At 7:19 PM 3/6/96, Sean Pickett wrote:
>According the NCAA Division Tournament File in the Hockey-L Archives
>at Maine this statement is completely false.  The first NCAA
>Quarterfinal/Play-in game occurred in the previous year, 1977, when
>the CCHA tournament champion Bowling Green faced then WCHA member
>Michigan to determine which team would advance to the NCAA
>Championship Tournament Semifinals.
>
>In 1978 the NCAA again had a west quarterfinal/play-in game, this
>time between Bowling Green of the CCHA and WCHA member Colorado
>College.  The NCAA continued to have the western quarterfinal/play-in
>game for 1979 & 1980.  The NCAA then went to an eight team format
>beginning in 1981.
>
>So the NCAA had already established a precedent for an extra game to
>determine which team would advance to the semifinals.  Yes, it was
>the only eastern quarterfinal/play-in game before the tournamnet
>expanded to 8 teams, but it was not the first, nor the only,
>quarterfinal/play-in game.
 
The interesting thing about this situation is that it seemingly reflected
an arbitrary decision by the committee to hold a quarterfinal game when it
decided it was necessary.  The situation in the West seems to have been a
little different from that in the East with BU in 1978.  The CCHA was
emerging quickly and making a solid case for a bid.  The committee
apparently chose to give the CCHA champion a chance at making the "final
four" by playing a quarterfinal game first, from 1977 through 1980, against
the second WCHA team.  The CCHA team would win that game twice.
 
Other than the extenuating circumstances regarding BU that have been
mentioned, I wonder if another consideration in 1978 was that a West
quarterfinal was being held to accommodate the CCHA champion, but if not
for the BU-PC East quarterfinal, nothing would have been done to
accommodate BU, the ECAC regular season champion.
 
Again, it is most interesting to me that the committee could decide to let
more than the scheduled four teams in if it wanted to.  There must have
been time to do this before the Final Four.  BC beat PC for the ECAC title
on 3/11/78, and then BU won the NCAA East Quarterfinal at PC on 3/19/78.
(according to the PC media guide)
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
>> Co-owner of the College Hockey Lists at University of Maine System  <<
*****       Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at:       *****
*****   http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html    *****
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.