> To answer John Hughes' question regarding why the NCAA hockey
> tournament only has 12 teams...
>
> It has to do with the NCAA wanting to keep its national tournaments
> to a particular ratio, i.e., number of teams in the tournament vs.
> number of teams competting in that sport.  If I remember correctly,
> the NCAA's desired ratio is considerably higher for basketball than
> it is for hockey, which happens to be approximately 1 in every four
> teams.
 
Actually, I thought that at 12 teams, hockey had a smaller percentage
than basketball.  I think hockey is at 25%, and basketball is at 28%.
If The hockey tournament went to 16 teams (33%), it would have a HIGHER
percentage than basketball, and the NC$$ claims that that would
"water down" the tournament too much, and besides hockey should be
happy they let them expand to 12 teams just a couple of years ago B^).