I do have a response to Jayson's Post comparing HE and ECAC this year:
 
Jayson Moy wrote:
 
> I am going to split the two conferences
> into two for both the ECAC and for Hockey East.  Let's do this by
> total wins.  Not to disrepect Union, but I am going to move them to
> the second half of the ECAC, even though they have eight wins, enough
> to wualify for the first half.
 
 
Well, if Union should be in the upper part of the league because of their
8 wins, shouldn't SLU as well? The Saints now have 8 wins? What about
dartmouth...they have the 5th best win % in the league?  I mean to be
totally honest, the division that you have made is legitimate, but it
forces people to see the numbers in a very strict context...the true
division of the ECAC could easily be:
1) UVM, Princ, Cornell, RPI, Clarkson, Colgate, Dart, Union and SLU
2) Harv, Yale, Brown
 
And even with this, Havard is one weekend away from being .500 as well as
Yale...
 
On the flip side, Colgate is included as an upper team being only 1 game
above .500 - who is to say that Colgate's 8-7-1 record is that much
better than SLU's 8-8-1 record? It is one game and SLU has 5 losses
against teams currently with 12+ wins...What about Clarkson as well, they
are only 9-6-0...their win % is basically identical to Dartmouth's, who
sits at 7-4-0...and if we really get into it, Priceton has 11 wins (and I
think they are having a wonderful year), but their out of league schedule
has seen them play 2 against Air Force and Notre Dame, plus 1 each
against Army and Amherst...if these 6 games had been against BU, BC,
LSSU, Miami, and 2 against SCSU (which coincidentally SLU did play;) boy
my bias is *so* subtle hehehe) would
they have 11 wins? (this is a rhetorical question, I really don't
know...and no one else could either)
 
As for HE, some of the same stuff seems to apply, but it really isn't as
dramatic:
 
Lowell is upper HE with an 8-8-1 record (hmmm there is that Union, SLU,
Dart thing again hehe)...and Maine is there at 10-8-1...while at the same
time Amherst is a respectable 8-10-0 and BC (with what would seem to me
to be a fairly tough schedule, although I didn't check it to see) is
7-10-0...
 
Couldn't the HE be broken down as:
 
1) UNH, BU, Lowell, Maine, Amherst, BC
2) Prov, Merr, NE
 
I'm not saying that it should be this way or even that it would change
the way the statistics fall all that much, but only that it is all very
subjective...
 
> Well, it seems to me that one possible reason for the ECAC winning the
> season series is that the ECAC is beating up on the second half of
> Hockey East.
I can't argue with this fact at all based on what I have said, but I will
say that there is a reason why we are beating up on them, our teams are
better;)  Whether you put the teams into "Team 1" and "Team 2", these
same patterns hold up...we have played *alot* of games against HE teams
with losing records and done well...But is the losing record a reflection
of them being a "lower level" team or a reflection of the fact that they
simply didn't do well against the ECAC this year...
 
 
> So when you pit the "powers" of each conference against each other,
> you have it even.  When you pit the "weak sisters" against each other,
> the ECAC wins the series.  When you have the "powers" play the "weak
> sisters", the ECAC "powers" dominate, and the Hockey East "powers" are
> even.
 
This would imply to me that what you use as "power" and "weaker sister"
for the ECAC really isn't correct...I hardly think that BU would consider
SLU or Yale a weaker sister after the games they lost and tied
respectively.
 
> So does this mean that the "powers" of each conference are equal,
> while the "weak sisters" of the ECAC could be "powers", and the "weak
> sisters" of Hockey East are really "weak"?
 
I think yes and no...I think HE has one team I would consider a "power"
(UNH), about 2 that should be considered "quite good" (BU and Maine),
4 "average" teams (Lowell, Amherst, BC and Prov) and 2 "below average"
teams (Merrimack and NE)
 
ECAC, on-the-other-hand, has 1 "power" (UVM), about 5 "quite good" teams
(Cornell, Prince, RPI, Clarkson and Dart), about 5 "average" teams
(Colgate, Union, SLU, Harv and Yale) and one "below average" team (Brown)
 
Granted, this is all just from record as your separation is made and it
really over-simplifies things like strength of schedule, slow starts,
losing your first 6 games and then playing 8-2-1 in your next 11 (damn
their is that SLU bias again!;)), but it does help to show that those
teams you call "weaker sisters" are good teams with decent records and in
reality, probably could be considered as "quite good" if circumstances
were altered just slightly ...the only ECAC team that would fit the
category "weaker sister", by record alone, would be Brown
 
> Of course, this could all be mumbo jumbo because of the line that I
> have drawn.  Or is it?
 
I wouldn't call it mumbo jumbo, but I think it really does imply
something that need not be implied..by record or play, the ECAC has done
well across the board against HE...our median teams did well against HE's
higher ranking teams and our high ranking teams did the same...we beat up
on the lower ranking teams, but that probably would be expected if the
ECAC was truly filled with "average" to "above average" teams (which it
is)
 
Sorry if I rambled,
 
Kevin Todd
SLU '96
 
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