Joe LaCoeur writes:
 
>Fellow alumnus Dan made some interesting points.  Could
>this year be the year that the ECAC gets more NC$$ bids
>than Hockey East?
 
        Well, it almost happened last year; of the top twelve teams in
the NCAA's selection criteria, five were CCHA, three ECAC and only two
each for Hockey East and WCHA.  But Providence won the HE tourney and
an automatic berth; that would have squeezed out twelfth-ranked
Cornell, but *they* won the ECACs and displaced Bowling Green, giving
the CCHA four spots, the two eastern conferences three each and the
WCHA two.
 
        Taking the top twelve teams in the current Ratings Percentage
Index from USCHO <http://www.uscollegehockey.com/stats/rankings.html>
(disclaimer: I *know* this is not the way to predict the eventual
tournament pairings, I'm just trying to get a very rough statistical
picture of the top teams), four of them are WCHA, three are CCHA,
three (Vermont, Cornell and Clarkson) are ECAC and two (UNH and BU)
are Hockey East.  In fact, UNH and BU are the only two Hockey East
squads (not counting Maine) who currently have winning records (which
was a prerequisite for tournament selection last year); the
third-highest RPI in HE is Boston College at .478, below every team in
the ECAC except Yale and Brown (Clarkson's RPI is .558).  (Lowell is
closer to having a winning record, BTW, at 10-10-0.)  It's of course
too early to make any conclusions at the halfway point, but a
reasonable guess would be that HE is on the road to only two berths,
meaning that if the ECAC can in fact take three, they will have them
outnumbered.  Of course, this all depends not only on the rest of the
season, but also on an "surprises" in the conference tournaments.
 
>Just 6 weeks or so left, 12 games max.  Looking at the
>East, does anyone wonder when somebody will step up &
>take charge and stake clear claim to #1?  Michigan, unless
>they fall on their face, look to be #1 West.
 
        Actually, going by the RPI (let me say again that this was
*not* how the selections were done last year, and even when it was
used, required more caution than I'm using), Michigan is ranked
fourth, behind Vermont, New Hampshire and North Dakota.  Remember that
in the end the selection committee will use *some* statistical measure
rather than any poll.  (And I say amen to that!)
 
                                        John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                        <[log in to unmask]>
        <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/jshock.html>
 
1997 Frozen Four: Sec 438, Row U, Seat 11
LET'S GO RED!
 
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