Mark Grassl writes:
>A bit of disturbing news from this morning's Wisconsin State Journal.
>The official NCAA hockey poll will no longer be published.  Quoting
>from an article by Andy Baggot.
 
I recall hearing this sometime before the season.  The decision was
actually made sometime last summer or earlier.
 
>"The poll, compiled by a four-man comittee, has been shelved for two
>reasons.
>
>Comley[Northern Michigan coach Rick Comley], a committee member, said
>one was the cost of staging a lengthy weekly conference call.  'It was
>very expensive,' he said.  'But it was money well spent.'
 
I believe the calls will be taking place every two weeks or so.
 
>The other factor appears to be a puff of prpaganda from the geniuses
>at the NCAA. They say if there is enough media interest in a sport and
>that polls are already being conducted, then they do not furnish one.
>Example: football and basketball, whose weekly rankings are compiled
>most notably by the Associated Press and the CNN.USA Today."
 
I suspect this was something used to justify the elimination of the poll
and it may not have been the real reason.  I didn't think it was the NC$$
itself that ordered the poll be eliminated; rather, it was the NC$$ ice
hockey selection committee, which is made up of hockey representatives,
that decided to scrap it.  (I draw a distinction between the NC$$ and the
selection committee.)
 
>Well this is the first I have heard of this.  Sure seems like the NCAA
>is setting itself up for more controversy when the NCAA tournament
>invitations come out.  If the NCAA selections(i.e. the NCAA poll) differ
>significantly from the media polls this will come as a complete surprise
>at the end of the season.  The coaches, players, and fans of the teams
>left at home will be quite surprised and upset.
 
I think there are advantages and disadvantages to not having an NC$$ poll,
just as there are for having one.  Not having one means many fans will have
to wait to see what the committee is thinking, but it also means they can
take the rest of the season to consider the statistics and other factors
before rendering their decision at the end of the year.  I don't think the
coaches themselves are going to be in for any great surprise, at least no
more so than they have been in the past.  The committee is made up of
representatives from each conference, and other coaches are often in
contact with those reps to keep track of just where their teams stand - and
also to do some lobbying for their teams.  The surprises come when teams on
the edge don't end up where they think they should be.  That is bound to
happen either way.
 
Also, with the way we have discussed how the media polls are biased and
don't necessarily give a good ranking of the teams, we should expect that
the committee's selections *will* differ from the media polls.  But the
committee has more numbers available to it than most of the media does.
Despite there being no poll and the conference calls taking place less
often, the committee is still having a set of statistics provided to it as
the season progresses.  I don't think the process itself of selecting the
teams will be hurt by not publishing a poll every week.
---
Mike Machnik    [log in to unmask]   Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.)    *HMN*