Thanks to Lynn Burke, I've added the Fairfield schedule to the DivI
composite, and the team schedules of Fairfield and its DivI opponents
have been updated.
 
This weekend I started to look at how to handle the shootouts in
Hockey East this season.  I plan to check with Tim Burton of HE to see
if an agreement has been made on how to report the conference
standings, but I still need to decide how to indicate in the composite
that a game was decided by shootout.
 
A typical line in the composite is the following:
 
12/08/93 Providence          4 at Merrimack           5 HE ot
 
What if this game was decided by shootout?  Currently, I have decided
to do the following:
 
* Take the final score after ot and add a goal to the total of the
team winning the shootout.
* In place of the "ot" designation, indicate that the game was decided
by shootout with "so".
 
That would give us
 
12/08/93 Providence          4 at Merrimack           5 HE so
 
and from this, it should be easy to deduce that the game was tied 4-4
after regulation and ot, but that Merrimack won by shootout.  I may
even add a notation on the score of the shootout, such as
 
12/08/93 Providence          4 at Merrimack           5 HE so [3-2]
 
indicating that Merrimack won the shootout 3-2.
 
Does anyone have any comments or a better suggestion?  I know a number
of people download this file to use for various reasons, such as input
to stat programs, which is why I post this to all.  I am sure whatever
I decide will affect some people, including some who I didn't know
were doing anything with the file.  Now is a good time to voice your
concerns.
 
For example, a possible source of confusion is that although Merrimack
is listed with a score of 5 above, their goals for actually only
increases by 4.  You don't count the shootout goals in a team's
league/overall GF-GA.
 
My own program that generates standings and schedules will see the
"so" designation, figure out who won the shootout and game by the
score, and then update each team's stats accordingly - add 4 GF
instead of 5 to MC, add 4 GA instead of 5 to PC, give PC an additional
point in the league, etc.  The real hassle is making sure that these
games are recorded as wins & SO losses for HE purposes but as ties
overall, but it isn't all that difficult to deal with, knock on wood.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93
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