Good morning -

  Some of you may be aware of a thread that ran in the "community" section
of the USCHO message board last week recounting the actions of a youth
coach in the Detroit area who instructed his goalie to purposefully allow
a goal in the waning sections of a tournament game (thereby resulting in a
tie for his own team rather than a victory), knowing that doing so would
knock their better, bitter rival out of the play-offs.  Follow-up commen-
tary was split, of course, as to whether maximizing the ultimate goal
(winning the Tournament) was paramount over this bit of unsportmanlike
gamesmenship (especially for a team of 12-year olds), but the whole affair
reminded ME of a dimly-recalled incident in the CCHA some years back ....
I'm currently preparing a piece for the UNH Hockey Newsletter on NCAA
Tournament selection and seeding, and would love to include the details of
the following ....

  As I recall, the higher ranked CCHA team (A) was meeting its lower
seeded rival (B) in a best 2 of 3 quarterfinal series.  As the series
began, Team B was only marginally a TUC (Team Under Consideration) at 1
game over 0.500, but the host Team A had already beaten Team B in all 4
of its regular season meetings.  As hosts, Team A obviously wanted Team
B to remain a TUC to maximize its own NCAA Tournament selection/seeding,
but a two game sweep would've negated Team B as a TUC (since they'd now
be 1 game UNDER 0.500).  Losing one game was thus an obvious advantage
to Team A, as beating Team B in 2 of 3 games (rather than sweeping) would
preserve Team B's TUC status at an even 0.500 (since Team B's season was
now concluded) ....

  So, my question to the List is this: did this actually happen as I
remember it ??  What were the teams/dates ??  Or was this analysis only
discussed AFTER the games played out, i.e., some astute stats guru noticed
post-facto that Team A's 2-1 series win was actually a whole lot better
than had it won 2-0.  I'm not so sure any coach at the DivI one level
would actually lose a game ON PURPOSE to activate this scenario (espec-
ially considering that had Team A actually LOST that third game - and
thus been knocked out of the CCHA play-offs in the 1/4-final round - they
might also have been knocked out of the NCAAs), but you have to wonder if
he knew about the permutations aforehand.  Others have commented that under
current rules sometimes it's better for a given team's NCAA aspirations to
simply NOT play than play and lose, i.e., losing in the 1/4 finals might
actually be better than advancing to the semis and losing; in that case
Team A's coach might actually have faced the ultimate win-win scenario no
matter how the games with Team B played out ....

  At any rate, thoughts and comments from those with long memories are
most welcome/appreciated (where's John H. when we need him :-) ....

  Cheers from the Chesapeake - Jim