Quote from the _Ithaca Journal_:
 
     "The changing game of college hockey was changed a little more
      Wednesday..."
 
What they are referring to is that the NCAA's Championship Committee has
made everything official, approving the 12-team single-elimination format
for the NCAA hockey tournament.  The format calls for six teams at two
regional sites, one in the East and one in the West, and is scheduled to go
into effect for the 1991-92 season.  The whole thing will work pretty much
as outlined before right here on Hockey-L (hey, are we on top of things or
what? :-)  Next year's tournament will begin on Thursday, March 26, with
games at the regional sites, and it will work like this:
 
East regional:           West Regional:
 
1.  #1 East              1.  #1 West
2.  #2 East              2.  #2 West
3.  #3 East              3.  #3 West
4.  #4 East              4.  #4 West
5.  #5 West              5.  #5 East
6.  #6 West              6.  #6 East
 
Thursday, 3/26:
 
     #1 and #2 in each regional will have the night off, while #3 will play
     #6 and #4 will play #5.
 
Saturday, 3/28:
 
     #1 in each regional will play the lowest remaining seed in that
     regional, and #2 will play the next-lowest remaining seed (apparently,
     there isn't going to be any bracketing).
 
Next year's Final Four will take place in Albany, NY, with the semifinals on
April 2 and the championship game on April 4.
 
Northern Michigan coach/athletic director Rick Comley, a member of the NCAA
Hockey Committee, said the change was made in part to address concerns over
the #1 and #2 seeds having too much of an advantage in the second round
under the old system, with both a week off and home ice.  In the four years
that the previous 12-team format existed, only two of the 16 teams that had
byes were knocked off in the second round:  Michigan State in 1990 and Lake
Superior last season.  Interestingly enough, both teams were ranked #1 in
the country at the time and had been for most of the season.  Comley also
says he hopes the new tournament format is the first step toward a 16-team
single-elimination torunament with four regional sites, something the Hockey
Committee has been pushing for years.
 
Some sites listed as possible hosts for the East regional were Boston,
Providence, Albany (?!), and Hartford, while sites for the West regional
included Detroit, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Madison (WI).
 
If the dates above are accurate, it looks like there's going to be almost
two weeks between the end of each league's postseason tournament and the
start of the NCAAs, rather than one.  I wonder if the leagues are now going
to be moving their seasons back a week, what with the new 34-game limit.
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
 
"As you know, they've been having a serious drought in California -- all the
 car washes are using Handi-Wipes.  They even tried to seed the clouds, but
 the clouds were on the Pill."
-- Mark Russell