Although Alaska-Fairbanks and Alaska-Anchorage are both affiliates this
season, their placement in the league play-offs are handled
differently. UAF will be seeded from 7th to 12th in the CCHA by the
league office, whereas UAA will automatically be seeded #10 (last) in
the WCHA.
Since UAA will be placed at #10, they will be playing whoever wins the
regular season. But, whoever finishes #2 will get to play the WCHA #9
team. This situation has the potential to be very unfair. If you finish
first, you may be "rewarded" by having to play a very good UAA team,
while the #2 finisher gets to play the worst team in the league. If
Alaska-Anchorage turns out to be a much better team than the #9 WCHA
squad, the WCHA leader could try to lose a few games at the end of the
regular season, finish second, and greatly improve its chances of
winning its first round play-off series. If, however, UAA turns out
to be about as good as the lower echelon of the league, then there will
be no conflict of interest.
So, the question is: how good is UAA with respect to the rest of the
WCHA? To answer that question, I adapted The College Hockey Computer
Rating to only include WCHA league games and games between WCHA teams
and UAA. (This is the same set of games the CCHA will be considering
when they decide where to seed Alaska-Fairbanks. As far as I know,
however, the CCHA office will not be using my "CCHA Rank" for these
purposes.)
Alaska-Anchorage has already played 8 of its 10 games against WCHA
foes. The Seawolves swept Northern Michigan and North Dakota, gained 1
of 4 points versus Minnesota and were just swept by Minnesota-Duluth. They
still have to play Denver twice.
As of early January, UAA is ranked 3rd in the "WCHA Rank." The
Seawolves may shift a bit in the rankings, depending on how they do
versus DU and on what their opponents do. If their opponents start to
lose, they will fall. But if NMU and UND get hot, for example, it could
push UAA up somewhat by the end of the regular season.
In The College Hockey Computer Rating, which considers all Division I
games, UAA is currently ranked above Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan,
North Dakota and Colorado College.
So, in all practical purposes, UAA will end up ranked above the bottom
teams of the league, which may be significant enough to make some teams
think twice about winning the MacNaughton Cup.
WCHA Rank
A mathematical ranking of the WCHA (members and the affiliate)
By Keith Instone
Includes games on 1/2/93.
League*
Rank Pts Team Record Performance Schedule Rating
1 1 Minnesota-Duluth 13 4 1 50.00 1 -7.07 9 42.93
2 3 Minnesota 8 3 5 31.25 2 -7.12 10 24.13
3 - Alaska-Anchorage 4 3 1 12.50 4 7.27 1 19.77
4 2 Wisconsin 9 6 1 18.75 3 -3.16 8 15.59
5 4 St Cloud 8 7 1 6.25 5 -1.77 6 4.48
5 4 Denver 8 7 1 6.25 5 -1.77 6 4.48
7 6 Michigan Tech 7 9 2 -11.11 7 4.44 3 -6.67
8 7 North Dakota 7 10 1 -16.67 8 2.68 5 -13.99
9 8 Northern Michigan 5 10 3 -27.78 9 3.79 4 -23.99
10 9 Colorado College 3 13 0 -62.50 10 5.87 2 -56.63
*The "League record" includes WCHA league games and games with the affiliate.
PERFORMANCE is based on won-lost record only; game sites and margin of
victory are not considered, for example. Performance ranges from +100
(for an undefeated and untied team) to -100 (for a winless and untied
team), with a .500 winning percentage getting a zero performance.
SCHEDULE is the average rating of a team's opponents.
RATING is the sum of performance and schedule and represents an
evaluation of how each team has done so far with respect to the rest of
the league.
The PTS column is the ranking of the teams based solely on points
earned in WCHA league games.
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