On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Indulis R Rutks wrote:
 
> Yet another item of interest culled from Gregg Wongs column (St. Paul
> Pioneer Press, Feb. 25):
>
> There is a "mini-storm brewing" regarding the scheduling of the WCHA
> Final Five tournament.
>
> The main question is whether to schedule the Friday semifinals to
> maximize $ or to be fair. Usually, seeds 4 & 5 compete on Thursday night.
> Then, The games on Friday are 2 vs. 3 in the afternoon, 1 vs. the winner
> of 4/5 in the evening. The problem arises because the Gophers (assuming
> they make it that far) will probably be either the #2 or #3 seed. Since
> this years tourney is in St. Paul, it would financially benefit the WCHA
> to have the home team play the Fri. night game. This would mean that the
> Thurs. night winner would have to play against the #1 seed on Friday
> afternoon, which some coaches deem as unfair. Even Gophers AD Mark
> Dienhart is quoted as saying "That would be an unfair competitive
> situation, and I think the tendency would be not to do that... It's a
> matter of trying to balance off the revenue needs of the WCHA against
> what is fair or unfair."
>
> The WCHA Tornament committee will apparently make their decision after
> the first round is done.
>
>
>
The organizing commitee should also look at either moving the
championship game to Sunday or the 4 vs 5 game to Wednesday.....
 
The problem is that if the 5th seed wins like Michigan Tech did last year
they had to play 3 games in 3 nights.....It is almost impossible to do....
They beat St. Cloud in overtime and beat the number 1 ranked team...
Colorado College on Friday night.....but lost to the gophers 7-2 or
something....I'm not saying Tech would have won the game if they would
had day off....but it would have been a more interesting game...and would
have been possible for Tech since they had beat the number one ranked
team in the nation.......those 2 games prior to the Final were very
physically demanding and it wasn't quite fair  to play a more rested
Minnesota team in the final.....Have the 4 vs 5 thursday and the
semifinals on Saturday with the final on Sunday.....That way everybody
wins....its fair and you can have the gophers play on Saturday night...
 
Everybody is expecting Minnesota and North Dakota and C. C. to make the
final
5....I am too....but don't forgrt the gophers barely beat Northern a few
weeks ago (they are playing better hockey) and Michigan tech has a recent
history of first round upsets.....last year #7 tech swept #4 UMD  and the
year before #10 MTU beat #1 Colorado College.......North dakota definitly
has a superior team than Tech...but its a whole new season...and I
wouldn't be a bit suprised to see the series go 3 games......
 
 Question- The first round of the WCHA play offs should have an
upset......Who do you think is capable of knocking off a top team?
 
 
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