Apparently Erik misconstrued my point or I stated in such a way that it was
difficult to understand...
 
 Erik Biever writes:
> Ryan apparently has little regard for the full season of hard work by the
> Gophers that earned them the opportunity to play in the Civic Center.  It is
> certainly unfair to accuse the Committee of giving Minnesota an easy route
> to the Phinal Phour in order to increase attendance.  The Civic Center was
> already more than 90% sold out before seedings were announced.
 
Minnesota's "full season of hard work" did earn them a SPOT in the NCAA hockey
Final 12.  However, IMO, they were not strong enough to warrant a 2W ranking,
earning themselves a BYE and a one game playoff to get to St. Paul.  I simply
feel that there were stronger teams in the WEST, ie the heavily UNDERRANKED
Lakers.  One of the STATED seeding criteria according to the selection committee
was the ability to draw fans and since they couldn't give Minnesota a BYE to St.
Paul, like they were able to place MSU and RPI at home, they seemed to do there
best to ensure that they had a good chance to get there.  For me it is very hard
to reconcile especially consdidering the game time change which occured when
Minnesota won and would have had to play at 1:00.
ALSO, Michigan's season of hard work was rewarded by having to play Lake
Superior for the 5th time, looking at it from another angle...
 
Minnesota was definitely a top twelve team, and since hindsight is 20-20, it
seemed that they were outmanned in the final 4, they definitely earned a bid,
but I think they were over ranked, once they got their seed they did EARN their
place in the FINAL four, but after their showing there I am disappionted I
missed a stonger Michigan team...
 
Ryan Stone
Rensselaer '93 &'95
Lawrence Univ. '93