Thanks to Keith for the hard news about the Regionals.  I am particularly
gratified to hear Comley proclaim the East is East, the West is West, and never thr
the seeds shall meet.  (lame joke--sorry)  I again reiterate my contention that
moving the seeds is untenable until true inter-conference play breaks out, that
means you, WCHA.  But I don't need to bash the West for their policies, I think
the tourney composition has already done that.
 
But enough!  On to rampant speculation.
 
Looks like five CCHA teams, two WCHA teams.  Five come from the East, most l
likely three from the ECAC, unless Providence throws a wrench in the equation.
Following Comley's dictum we know where three teams play: Colorado and Michigan
State play in the West, BU plays in the East.  The second East team will be
Vermont if they win the ECAC Tournament, and probably Vermont if they don't,
although pairwise calculations will have to be run vis a vis Lowell and
Clarkson.
 
Then it gets interesting.  In the West the #2 comes from Minnesota, LSSU or
Michigan, and I don't know the statistical vagaries required to predict who
is the most likely.  But now the key ingredient becomes whether the NC$$ flips
the seeds, likely the 5's and 6's as in previous years.  With five teams coming
from the CCHA, does that become a factor in the make-up at Munn and the Knick?
The mechanics of the shifts can be done any number of ways, for example if
Michigan State is the fifth seeded team in the West, maybe you flip the three
and fours, since M-State plays at home.  Or maybe you don't flip anyone, and
assign the West #7, either Western Michigan or Bowling Green, to the East.
(Wouldn't that be any interesting sports feature: Buddy Powers returns to the
Knick--might have attendance value.)  Regardless, I think it will be more
challenging on the Committee to set up the Regionals than the last time
Michigan State and RPI hosted, resulting in Dave Hendrickson's oft repeated
characterization that Lowell got screwed.
 
Do we take Comley's comments completely at face value?  Would the Knick send
four West teams to the Knick?  Not likely.  On the basis of pure speculation I
would estimate at least three, and maybe four East teams will get to play in
Albany, regardless of the PWR rating (asuming, like one poster already said,
that the Committee is actually employing the intensively studied Hockey-l
analylsis of Tim, Erik and others.)  For attendance purposes, the ideal scenario
is to get Vermont and Clarkson/Cornell into the Knick, putting two ECAC squads
into the East.  Predicting which west teams to move East is tortuous, and I
really don't have any basis from which to make a prediction.  With Michigan s
State playing at Munn, whoever else plays there is irrelevant attendance-wise.
Personally I would be in seventh heaven to see either Michigan or LSSU play a
Friday, and possibly a Saturday night game at the Knick.  But I don't know how
to construct the correct scenario to realize this dream.
 
The major theme of this exercise--do not assume that the Committee will return
to the previous years' method for filling the docket at each Regional site.
There will not be a straight ranking of twelve teams divided so each site has
an equivalent PWR rating of its teams.  There will be other factors that will
come into play, and this will skew the expectations of many teams and their fans
regarding their venues.
**********************************************************************************
Brian Morris                    RPI Engineers--An Underachieving Team
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