I wanted to stop talking about this and give up pounding my head against
the wall ... but now I'm forced to respond since JMN pulled out a tiny
bit of my points and is beating me up with them  ...
 
>> c)  Top-to-bottom, I think the ECAC is quite competitive
>>     the top teams aren't as good, but the bottom ones are better than
>> the bottom of the other conferences, clearly.
>
>There really isn't any evidence of this, at least not regarding western
>teams (I didn't take the time to do the breakdown vs. Hockey East).
>ECAC teams played CCHA or WCHA teams 28 times, and went 7-20-1.  If you
>only count the games between teams in the lower half of the conferences
>(7-12 ECAC, 7-11 CCHA, 6-9 WCHA), then the ECAC teams went 3-6.
>
>The wins were:
>Dartmouth (11) over Bowling Green (11)
>Cornell (8) over Western Michigan (9)
>Vermont (9) over Lake Superior (7)
>
>The losses:
>Dartmouth (11) to Denver (8)
>Cornell (8) to Ferris State (8)
>St Lawrence (10) to Michigan Tech (7)
>Vermont (9) to Lake Superior (7)
>Vermont (9) to Bowling Green (11)
>Vermont (9) to Denver (8)
 
First of all ... this really isn't this gist of my argument at all ...
but it is part of it ...
So I'll just point out that the wins are against teams that are
relatively equal in the standings ...
 
The losses are all against teams higher up in the standings, except
Vermont to Bowling Green.  Also, early in the season, the ECAC is at a
distinct disadvantage, having played far fewer games and the games are
on the road.
 
So my point, if you go back, is that if you consider the bottom to be
8-10 or so, then the picture is a lot better ... The ECAC then has two
more teams tacked on, which aren't as strong.  The other conferences
aren't weighted with these teams.
 
But -- as JMN points out -- it doesn't really matter ... In my opinion,
the ECAC is more fun for a lot of reasons -- but that's just opinion.
For example, how often have No. 7 seeds won the other conference
tournaments??  Princeton's made it to the final as a No. 7 seed twice in
the last four years.  Does this mean the top of the conference is
weaker?  Maybe.  Does it also mean the conference is pretty balanced?
... Yes.  And I like that, thank you.
 
So - again that's just my opinion ...
 
But let's reiterate now clearly for everyone the major points I am
trying to talk about --- maybe you want to save it and re-read every now
and then when you forget, or just look at the archives and see the 4000
other messages I've written on this topic until I'm blue in the fingers
...
 
1)  The ECAC is more competitive than it is given credit for in the
minds of many people -- If you asked me to rank the conferences, or
predict who would win a round-robin tournament with No. 1 team in ECAC
vs. No. 1 in the others, No. 2 in the ECAC vs. No. 2 in the others, and
so on, I'm going to tell you the ECAC will come in 4th out of 4 --- Can
I make
that any more clear!!!  But it is not nearly as far behind as some
people's warped perceptions.  That's the issue.
 
2)  I am sick of hearing the coaches in the West put down ECAC teams and
act shocked when they act competitively, like Dean Blais this year (I
only scouted Michigan, whoops) and Don Lucia in 1996 (I never expected
Vermont to really be that good) and this year (happy they were moved
East).
 
3)  The inane argument that the league doesn't deserve bids --- they're
up there in PWR, and check tournament history in the mid to late 80's
and early 90's
 
4)  That instead of putting down the teams, ridiculing them or casting
them off as not worth even talking about ... people should realize the
great stories of how schools with enrollments under 5000, with Ivy
League entrance requirements, can even be nearly as competitive as they
are.  That's the point.
 
5)  That college hockey fans as a whole should be happy and proud about
point No. 4 -- and about any other story in all of college hockey.
College basketball fans don't rip Villanova for winning a national
championship -- it's a nice story.  I have pride in the Eastern teams as
a fan, Princeton-Cornell first, then the rest of the Ivy, rest of the
ECAC, then HEA --- but also in college hockey as a whole.  But I would
 never put down the West.  I only defend the East against attacks from
the West.
 
