G.M. Finniss writes:
>Re: the item about whether Brown was shut out twice or not in 1965:
>
>I had been using the archives when doing a couple posts I did last week con-
>cerning the NC$$ Tournament. It may be possible that the archives are incor-
>rect regarding the score of the 1965 third place game by North Dakota.
The archives were incorrect. I appreciate folks bringing this to my
attention. The scores were taken from the 1989-90 College Hockey
Record Manual - and this is not the first mistake that has been found
in the manual. :-)
Once the question was raised, I decided to check a North Dakota media
guide I have from 1988-89. It has the score as 9-5, same as what
Brown has and different from the manual's 9-0. It will be changed in
the archives.
>Re: Days off before playing
>
>This may actually sound sacreligious (sp?) to some, but I would prefer one of
>two options to eliminating this: a) cut the field back to eight; or b) keep
>it at 12 but go back to a best-of-three setup in the first round and the
>quarterfinals.
First, I would like to point out that it is quite intentional that the
top two seeds in each region get a rest before the quarterfinals.
That is deemed to be their reward for being seeded 1-2.
There were a number of reasons why a change was made from a three-week
tournament to two weeks. Some were:
* Tourney was considered to be too long.
* NC$$ wanted to get the games into neutral sites at larger arenas.
* 1-2 seeds were considered to be at a disadvantage with a week off
during the first round.
After four years of the previous format and now four years of the
current format, there are several reasons why I favor the previous
format:
* Tourney seemed to be more exciting. Third games of best of threes
were hard to top for fan excitement.
* It's hard to say you had an off night when you lose 2 of 3 games.
* As opposed to three sites currently, we had 9 sites hosting NC$$
tourney hockey. I felt this contributed to the growth of the sport
and brought tourney hockey to more places.
* Attendance was not a problem at the eight sites hosting first round
and quarterfinal action. Home teams always sold out or came very
close to selling out.
The big problem I see with the regional format is that hockey has not
attained the status that basketball has, where fans will fill a large
neutral site arena regardless of who is playing. A half-empty
Worcester Centrum doesn't do much for the advancement of the sport,
especially when the place is so big that most of Friday night you
could hear a pin drop. Saturday was much better, but what if schools
with less support than Maine and BU were playing instead? The NC$$
currently has too much of an interest in seeing that teams with large
fan bases play at the neutral sites. That shouldn't have to be a
concern.
I'm not sure what the answer is. Many different formats have been
proposed here and elsewhere over the years. All have their problems.
The question is whether the current format has the least problems. If
the issue of attendance and fan interest can be solved, which may
happen soon if the sport continues to grow, then regionals may be the
best way to go. After all, hoop regionals did not always enjoy the
amount of success they enjoy today.
An idea I will toss out: move each of the four regional brackets to
the highest seeded team's home rink. Require fans to purchase tickets
for both nights. Thus, for example, Clarkson would have played at
BU's Walter Brown Arena against LSSU on Friday night, with the winner
playing BU Saturday night. I think this would result in the arena
being packed for both games. And if the Friday game is a 7 pm start
locally, this removes an additional problem Worcester and Madison
faced with their early games Friday: local folks had trouble getting
to the games because they began way too early.
How would attendance be affected? This year, Worcester drew a
combined 18,000 for both nights and Madison drew about 15,000. I
think you could have expected the following two-night draws at higher
seeds' rinks (rough estimates):
BU: 4,000 x 2 = 8,000
Maine: 5,000 x 2 = 10,000
Michigan: 7,200 x 2 = 14,400
CC: 2,600 x 2 = 5,200
Total: 37,600 as compared to 33,000 at neutral sites. (Of course,
CC's total is lower than normal since they have been playing at Air
Force, but if a school like Clarkson or Harvard drew a 1-2 seed, the
numbers wouldn't have been much different.)
However, it is likely that less money would have been made, since
Worcester charged $40 for two days and four games. You can't charge
$20 a game for two games at campus sites. So the regionals would have
probably made more money despite having fewer fans.
>Even with cutting the field back to eight, I would go back to
>a best-of-three format in the quarterfinals, with all games played at neutral
>sites. The idea of teams getting byes and thus preferred routes to the title
>has never sat well with me, independent of the sport. If they do get byes,
>somehow put them on equal footing with the teams they're playing; e.g. give
>both teams a week's rest.
The problem is that if we have 12 teams instead of 8, somehow somebody
is going to get a bye. In the old format, folks complained that the
week off hurt the higher seed. Now in the new format, the day off is
supposed to hurt the lower seed (i.e. would LSSU have had a better
chance against BU). Can't have it both ways. :-)
>Here's an idea that could have been used this year:
>
> West Subregional East Subregional
> Minnesota vs. RPI Lake Superior vs. Clarkson
> Michigan State vs. Wisconsin New Hampshire vs. Denver
...
> West Regional East Regional
> Minn/RPI winner vs. CC LSSU/Clarkson winner vs. BU
> MSU/UW winner vs. UM UNH/Denver winner vs. Maine
BTW, if we reverted to the format that was used from 1988-91, the
pairings would have been a bit different. Teams would have initially
been split into regions, and since one region had more teams than the
other this year, the lowest West team would have moved to the East.
That would have been Denver. The only question is if they would have
been re-seeded as 5E and RPI 6E (since Denver ranked ahead of RPI), or
if 7W Denver would have simply been made 6E as was done from 88-91.
Let's assume re-seeding to make Denver 5E and RPI 6E.
Each round would have had a crossover. For example, 6E would play at
3W, with the winner playing at 2E.
FIRST ROUND
6E RPI at 3W Minnesota
5E Denver at 4W Wisconsin
6W LSSU at 3E UNH
5W MSU at 4E Clarkson
QUARTERFINALS
RPI/Minnesota at 2E Maine
Denver/Wisconsin at 1E BU
LSSU/UNH at 2W CC
MSU/Clarkson at 1W Michigan
But again, this would have meant a three-week tourney, and I don't
think the NC$$ wants to go back to that. And those 1-2 seeds like
Michigan and BU would have complained about the week off.
As you can see, it isn't an easy problem to solve. The current format
may be the best available, given that expansion to 16 teams is not
possible and that DivI hockey would refuse a voluntary drop to 8.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93
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