Since we are now exactly ONE MONTH away from the start of the college hockey
regular season (all of us except for Western Michigan, but they're weird
anyway :-)) and Mr. Selig is about to do to baseball what two World Wars
couldn't do (cancel the Series), it seemed about time to start:
THE FIRST INAUGURAL (at least I think it's the first one) HOCKEY-L REGULAR
SEASON PREDICTION CONTEST!
Contest Central has been tidied up a bit here, and although it's been un-
characteristically hot in East Lansing (that is, everything but the football
team), the smell of hockey is in the air (especially considering the first
snowfall will be here in about 6 weeks)!
(I realize I hadn't planned to start it this early, but is it EVER TOO early
for hockey?)
OK, basic rules (some of you were here for the Pre*3 and the Pre*2 announce-
ments, so bear with me):
The object of the contest is to pick the correct order of finish in the four
major conferences in Division I (Hockey East, ECAC, CCHA, and WCHA). This
is based on CONFERENCE RECORD only (I realize interconference and especially
intersectional games are fun, but...).
Points will be awarded (or disawarded) based on how far from the actual finish
of each team you are. (Did everybody get that? If somebody did, tell me,
because I got lost while I was writing it.) For example, if you predict that
Northern Michigan will finish 3rd in the WCHA and they finish 2nd, you get 1
point. If they finish 6th, you get 3 points. The person who ends up with the
lowest total wins (just like in golf, except here you can't break par, unless
they're playing the International with the weird scoring system) and gets all
the latest fabulous prizes...well, on second thought, we'll just mention your
name here, but with a lot of fanfare!!!!
In case of a tie (and there are ALWAYS ties) the tiebreaker is the person
closest to the TOTAL number of conference points for one team from each of
the four conferences (and by conference points, I mean the 2 for a win, 1
for a tie or in HE a shootout loss stuff). I'm using this because I thought
it would be a bit tougher to do and would also give me a wider range of
numbers to work with. I also chose one from each conference so as to not
favor one area of the country over another. The four teams were chosen by
yours truly, with an eye to picking teams in each conference that didn't have
huge followings on Hockey-L (which meant BU, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, and
my own beloved Spartans were right out) so as to make people think just a
little bit harder. So, the four teams are:
Hockey East- Providence (24 conference games, 2 for win, 1 for shoot-
out loss)
ECAC- Vermont (22 conference games, 2 for win, 1 for tie)
CCHA- Illinois-Chicago (27 conference games, 2 for win, 1 for tie)
WCHA- Saint Cloud State (32 conference games, 2 for win, 1 for tie)
Providence plays all other members of HE 3 times
Vermont plays all other members of ECAC twice
Illinois-Chicago plays all other "full" members of CCHA 3 times
Saint Cloud State plays 7 members of WCHA 4 times, but does not play
Denver at home or Michigan Tech on the road (so only 2 games
against Denver and MTU)
The final order of finish in the conferences will be that determined by their
playoff order (except for the bottom 2 teams in ECAC who don't qualify and
Colorado College, which is on probation). Colorado College's order of finish
will be determined by what would have been their playoff position had they
been eligible for postseason. (Somebody else may rememver this better than
I do, but will there only be 8 in the CCHA playoffs this year? If so, the
order for the two or three left out (if UAF makes the playoffs) will be
determined by record, same as for the ECAC non-qualifiers.)
Since the University of Alaska-Fairbanks is still only an "affiliate member" of
the CCHA, they will not be included in the standings for the conference.
(Sorry, Nanook fans, but next year isn't that far off.)
For those of you who like the "cut out and send" format, I will include it at
the end of this message and the others that I will send out before the end of
the contest (I'm planning one at the end of September and roughly one a week
in October until the deadline). I will also give the list of team names for
each conference (it doesn't have to appear exactly as I've written it, I will
accept abbreviations as long as I can understand them).
Deadline for entries will be:
Friday, October 14 at 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time
since that will be the first day of the season (I realize the first conference
games aren't until the 15th, but what the hell...). I will also post my picks
the day before the deadline, so nobody thinks I'm cheating when I win. :-) ad
infinitum
I'm hoping we can top the roughly 136 entries we got last year for the NCAA
tournament pool. But time will tell... An overall analysis of the picks will
be given roughly 2 or 3 days after the deadline and I will also give monthly
or bimonthly updates throughout the season.
So, good luck and start thinking!
G. M. Finniss
Michigan State University- Contest Central
WVU (man, do they suck or what?) '87, UTenn (watch out, Gators!) '92, MSU (do
we have to play Notre Dame now) who the hell knows when?
31 days until opening faceoff against BG.....
--------------------------------(cut here)-----------------------------------
Hockey-L Regular Season Prediction Contest Entry
Name:
Team you mostly follow:
E-mail address:
Hockey East ECAC
1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.
6. 6.
7. 7.
8. 8.
9. 9.
10.
11.
12.
CCHA WCHA
1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.
6. 6.
7. 7.
8. 8.
9. 9.
10. 10.
Tiebreaker (Sum of conference points of Providence, Vermont, Illinois-
Chicago, and Saint Cloud State) (as in 2 for a win, 1 for a
tie or shootout loss [HE only]):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
List of teams:
Hockey East ECAC
___________ ____
Boston College Brown
Boston University Clarkson
Maine Colgate
Mass Amherst Cornell
Mass Lowell Dartmouth
Merrimack Harvard
New Hampshire Princeton
Northeastern RPI
Providence Saint Lawrence
Union
Vermont
Yale
CCHA WCHA
____ ____
Bowling Green Alaska Anchorage
Ferris State Colorado College
Illinois Chicago Denver
Lake Superior State Michigan Tech
Miami Minnesota
Michigan Minnesota Duluth
Michigan State North Dakota
Notre Dame Northern Michigan
Ohio State Saint Cloud State
Western Michigan Wisconsin
Entery due date: 14 October 1994, 5:00pm Eastern Daylight Time
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