Bill Fenwick writes (in response to my original posting on the use
of goal-differential as a potential tie-breaker):
 
>There have certainly been instances this season and in the past
>where a good ECAC team really pours it on against a bad one.  But really, to
>do this in the hopes of winning the fourth or fifth tiebreaker (which is
>where the ECAC starts with the goal differential business) would be ridicu-
>lous. And anyway, I can only remember one instance in which a tie in the
>final ECAC standings even came *close* to having to be resolved by goal
>differential. But it didn't happen, and ties that close are pretty darn rare.
 
     I agree (on both counts) .... My beef was merely that the ECAC would
CHOOSE to include goal differential as a potential tie-breaker, rarely as
it might have to resort to that.  No, I don't expect that any coach would
intentionally run up the score IN CASE a tie-breaker ever came to goal
differential (especially since the NCAA selection committee is supposedly
blind to margin-of-victory), but the temptation is there (especially among
fans) to judge the relative "worth" of their favorite team not just by whether
they beat so-and-so last weekend, but by how much they "demolished" them. I
can recall this conceit happening quite often in the mid/late-70s during the
era of the 17-team ECAC - high-powered offenses dominated, fueled by the likes
of Dave Taylor at Clarkson, the Meagher brothers at BU, Ralph Cox at UNH,
etc., and we were all caught up in this awesome parade of goals.  I hope the
tide has turned - as you put it: "It's better to emphasize (by comparing
records against other teams in the standings, for example) that a win is a
win, regardless of what the score was."  Now, if we can just convince the
"average" (whatever that is) fan in the stands ....
 
>And incidentally, Dartmouth did NOT tie Cornell this season.  Please, don't
>make our season-ending slump any worse than it is! :-(
 
     Ooops - my mistake .... mea culpa.
  							Cheers, Jim
 
Jim Love
UNH '79, '85G