Dr. Bob Hamilton wrote:

<<. . .   Seems that [finding the teams at the end of the season that would make the best possible
tournament for Division 1 college hockey fans] is what would be more important in a post-season
tournament selection process than making it totally on play that happened throughout the season
with no consideration of current events.>>

I disagree with this premise.  As much as I enjoy the tournament as a D1 hockey fan, I don’t
believe that making the best possible tournament for me ought to be the goal of the tournament
committee.  I’m fine with a system that rewards teams for a full season’s work by placing them in
the tournament.  I’m not so naïve as to argue that the NCAA always acts with the athletes’
interest at heart, but to exclude a team based on, say, a rash of injuries at the end of the year
so that the tournament will be more interesting for the fans would be a greater injustice than
excluding a team because they had a lousy beginning to the season but came on strong at the end.

Pamela Sweeney wrote:

<<Another point is that the major conferences can usually* assume that any team good enough to win
the regular-season title will, in the process of doing so, have compiled a record good enough to
qualify them for an at-large bid, so they can best maximize their conference's participation by
giving their autobid to the tourney champ.>>

It’s an advantage for the “minor” conferences also.  They would have a lot of games, and a
post-season tournament, at the end of the season that are meaningless.  The also-rans would have
nothing to play for, because they couldn’t make the tournament as an at large bid.

Generally, I don’t think that the current system is perfect, but I have not seen any proposals
here or elsewhere that make it better.  And I really don’t have any sympathy for any team that
doesn’t make it to the NCAA tournament.  As I look at it, every D1 team (except Merrimack and
UMass-Lowell) were in the NCAA tournament.  Some teams got a bye to the round of 16.  For everyone
else, it was one loss and out.  If you couldn’t win the AHA/CCHL/CHA/HE/WCHA tournament, what
right do you have to say that you might have won the NCAA Championship?  You would probably have
had to beat teams of the same caliber or better, and you didn’t do it.



 
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