>         The down side to Princeton pulling off five wins in six games
> in nine days is that ECAC will probably view the Final Five as a
> success.
 
 
Then again, the only reason the ECAC put the Final Five into place was to
handicap the #4 Lake Placid seed.  This year that seed was Princeton
and.... whoops.  ;-)
 
The whole point of this ugly little travesty is to give the RS champion a
free ride to the title game and a better shot to grab the bye.  Well, that
sure worked...
 
Let the ECAC take a lesson that in this instance affirmative action both
isn't warranted *and* doesn't even work. You know what the ECAC has done?
They have *strengthened* the opponent of the #1 by putting a natural
selection mechanism in to select out the stronger/hotter of the 4/5 seeds.
They have actually made it harder for the #1.
 
 
 
> Day One:
>         Game 1 (semi-final play-in): #5 vs #4
>         Game 2 (semi-final): #3 vs #2
> Day Two:
>         Game 3 (consolation play-in): Game 1 loser vs game 2 loser
>         Game 4 (semi-final): Game 1 winner vs #1
> Day Three:
>         Game 5 (consolation): Game 4 loser vs game 3 winner
>         Game 6 (championship): Game 2 winner vs game 4 winner
 
 
This is really creative!  I hate it  ;-)  Actually, I don't hate it -- it's
better than the current system (so's an ice pick in the forehead), but it
has the two finalists playing their SF's on different days, and that's not
optimal.
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.