Bill Beaulac writes:
>        OK, someone please enlighten me?  How is it that a player
>        from Maine is on the SOUTH team?  What's the logic behind this?
 
Actually, the N/S/E/W designations mean nothing with regard to areas of the
country, at least in hockey.  Those are just the names of the four teams
competing.  I believe that that is the convention for all team sports in the
Olympic Festival (after all, the Olympic trials this year = the Olympic
Festival).  While players may be more geographically suited to playing for
their teams in other sports like basketball, in hockey that is a virtual
impossibility because there are few players from the southern and western US.
 
This brings up a question I have about the placing of players on the four
teams.  How is this done?  I wondered if perhaps the players were ranked from
1 to xx at their positions and then #1 went to, say, the North, #2 to the
South, #3 to the East, and so on.  Each team seemed to have its share of top
players, or at least those who seemed to be the top players prior to the
trials.
 
I'd also think that separating the 80 players on this basis would give
everyone a pretty equal chance to play.  Otherwise, placing the top
four centers on the North, for example, would mean that #3 and #4 might not
see as much ice time as #5 who would be the top center on his team.  If they
are separated by the method I mentioned, then at least the #3 center on one
team would be pretty equal to the third-line centers on the other teams and
they'd have relatively even chances to show what they could do.  This also
means that lines would match more evenly which would give the evaluators
a better idea of how players ranked close to each other stack up.  I recall
reading that the coaches were told to send lines out in order in the first
three games (the round robin) regardless of the situation so that everyone
would get a chance to play; only in the medal games were the coaches given
free reign over matching lines and sending out specific units for the
man-up/down situations.
 
 
- mike