>
>Seeding the tournament 1-12 doesn't appear to be a consideration. The
>hockey tournament puts a greater emphasis on geography than does
>basketball. This is probably for financial and attendance reasons, as
>much as anything else.
>
>> So, could someone please tell me why it was important that Minnesota and
>>North
>> Dakota not meet last year, but the same consideration does not apply
>> this year?
>
>This year's situation and last year's situations are not identical.
>
>It appears that the seed-switching occurs after the teams are placed in
>the appropriate Regionals. To avoid interconference matchups in the
>second round would have involved sending the wrong teams to the other region.
>That is why OSU (the 4th western team) stayed west, and Wisconsin (the 5th
>western team) went east, and why UNH (the 4th eastern team) stayed east and
>Yale (the 5th eastern team) went west.
>
>Last year's  West Regional (Mich, UND, Minn, Miami, Cornell, MSU) meant
>that a potential all-WCHA matchup was possible, but not inevitable. Given
>that it was not inevitable, the committee decided to eliminate the
>possibility of it happening.
>
>Once the West Regional's field for this year was set (MSU, UND, Michigan,
>OSU, Yale & Princeton), a potential all-CCHA matchup became inevitable. I'm
>not sure if anything might have happened, had MSU become 2W, to keep
>Michigan and MSU apart.
>
>FWIW, the same was true in the East Regional. When BC grabbed the second
>bye, that made a potential all-HE matchup inevitable.
 
Exactly.  I think that the last two years the commitee has shown that
switching teams in order to give teams the correct draw in terms of
opponent strength is not a desire.  This is in direct contrast to the 1996
tournament where Lake State was sent East as a number three seed based on
draw strength considerations.  Until the hockey tourney goes to 16 teams,
the actual seeds and draws will not reflect any sort of relative strength
of the teams involved.  Teams will not be sent out of region for any
reason, now, except the mandatory switch of the bottom two and two (with
exceptions for attendance, which was not a concern in the West, and will be
a concern in the East, except that nobody is really much of a draw for
Albany, except BU and maybe Clarkson).
 
Consider this, two years ago, I received over 300 emails this week in
complaints on who got in, the seeds, etc.  Last year, maybe 50-100.  This
year, the total will probably be less than 20.  I'd say the commitee has
cleared things up pretty damn well, and done a nice job.  Of course, it's
easy to say that when one doesn't have a vested interest in the proceedings
this time.
 
Larry Weintraub '98,
Cornell University
Let's Go BIG RED!!!!!
 
Quote of the Semester:
        "They wear their hearts on their sleeves here at Cornell...and also
their faces."
 
        -- TV Announcers at the Cornell-Colgate game,
           while the camera was in a close-up on my painted face.
 
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