There are three weeks left in the ECAC season, and already some
interesting possibilities have arisen.  A user of my playoff
possibilties script (which can be found under
<http://slack.net/hockey/>) worked out that although SLU is assured of
finishing with a winning record in the league, it is still possible
for them to miss the playoffs.  This inspired me to work out a couple
of other questions, with the following results:

1. SLU has not yet clinched the playoffs
2. Brown has been eliminated from home ice contention
3. Yale can win the Ivy League title and still not make the playoffs.

The reasoning:

1. SLU has not yet clinched the playoffs

One set of results which causes this to happen is:

February 16
Yale         1 at RPI          0
Vermont      1 at Cornell      0
Dartmouth    0 at Colgate      1
Princeton    0 at Union        1
Clarkson     1 at Brown        0
St. Lawrence 0 at Harvard      1

February 17
Yale         0 at Union        1
Vermont      0 at Colgate      1
Dartmouth    1 at Cornell      0
Princeton    1 at RPI          0
Clarkson     0 at Harvard      1
St. Lawrence 0 at Brown        1

February 23
Brown        0 at Union        1
Harvard      0 at RPI          1
Vermont      0 at Yale         1
Colgate      1 at Clarkson     0
Dartmouth    0 at Princeton    1
Cornell      1 at St. Lawrence 0

February 24
Brown        0 at RPI          1
Harvard      0 at Union        1
Vermont      2 at Princeton    2
Colgate      1 at St. Lawrence 0
Dartmouth    0 at Yale         1
Cornell      2 at Clarkson     2

March 2
RPI          1 at Cornell      0
Yale         1 at Brown        0
Union        2 at Colgate      2
Princeton    1 at Harvard      0
Clarkson     0 at Dartmouth    1
St. Lawrence 0 at Vermont      1

March 3
RPI          2 at Colgate      2
Yale         1 at Harvard      0
Union        1 at Cornell      0
Princeton    1 at Brown        0
Clarkson     0 at Vermont      1
St. Lawrence 0 at Dartmouth    1

In that case, we have a tie for 1-3 place at 24 points among Yale,
Union and Dartmouth, and a tie for 4-11 place at 23 points among
Cornell, Harvard, Clarkson, RPI, Colgate, Vermont, Princeton, and SLU.
Brown is in 12 place with 8 points.  The eight-way tie is broken by
successive application of head-to-head tiebreakers: Cornell is awarded
4th place for having the most points (17) against the other teams,
then Harvard gets 5th place for having the most points (14) against
teams in the remaining 7-way tie, etc all the way down to Princeton
edging out SLU for 10th place by virtue of their 3 points against the
Saints.  The full rundown can be found at

http://slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/ecac.cgi?frame=none&20010216Ya=1&20010216RP=0&20010216Vt=1&20010216Cr=0&20010216Da=0&20010216Cg=1&20010216Pn=0&20010216Un=1&20010216Ck=1&20010216Bn=0&20010216SL=0&20010216Ha=1&20010217Ya=0&20010217Un=1&20010217Vt=0&20010217Cg=1&20010217Da=1&20010217Cr=0&20010217Pn=1&20010217RP=0&20010217Ck=0&20010217Ha=1&20010217SL=0&20010217Bn=1&20010223Bn=0&20010223Un=1&20010223Ha=0&20010223RP=1&20010223Vt=0&20010223Ya=1&20010223Cg=1&20010223Ck=0&20010223Da=0&20010223Pn=1&20010223Cr=1&20010223SL=0&20010224Bn=0&20010224RP=1&20010224Ha=0&20010224Un=1&20010224Vt=2&20010224Pn=2&20010224Cg=1&20010224SL=0&20010224Da=0&20010224Ya=1&20010224Cr=2&20010224Ck=2&20010302RP=1&20010302Cr=0&20010302Ya=1&20010302Bn=0&20010302Un=2&20010302Cg=2&20010302Pn=1&20010302Ha=0&20010302Ck=0&20010302Da=1&20010302SL=0&20010302Vt=1&20010303RP=2&20010303Cg=2&20010303Ya=1&20010303Ha=0&20010303Un=1&20010303Cr=0&20010303Pn=1&20010303Bn=0&20010303Ck=0&20010303Vt=1&20010303SL=0&20010303Da=1

(Sorry for the length of the link, it's usually a POST query!)

2. Brown has been eliminated from home ice contention

Brown can finish with at most 18 points.  Dartmouth already has 18
points, and four other teams (SLU, Cornell, Clarkson and Harvard)
already have more.  Thus Brown's only shot would be to run the table
and have Dartmouth lose the rest of their games.  If we assume those
results and that the top four all win the rest of their games against
the other six teams in the league, we end up with six more teams Brown
needs to get past.  Four of them would end up with a minimum of 16
points each, one with 15, and one with 13.  This is not including the
results of three games for each team against the others (so a total of
nine games).  For all of them to finish tied with no more than 18
points would require them to get no more than 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, and 5
points, respectively.  But 2+2+2+2+3+5=16, and there are 18 points at
stake in those nine games, so at least one of these six teams must
finish with more than 18 points.  So at least five teams will finish
ahead of Brown.

3. Yale can win the Ivy League title and still not make the playoffs.

If Yale beats Dartmouth and Brown and loses their other four remaining
games, they'll end up 7-3 in the Ivies but have only 18 points in the
ECAC.  There are then lots of combinations, some of them not
particularly far-fetched, where everyone but Brown finishes above them
(especially considering that Colgate, Vermont, and RPI all swept the
season series with Yale).

                                          John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                                 [log in to unmask]
                                     http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/

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