On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, William F. Sangrey wrote:
 
>   One question, did anyone get the reasoning behind why the ECAC is making
> this change?  The only benefit I see changing is removing the Tuesday night
> games that were very inconvienient to academics, coming as they did about
> mid-semester.  Any other motives I see are all related to $, and if the ECAC
> wants to be the EC$$, there are better ways to raise cash then adding a
> couple more games in an extended playoff format (like that fancy new
> invention called TV).
 
Jayson Moy's article on USCHO suggests that the reasoning had a lot to do
with dumping the Tuesday games. It seems that the games weren't exactly a
huge box-office draw. This is not entirely understandable. A game to
determine who will be QF roadkill is not exactly thrilling.
 
They also cited academic concerns, ie travelling players would more than
likely miss class on the Tuesday, and possibly on the Wednesday. You will
forgive my skepticism on that one, since those academic concerns
apparently don't come into play when scheduling a Thursday Lake Placid game.
 
Dumb question: who gets the money from home playoff games in the ECAC? (I
assume the league keeps the Placid money). If the teams get it, I can see
another argument for the new setup: why reward the 7th and 8th place
teams with a home gate, while the 5th place team gets bupkus?
 
All that said, I don't like the new system. If the Tuesday games were that
horrible, the solution is to eliminate them and give the 9th and 10th
place teams lots of time to study for finals. ;-)
 
Goofy fact: It is actually possible for the 7th and 8th place games to
win the championship now in fewer games than before. Last year, the 7-10
seeds had to win 5 games. Now, with the right (admittedly near-
impossible) combination of upsets, they could do it in 4.
 
See you later,
John
 
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