Tony, I wouldn't get too bent out of shape at the HE standings being
wrong this week.  The Star Tribune probably got it off the wire, and I
suspect AP is keeping the standings on their own at the bureau based
on the scores they receive.  I wouldn't blame the MST if they had
better things to do than check the accuracy of the HE standings. :-)
At least they ran them!  We're lucky to see CCHA/WCHA standings in
papers out here (the Boston Globe does run them more than the Herald,
though).
 
Also, keep in mind a couple of things...one, the change was only made
Friday, and even Merrimack's captain didn't know about it until I told
him after Saturday night's game.  And two, HE never released standings
updated with the new system until this week's press release, which
only arrived in my mailbox today - and I live 10 miles from the HE
home office.
 
I would give them a break.  People are bound to be confused for a
while.  I noticed the MST had the standings wrong even with the old
system, since teams were given credit for wins and losses in shootout
games too.  But this backs up what Lynn Burke told me about AP having
the standings wrong from what he saw on the wire - they had it the
same way.  This reminds me, I will need to let Tim Burton know so that
he can communicate the right system to AP if he hasn't already.
 
And as always, you can get the correct HE standings anytime by sending
to [log in to unmask] the command
 
GET 9495CONF STAND
 
Re: UML/UMA, the correct way to refer to these schools in an official
capacity is Mass Lowell and Mass Amherst, or UMass-Lowell and
UMass-Amherst.  You will see/hear that some of us who have been
following the schools for a while tend to use Lowell and UMass
respectively, since Mass Lowell used to be simply the University of
Lowell, and UMass has been known as UMass for many years dating back
to when they were the only state school in Mass to be called the
University of Massachusetts - before Boston State became UMass-Boston,
and then recently several other schools including Lowell were
reorganized to come under the U of Mass system (thus the name change).
 
HE has stipulated that the two UMasses in HE should be referred to as
UML & UMA in order to prevent confusion and also to prevent the
slighting of either school.  I believe SteveW reported a little while
ago that UMA requested that HE refer to them as UMass, but that HE
refused for the reasons I just mentioned.
 
Although the two Bobs on NESN started calling the schools Lowell and
Amherst to distinguish between them, I would advise against this since
there is also an Amherst College, and they have a DivIII team playing
in the ECAC East.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93