The down side to Princeton pulling off five wins in six games
in nine days is that ECAC will probably view the Final Five as a
success.  Which means that we'll probably be stuck with the biggest
drawback of this format (aside from the 1,779 attendance for the
play-in), which is that one team will be sent home after only one
game.  (And I say this not just because it was Cornell this year.)
This is the same reason I think the ECAC should *not* get rid of the
consolation game.  If Lake Placid is a magical experience to be shared
with more teams, let's give all those teams at least two games to
enjoy it, and give their fans something to cheer for.
 
        I have an idea, which occurred to me when wondering how the
RMCHA could run a five-team tournament and still give each team two or
three games.  (This was particularly significant, since we were
looking at two teams expected to blow everyone else away, and three
more who just wanted more competitive games, and didn't look at a
championship as a reasonable goal.)  The proposal is this: rather than
send the loser of the 4/5 playin game home, give them another playin
against the 2/3 loser for the right to play in the consolation game.
The schedule would thus look something like this:
 
Day One:
        Game 1 (semi-final play-in): #5 vs #4
        Game 2 (semi-final): #3 vs #2
Day Two:
        Game 3 (consolation play-in): Game 1 loser vs game 2 loser
        Game 4 (semi-final): Game 1 winner vs #1
Day Three:
        Game 5 (consolation): Game 4 loser vs game 3 winner
        Game 6 (championship): Game 2 winner vs game 4 winner
 
The best arrangement would be Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but if the
NC$$ insists on holding their selection show Sunday morning, it would
have to be Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  The advantages of this plan
are that there would be two games every day (more reason for the fans
to show up early) and that every team would play two or three games.
Granted, one team is going to play two of its three games with no
chance of willing the tournament, but those two victories might mean
the difference between a bubble team making the NCAAs or not.
 
        The big drawback is that the two semi-finals would be on
different days, withthe 2/3 winner getting an extra day of rest.  But
then no tournament with an odd number of teams is going to be ideal.
 
                                         John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                               <[log in to unmask]>
                      <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html>
 
        Learn about the NCAA selection process on the web at
       http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pairwise
 
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