It's been suggested that, although the PWR rankings at this
point of the season are a poor indicator of the eventual rankings, it
is instructive to go through the motions of how the NC$$ would likely
seed the national tournament.  So in the interest of getting people to
think like the selection committee (ugh!) I may begin a weekly feature
here.
 
        Okay, so twelve teams make the NC$$s.  Automatic berths are
given to the regular season and tournament champions in each
conference, and the remaining teams are chosen using the Pairwise
Ratings (see <http://www.uscollegehockey.com/pwr/pwr.cgi> for the
current PWR).  Without a crystal ball we can't forsee who'll win the
conference tournaments, but let's give the RS automatic berths to the
current leaders.  The twelve teams to make the tournament would be
 
 1 * Michigan
 2 * New Hampshire
 3 Vermont
 4 * North Dakota
 5 Clarkson
 6 Minnesota
 7 Cornell
 8 Denver
 9 Miami
10 Boston University
11 Colorado College
17 * Rensselaer
 
The number is the PWR rank, and asterisks indicate the teams receiving
automatic berths.  (BTW, St. Cloud is the unlucky #12 team displaced
by RPI's auto berth in this scenario.)  Splitting the teams into
East and West and ranking by PWR gives
 
 1 Michigan              2 New Hampshire
 4 North Dakota          3 Vermont
 6 Minnesota             5 Clarkson
 8 Denver                7 Cornell
 9 Miami                10 Boston University
11 Colorado College     12 Rensselaer
 
In the tournament, Michigan, New Hampshire. North Dakota and Vermont
would receive first round byes while the other eight teams played one
another.  The reasoning so far is more or less cast in stone.  Now
begins the speculation.  The NC$$ sends two eastern teams to the West
Regional and two western teams to the East Regional.  Usually, these
are the two lowest-rated qualifying teams in each region.  However,
since the East Regional is being held in Worcester, MA and BU is the
host school, past NC$$ behavior would indicate that BU won't be sent
West.  (Does anyone know if this is a hard-and-fast rule?)  Assuming
they swap the two lowest remaining teams (see below), that would give
us the following:
 
W1 Michigan             E1 New Hampshire
W2 North Dakota         E2 Vermont
W3 Minnesota            E3 Clarkson
W4 Denver               E4 Miami
W5 Cornell              E5 Boston University
W6 Rensselaer           E6 Colorado College
 
        Now, the structure of the regionals is that the 6 seed plays
the 3 seed, with the winner going on to play the 2 seed.  Likewise the
5 seed plays the 4 seed, with the winner playing the 1 seed.  The one
caveat is that the NC$$ tries to avoid teams from the same conference
playing one another in the regionals.  This principle is almost always
enforced in the first round, and often for projected second round
games as well.  The West regional is fine, since both semifinals pit
WCHA teams against ECAC teams.  A second-round matchup between North
Dakota and Minnesota is possible, but shuffling the seeding would only
remove that in favor of a NoDak-DU game, so it may as well stay.  In
the East, the 3-6 seeds are all from different conferences, so that's
okay, but the second round has two possible intraconference matchups,
UNH-BU and Vermont-Clarkson.  So I'd guess the committee would switch
things around so that Vermont played the winner of Miami-BU and UNH
the winner of Clarkson-CC.  (Switching UNH and Vermont would seem to
be the least trouble, but I could also see them reasoning that it was
better to shuffle low seeds and leave the teams with byes alone.)
 
        So my best guess would be:
 
West Regional          Phinal Phour      East Regional
Grand Rapids, MI       Milwaukee, WI     Worcester, MA
March 21-23            March 27 & 29     March 21-23
(Host: WMU)            (Host: Wisc)      (Host: BU)
 
W6 Rensselaer        \               /      E5 Boston University
W3 Minnesota          }--Semifinal--{       E4 Miami
     W2 North Dakota /       |       \ E1 Vermont
                             |
                           Final
                             |
     W1 Michigan     \       |       / E2 New Hampshire
W4 Denver             }--Semifinal--{       E3 Clarkson
W5 Cornell           /               \      E6 Colorado College
 
But I could also see the two Eastern brackets switched, so E1=UNH,
E2=Vermont, E3=Miami, etc.  In addition, the NC$$ did some pretty
strange things with the regions last year to avoid second-round
matchups, and to keep teams with big draws in their own region.  So I
could see Clarkson being sent out West instead of Cornell.  If that
happened (in addition to an outcry from Clarkson supporters) we'd
presumably see Cornell as E3 and Clarkson as W4.  (Clarkson actually
ranks higher than Minnesota, but giving them W3 would lead first-round
matchups of RPI-Clarkson and DU-Minnesota.)  Another possibility would
be to send Denver East instead of Miami to avoid a second-round WCHA
matchup.
 
        How'd I do?
                                        John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                        <[log in to unmask]>
        <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/jshock.html>
 
1997 Frozen Four: Sec 438, Row U, Seat 11
LET'S GO RED!
 
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