Bill Fenwick writes:
>Does anyone else find it odd that the Hockey East commissioner is floating
>the idea of giving the #1 seed a bye into the semifinal round of the HE
>tournament... after a season in which the top two teams in Hockey East were
>tied in the standings and were declared "co-champions"?  If the league is
>not willing to use the tiebreakers to declare one of those two the sole
>regular-season champ (I know, there were probably other factors at work
>here), I'd have a hard time seeing them use the tiebreakers to determine
>which team gets a week off in the playoff round.
 
I don't think it was a question of the league not being willing to use the
tiebreakers to declare one of the teams the sole champion.  Tim Burton
explained to me a few weeks ago that the teams were declared co-champions
because the league by-laws were discovered to have had no provision
for deciding the regular season title other than points.  I did not
think of this then, but I wonder if they were concerned about being
hauled into court again if they declared one team the sole champ. :-)
 
>When the bye was part of the Hockey East playoffs, the two-week break seems
>to have been largely beneficial.
 
That's what I would have thought, looking back through league history.
Out of curiosity, I decided to phone Shawn Walsh and ask what his view
was - Maine being a team that tends to be in the hunt, at least, for
the regular season title.  He said that he would unquestionably be
opposed to the idea of giving #1 a bye into the semifinals.  He
referred to the layoff UNH had this year and also the layoffs the East
teams had in 1992.  And certainly, the layoff is the big reason why a
bye for the top seed may not meet with much approval from the league's
coaches.
 
I believe he mentioned that the WCHA seemed to be having problems
booking the WCHA Final Five next season and that if they cannot find a
rink in which to play it on the weekend immediately preceding the NC$$
regionals, they will have to back it up a week and thus WCHA teams
would have 2 weeks off (possibly 3!) before the NC$$ tourney.  Does
anyone know more?  I think the Bradley Center is the scheduled site of
the WCHA Final Five for 1996.
 
>Besides, a bye would mean that the fans of the top team would not be able to
>see their guys at home in the postseason -- the fans would have to travel to
>the semis to see their team play.
 
And a related issue: if a Maine or BU loses the chance to host 2 or
even 3 quarterfinal games, imagine the dent in postseason revenue for
both the team and the league.  For Maine, we'd be talking about a
gross of about (2 games) x (5,200 capacity) x ($8/ticket [unless this
changes]) = $83,200.
 
>I don't know how many tickets each school participating in the Hockey East
>semifinals gets, but the number may very well be fewer than the number of
>tickets available for a particular school's home games...
 
In most cases, I don't think that's true.  Next year, there will be
about 17,400 tickets available each night at the new FleetCenter.
This year, HE drew about 6-8,000 each night for the semifinals and
finals.  There is still a ways to go before tickets become scarce for
any school's fans, but you're right that if the event grows and does
begin to sell out, this would be an additional concern.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93