I'm gonna come down on Mr. Griebel's side a little bit here... as an Engineer, the eloquence may not be there, but hopefully I can get the point across.
Winning a college hockey game, ANY college hockey game, is very, very draining emotionally, mentally, and physically.  I don't know this firsthand, but I think most of us here have seen enough games to accept this as true.  "Going through the motions" is, it would seem, much easier.  Likewise (I'm a "shades of gray" thinker) it would seem that just "playing hard" would be less taxing than "giving it your all".  Even if it's not done intentionally, one can see how, if a game isn't "critical", that little bit extra that is so often the difference between victory and defeat can be very diffficult to muster.  If you know you'll still be alive to play another game even if you lose, and the guys in the other jerseys can't say the same, then they're going to want it more.  If the bounces are somewhat even and the talent gap isn't enormous, then in the end, the guys with their backs to the wall will more often than not emerge victorious.
The NHL playoff system is set up so that the three division winners in each conference are seeded 1-3.  Was I wrong, as a Bruins fan, to root for the B's to fininsh 6th, rather than 5th,  a few years back when Carolina, 7th or 8th in the Conference standings, had clinched their division title and thus the #3 seed?  I wanted to see my team go as far in the playoffs as possible, and drawing the Hurricanes in round 1 made advancement to the next round considerably more likely than a series against Toronto or Philadelphia.
Enough rambling for now... flame on; I can take it! :-)  (BTW, I loved the "icing" post... "Slap Shot" rules!).
Matt  RPI '94



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