Charlie, I agree and I also think it keeps the bigger "name" schools
happy by offering them the opportunity to play each other more often
without forcing a major league realignment. And new tournaments can be
created, like the kickoff classic, or whatever it is being called.
 
BTW, does anyone have ticket info on that tournament yet?
 
----------
From:  Charlie Shub[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:  Monday, May 19, 1997 9:52 AM
Subject:  Re: WCHA schedule
 
> Date:         Mon, 19 May 1997 07:05:37 -0400
> From: "Larry D. Sander" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject:      WCHA schedule
> To: this list
>
> With Northern Michigan leaving the conference, some of us in the
hinterlands
> assumed the WCHA would go back to 4 games against each conference
member,
> which seems like an obvious idea.  Silly me!  Any thoughts on why
they didn't
> even out the schedule, like it seems to me they should have?
 
I just love it when somebody asks a question I can answer.  For
several years, now, the rap on the WCHA has been that they play too
many league games and not enough non-league games.  Keeping the
unbalanced schedule accomplishes several goals:
 
1 - it allows each wcha team to play 4 more games against non-league
    competition.
 
2 - it allows proponents of diverse computer ranking systems to argue
    that their ranking systems are "more valid, more accurate, more
    meaningful, more fun to read, produce better seedings, better
    predict games," or any of dozens of other things.
 
3 - it retains the unbalanced schedule that allows those on hockey-l
    (and elsewhere) to gripe about how the unbalanced schedule is
    unfair, unrealistic, asymmetric, favorable to some teams,
    unfavorable to some teams, terrible in terms of the impact on the
    various rating schemes, etc.
 
         charlie shub   University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
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