Lt Rico Vitale writes:
>1.  Who came up with the two game, total goals concept for a play-off
>series?  This has always struck me as possibly the most poorly devised of
>all the alternatives.  Either make it a best of three or a single game.
>The ECAC play-off system (two games with a ten-minute mini-game if it's a
>split) seems a somewhat happy compromise.
 
    I don't know who came up with it, but it was first used in the 1960
    NCAAs, then it disappeared from the NCAAs until 1981, and it lasted
    through 1988.
 
    Here are the years each of the four conferences have used the
    total-goals format:
 
    WCHA: 1961, 1963-65, 1968, 1972-88
    CCHA: 1976-85
    Hockey East: 1986, 1988
    ECAC: never used total goals format; used two-game with mini-game
              format since 1983
 
    The total goals format is not being used at all any more in Division I,
    either in the NCAAs or in the conference playoffs.  These are the
    formats now being used:
 
    WCHA & CCHA: quarterfinals are best-of-3, semifinals and championship
                 are single-game elimination
    ECAC: quarterfinals are best-of-2 with 10-minute minigame if tied
          after second game (no ot in first two games); semifinals and
          championship are single-game elimination
    Hockey East: quarterfinals, semifinals and championship are all
                 single-game elimination (Hockey East is in its 7th
                 season, and it has changed its playoff format seven
                 times)
 
    NCAA: first round and quarterfinals are best-of-3; semifinals and
          championship are single-game elimination
 
>2.  I can understand how each conference could have different systems,
>coming to different solutions to the same problem, but why, once the NCAA
>tournament has begun, do they change the format?
 
    The conference playoffs and the NCAA tournament are two distinct
    entities.  Each conference is free to decide in its own way how it will
    determine a champion, and nothing says that the NCAA must determine its
    champion in the same way as any of the conferences.  In fact, before
    1988, nothing even said that the conference playoff champion would go
    to the NCAA tournament - and now winning the conference tourney only
    entitles a team to an automatic bid; it does not earn a team one of the
    four byes.  Those are determined by the committee, and for all intents
    and purposes, when it comes to selection and seeding for the NCAAs,
    conference playoff games are no more or less important than regular
    season games because of the very fact that the NCAA is completely
    apart from the conferences.  That is why, for example, Michigan was
    upset that Bowling Green received a bid last year and Michigan did not;
    Michigan thought it deserved a bid because it defeated BG, 5-4, in the
    CCHA consolation game, but overall, including that game, BG had won
    3 of the 5 games played between the teams, so BG barely got the bid.
 
 
    - mike