Lee Urton writes:
 
>While in the CCHA, in one year, again taken in isolation,
>EVERY team plays an unbalanced schedule of two-one home-away
>games. I understand that some are played on "neutral" sites,
>like the Joe, but we all know how neutral that is: about as
>"neutral" as Minnesota playing their Wisconsin border battle
>game at the Target Center.
 
>Let's take Michigan this year. They had to play twice at: WMU,
>LSSU, and BGSU, three teams in the top five (Michigan is another).
>Is that a balanced schedule? Next year it will balance, of course,
>and Michigan will host LSSU, WMU, and BGSU twice.
 
and J. Michael Jackson adds:
 
>No, I think that first and foremost, it is most important that
>each team play the same teams the same number of times.
>Matching the same number of home/away games with each opponent
>is nice, but not nearly as crucial.
 
I agree with JMJ and others before him.  What Lee wrote about the unbalanced
home schedule bothers me only in this regard.  Say two teams end up with the
same number of points at the end of the regular season.  The tiebreaker (at
least for the CCHA) then looks at head-to-head records.  The team with the two
home games for that season has an advantage.  Not sure you could do much about
this, though.
 
If the two team in question "split" their three game series (1-1-1), I would
give the tiebreaker to the team that had to play twice on the road.
 
So what is the second tiebreaker in this situation?  I hope it's not something
silly like total goals.  This is not a trivial matter, as it could determine
an automatic bid, or a bye, to the NC$$ tourney.
 
--
M Allons Bleu!
Lonnie G.  [log in to unmask]
 
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