As usual, I'm too busy with post-Placid physics catchup (flying to
Baton Rouge for a conference tomorrow) to participate in this
conversation fully, so let me fire off a couple of thoughts:

-- Everyone basically got the bottom 4 in each region right, aside
from the Michigan-SCSU flip-flop; the thing we didn't know about was
how they would resolve the situation with the regional placement of
the "seeded teams".  The thought of bracketing 1E-2E and 1W-2W crossed
my mind on Thursday, but I didn't even mention it to anyone, since it
involved contradicting the championships handbook.  What I find most
disturbing about this turn of events is that the committee has now
gone beyond applying its discretion to resolve the ambiguities in the
championships handbook, and has simply thrown out a part of it which
was inconvenient.  I didn't realize they even had the power to do
that, and I think it sets a terrible precedent.

-- Saying we need to limit air travel out of safety concerns arising
from the September 11th attacks strikes me not so much as a pretext
for some underlying agenda as a profound lack of understanding of
(quantitative) risk analysis.
                                          John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                                 [log in to unmask]
                                     http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/

Enjoy the latest Hockey Geek tools at slack.net/hockey