At 6:26 PM -0400 6/27/96, Mike Machnik wrote (on INFO-HOCKEY-L):
>http://www.ncaa.org/news/960624/active/3325N08.html
>
>=== begin quoted material ===
>* Agreed to recommend that the semifinals and final be played the 14th
>Friday and Sunday of each year effective as early as the 1998 championship
>but no later than 2000 in order to break away from the Final Four weekend.
>The regionals would continue to be played the third week of March or the
>12th full weekend of the year.
 
To follow this up...if this method had been employed this year, the Final
Four would have been the week after the basketball Final Four.  There would
have been two weeks between the regionals and the Final Four.  This is what
many people have been asking for for years, to move the Final Four so that
it can stand on its own without being overshadowed by basketball.  I think
it's definitely worth trying.
 
I'm also guessing that the championship game would be played on Sunday
afternoon with the goal being to land some national tv coverage - i.e.
network tv.
 
Having two weeks off might be a concern in terms of the long layoff between
games, but at least everyone would be in the same boat.
 
>* Voted to recommend that the four Division I ice hockey conferences
>receive two automatic berths in the 1997 championship.
 
This is technically a bit different than the current method, in which each
conference gets one automatic bid awarded to the tournament champion and
the selection committee added another bid (not automatic) to the regular
season champ.  The way I understand it, there would be no effective
difference in tourney selection, the two bids would just be made official.
It's just a change in terminology.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
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