinal winner you pick, and so on.

If a consolation game ends in a tie, anyone who picked either of the tied teams to be the consolation-game winner will receive 1 point.  (This is why I changed the scoring for Contest #2; having to award 0.5 points because of the tied consolation games last year bugged me.)

The maximum total points for each league would be:

ECACH           24
Hockey East     14
CCHA            24
WCHA            20
Atlantic Hockey 18
CHA              8

Tiebreakers will be the same as for Contest #1.

An official entry form will follow as soon as I post this.  Questions, comments, and entries can be sent to [log in to unmask] .  Simply hitting "reply" MAY NOT WORK -- be sure to check the Email address before you send.

Thanks and good luck!


--
Bill Fenwick
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