Thats a lot of hockey to watch in one weekend.

I keep forgetting how much Barry Melrose sucks!!!

As much as the NCAA stressed contact to the head penalties this year, as
long as each league maintains control over their own referees, inter-league
play will be inherently unfair.  There were instances of pounding people
into the boards during the Michigan-CC game with no penalty calls while, at
the same time, an open ice check in New Haven may have arguably changed the
outcome of the Yale-UMD game.

Did anyone notice that the referees wear no names or identification as to
which league they're from. I assume the referees were announced at the start
of each game, but I missed them and the announcers never mentioned it during
the play of any of the games I watched.

I'm sorry, even if I have to agree with Barry Melrose, but that center ice
hit by Brian O'Neill of Yale, was a clean hit.  Maybe you could argue it was
a charging minor, but even on the replay, I didn't see any contact to the
head.

And the OT goal during the Michigan-UNO game?  If the referees had the same
view of the goal line as the tv audience did, there was no way they could
have seen the puck, let alone "conclusive evidence" to overturn the "no
goal" call on the ice.  Its a good thing to bring technology into play in
national tournaments but that call gives technology a bad name.  I hope that
is some further explanation of what happened during that interminable
sequence, but I doubt we'll hear anything else about it.

I was glad to see that in every game I watched, the referees did not put
their whistles away in the 3rd period.  If they called it in the first
period, they called it in the third period (or even the overtimes).

I really got tired of hearing how Miami got the short end of the stick
having to go into Manchester to play UNH in the first round.  It didn't seem
to have any bad effects on Jeff Jackson and Notre Dame.

It may provide an advantage to a team to be sent to a regional near their
home ice, but did you notice that there seemed to be signs of life in
Bridgeport and Manchester but nothing but empty seats in Green Bay and St.
Louis.  Having been to numerous regionals in Albany, I know its tough to
gauge the size of a crowd since a lot of fans come for only a single game.
It will be interesting to see the attendance stats for the different venues

Doesn't it seem kind of ridiculous that hockey players (and fans) now have
to wait two weeks for the championship, just so we don't "interfere" with
basketball?
Roundball semifinals are on Saturday and the finals on Monday night.  Whats
wrong with with hockey semifinals on Friday and championship on Sunday?
What are they afraid of, people not being able to attend both basketball and
hockey championships?  Both sports sell out their respective arenas anyway
and the games are broadcast on different networks so there's no conflict on
tv either.

Did anyone get a chance to listen to interviews with Paul Stewart (director
of officiating in the ECAC) during the ECAC championships broadcasting?  He
kept going on and on about how the ECAC encourages the referees to use their
discretion calling (or not calling) penalties when the effect of the penalty
has no effect on the play.  According to him (I'm paraphrasing here), if
someone is hooked in center ice, away from the puck and it doesn't prevent
the victim of the hook from a scoring opportunity, the referee might want to
"let it go".  After listening to him,  I no longer wonder why the state of
referees in the ECAC is as bad as it is.  He seems to want to
institutionalize incompetence.


I'm  getting sick and tired of putting up with people bad mouthing the ECAC
and eastern hockey in general.  However, maybe we'll talk more about that
next year, eh?


I'm looking forward to hearing from people who attended each of the regional
sites to hear their impressions of the arena and how the host city treated
them and how the local restaurants and accommodations were.