Some notes from the wild-and-wacky week in college hockey and its
effect on The College Hockey Computer Rating.
 
 
     Last                      Division I          Schedule Schedule
Rank Week Team                   Record    Rating  Strength   Rank
 
Why didn't Maine move up? They stayed at #4 but they cut the gap
with Michigan by 2.47, with Minnesota by 2.39 and with LSSU by
5.40:
 
2/22
  1    2  Michigan              25  6  3    85.55    64.26      8
  2    3  Lake Superior         19  7  4    83.30    66.14      3
  3    1  Minnesota             26  8  0    83.27    62.30     15
  4    4  Maine                 24  3  2    74.70    45.62     28
 
2/29
  1    1  Michigan              27  7  3    84.66    63.95      8
  2    3  Minnesota             28  8  0    82.46    60.56     16
  3    2  Lake Superior         19  9  4    79.48    65.87      5
  4    4  Maine                 26  3  2    76.28    46.98     26
 
The Black Bears were just too far behind to move up into third. Notice
that it was a doubly-good weekend for Maine, as they won twice (over
PC, last week TCHCR#14) and their schedule got tougher. It was
doubly-bad for LSSU, as they got swept (by LW TCHCR#25 OSU) and their
schedule got easier.
 
 
How did Bowling Green move up 5 spots? They lost once to Michigan on
Tuesday. Their rating stayed the same, at 56.98 (their performance loss
was offset by their schedule gain). BG's weekend idle-ness was to its
advantage because 5 teams that were above BG all lost:
 
2/22
 12   12  Minnesota-Duluth      13 15  2    60.99    64.06     10
 15   14  Michigan Tech         14 17  1    59.82    64.74      7
 16   15  North Dakota          16 15  1    59.72    59.20     18
 19   19  Harvard               14  4  6    57.83    41.72     35
 20   24  Clarkson              18  7  1    57.16    38.35     45
 22   17  Bowling Green          8 17  5    56.98    67.68      1
 
2/29
 17   22  Bowling Green          8 18  5    56.98    68.49      1
 18   20  Clarkson              19  8  1    56.94    39.59     41
 19   15  Michigan Tech         14 19  1    56.92    63.45     10
 20   12  Minnesota-Duluth      13 17  2    56.82    62.35     11
 22   16  North Dakota          16 17  1    56.61    58.37     18
 23   19  Harvard               14  6  6    55.55    43.52     32
 
Duluth, Harvard, Tech and Dakota were swept and Clarkson split. Duluth
lost 4.17 rating points. Also note that BG is just barely ahead of
those teams (56.98 and 56.94 are basically ties).
 
 
Finally, here is a crude bar chart of the ratings:
 
 0-10  1 X
10-20  3 XXX
20-30  1 X
30-40  7 XXXXXXX
40-50  8 XXXXXXXX
50-60 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
60-70  4 XXXX
70-80  5 XXXXX
80-90  2 XX
 
Looks pretty much like a bell curve centered at the 50-60 range, but with
a slant toward the bottom end. All of the teams in the 50s (from 12th to
25th) are very close, also, with less than 6 points separating #12 and #25.
 
Keith
PS I will keep churning out TCHCR, during the league play-offs and even during
the NCAAs. The only change is that play-off games are weighted more than regular
season games, to reflect the added importance of the post-season.