6)  This provincialism is what is keeping college hockey down.
 
7)  You have never and will neve hear me utter a disparaging word about
the quality of eduaction at schools outside the ECAC.  It's a stupid,
silly path to go down, and is more or less completely irrelevant and
mostly untrue.  I merely point out the lower enrollments (by far) at
ECAC schools and tougher entrance requirements and lack of scholarship.
These are FACTS that make it a lot tougher to bring in blue-chippers,
and for some schools it's impossible.   I say that only as it relates to
hockey.  I went to a private Division III school and I had a great
education --- I don't give a hoot where anyone went to school.  For me,
personally, there is nothing high and mighty in my statements about the
difficulty in recruiting at ECAC schools.  Note:  I do not say, "Well,
we're pretty good in hockey, but way better in school, and therefore we
rule."  No -- just pointing out the facts that make it tough -- and
therefore, when people ridicule or put down or ignore the ECAC schools,
they are missing a chance to commend the coaches and programs for doing
relatively well with those difficulties.
   Can anyone deny it's tougher to recruit at Princeton than at
Wisconsin?
It's tougher to recruit at Princeton than at Vermont.  The best thing
going for Princeton is that it's Princeton.  If a kid's family is doing
well financially, and the kid is really smart, he may pick Princeton
over a similar school because of the Princeton name.
 
 
>Another way to look at it is to suggest that if the bottom teams are
> good, then they should occasionally pull off an upset of one of the
top
> teams.  This is where it really starts to look bad for the ECAC.  In
>games where one of the second division ECAC teams (as defined above)
>played one of the top four teams in a western conference, the ECAC went
>1-3.  Colgate split with Michigan the first week of the season, Cornell
>lost to North Dakota and St. Lawrence lost to Michigan.
 
Well - Princeton did defeat BU   :-)    and Merrimack and Providence.
 
 
 
>I get the sense, though, that there are a number of ECAC fans basically
>claiming that they make up in academic prowess as a whole institution
>what they might give up on the ice.  In essence, it's a continuation of
>the Jock U. thread.  This argument drives me crazy.  At most, if not
>all, of the Big 10 schools, for instance, have at least 4,000-5,000
>students (comparable to a lot of ECAC enrollments) who would fit in
very
>well in those settings and could probably compete on an even academic
>footing.
 
Read the last point above.  Anyone making these statements is not doing
my argument any justice and I wish they'd stay out of it.   All I'm
trying to do is persuade Westerners to stop putting down the ECAC and
see the kind of hockey that is being played there is worthy of respect.
 
 
>  It is the mission of these schools to ALSO educate many
> thousands of other students who, for reasons ranging from the academic
> to the financial to the geographic, could not make it in the ECAC
> schools.  This is where examining "average" students, or the general
> perception of these students, makes no sense.  I'll confess, I believe
> that for this and other reasons, Big 10 universities (and, on a
smaller
> scale, the other public schools in college hockey) are actually
superior
>educational institutions to the Princetons and the RPIs of the world.
> But that's opinion, and its rooted pretty firmly in ideology.  The
> argument coming up again did manage to pull my trigger, though.
 
Well -- this is off the path now -- but I think it's silly to put down
any school, really.  Each of them have their own mission.  And I would
tend to agree that I don't necessarily think someone at Princeton is goi
ng to get a better education than someone somewhere else ... you get
what you put into it.  But I hope you know by now that none of this is
the point of my discussion.
 
To finish up on that last thought, though -- Where I went to school
(Ithaca College, upstate NY) -- it was challenging to get into (not
quite Ivy League, Stanford, Duke, etc...) -- and it had a couple of very
specific fields where it specialized and is ranked very highly
(communications, physical therapy), and had an enrollment around 5,500.
I personally would've hated being on a big campus with 40,000 or even
20,000 -- and got lost.  I'd liked the campus atmosphere where I was ...
If I wanted big campus, I took a bus 4 miles to Cornell.
 
Now everyone clip and save --- including the ECAC fans who
unintentionally mess up my argument and "back me up" by arguing points
that are irrelevant.
 
AW
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.