I opted not to do this last season due to the lack of activity on HOCKEY-L, and then I heard from a few people who wondered what happened with the contest, so I'm giving it a try this year. Once again, it's time to announce this year's Pick the Post-season Tournaments contest! Try out your prognosticating skills by predicting the game results and champions of each of the six Division I conference tournaments! This year's contest will be in three parts. The ECAC, CCHA, Atlantic Hockey, and Big Ten regular seasons have ended, while Hockey East and the NCHC will continue through this weekend. So this part of the contest will deal only with the ECAC, CCHA, Atlantic Hockey, and Big Ten. After next weekend, I'll send out separate mailings for Hockey East (their tournament starts mid-week) and the NCHC. As in the past, I'll be running two contests in one. The first will give higher weighting to the latter stages of the tournaments, and the second will give equal weight to all results (see under Scoring below). There will be contest #1 and #2 winners for each of the six tournaments, plus #1 and #2 overall Prognosticating Gods. Just to preserve their immortality, the winners from two years ago were: Contest #1 Contest #2 ECAC: Sean Keller Sean Keller Hockey East: Sean Keller Sean Keller CCHA: Andy Weise Andy Weise NCHC: Scott Kaplan Scott Kaplan Atlantic Hockey: Jim Dixon Scott Kaplan Big Ten: Andy Weise Sean Keller Overall: Sean Keller Sean Keller The first playoff games are on Friday, March 8th at 7:00 PM EST, so the deadline for this part of the contest will be Friday, March 8th at 6:00 PM EST. I confess I wasn't paying attention and didn't realize that Atlantic Hockey already started their post-season on March 2nd with the first-round games. So anyone who picks Atlantic Hockey can start with this weekend's quarter- final round and I'll give you 9 free first-round points for Contest #1 and 6 free first-round points for Contest #2. The tournament formats are as follows: ECAC: All twelve teams make the playoffs. The top four seeds receive a bye into the quarterfinals, while the remaining eight meet in the first round in a single game. Seeds 5 through 8 host the first-round games. All games are played "to conclusion". The four first-round winners advance and are reseeded. The top four seeds host the quarterfinal round, which is a best-of-three series. The lowest-remaining seed plays at #1, the second-lowest at #2, and so on. The four quarterfinal winners advance and are reseeded. The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal. The semifinal winners meet in the championship game. CCHA: All eight teams make the playoffs. (Augustana is a provisional member of the CCHA and is not eligible for the post-season) The top four seeds host the quarterfinals, which are a best-of-three series. All games are played "to conclusion". The four winners advance and are reseeded. The semifinal round is a single game, in which the highest-remaining seed hosts the lowest seed, while the second-highest seed hosts the third seed. The semifinal winners meet in the championship game, which the higher seed hosts. Atlantic Hockey: All eleven teams make the playoffs. The top five seeds receive a bye into the quarterfinals, while the remaining six meet in the first round in a single game. Seeds 6 through 8 host the first-round games. All games are played "to conclusion". The three first-round winners advance and are reseeded. The top four seeds host the quarterfinal round, which is a best-of-three series. Among the first-round winners, the lowest-remaining seed plays at #1, the second-lowest at #2, and so on. The #5 seed plays at #4 The four quarterfinal winners advance and are reseeded. The semifinal round is a best-of-three series, in which the highest-remaining seed hosts the lowest seed, while the second-highest seed hosts the third seed. The semifinal winners meet in the championship game, which the higher seed hosts. Big Ten: All seven teams make the playoffs. The top seed receives a bye into the semifinals, while the remaining six meet in the quarterfinal round in a best-of-three series. Seeds 2 through 4 host the quarterfinals. All games are played "to conclusion". The three quarterfinal winners advance and are reseeded. In the semifinal round, the #1 seed hosts the lowest seed in one semifinal game, while the next-highest seed hosts the other semifinal. The semifinal winners meet in the championship game, which the higher seed hosts. Hockey East (starts next week): All eleven teams make the playoffs. The top five seeds receive a bye into the quarterfinals, while the remaining six meet in the first round in a single game. Seeds 6 through 8 host the first-round games. All games are played "to conclusion". The three first-round winners advance and are reseeded. The top four seeds host the single-game quarterfinal round. Among the first-round winners, the lowest-remaining seed plays at #1, the second- lowest at #2, and so on. The #5 seed plays at #4. The four quarterfinal winners advance and are reseeded. The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal. The semifinal winners meet in the championship game. NCHC (starts next week): All eight teams make the playoffs. The top four seeds host the quarter- finals, which are a best-of-three series. All games are played "to conclusion". The four winners advance and are reseeded. The highest and lowest seed meet in one semifinal, while the other two seeds meet in the other semifinal. The semifinal winners meet in the championship game. Scoring: Contest #1: Each correct first round/quarterfinal winner is worth 3 points. For those rounds that are a series, giving the correct number of games played in the series is worth an additional point. Sorry, but if you get the winner wrong, you get zippo, even if you get the number of games right. Correct semifinal game winners are worth 8 points, except for Atlantic Hockey, which has a best-of-three semifinal series. Similar to the quarter- final scoring above, predicting the semifinal series winner is worth 7 points, and giving the correct number of games in the series is worth an additional point. Correct championship game winners are worth 16 points. So the maximum total points for each league would be: ECAC 60 CCHA 48 Atlantic Hockey 57 (9 free) Big Ten 44 Hockey East 53 NCHC 48 There will also be two tiebreakers for each conference. The first will be the predicted final score of the championship game, with the closest score winning. For example, if you predict 5-2 and the actual score is 4-2, you're one off; if the actual score is 4-3, you're two off. The second tiebreaker will be the total number of goals scored in the entire tournament. (For Atlantic Hockey, do not include the first-round games) If there is a tie for the overall winner, the tiebreaker will be who performed best in the greater number of individual tournaments. Contest #2: Each correct result from each round is worth 2 points. So you get 2 points for each quarterfinal/first round winner you pick (regardless of whether or not you forecast the correct number of games), 2 points for each semifinal winner you pick, and so on. The maximum total points for each league would be: ECAC 22 CCHA 14 Atlantic Hockey 20 (6 free) Big Ten 12 Hockey East 20 NCHC 14 Tiebreakers will be the same as for Contest #1. An official entry form will follow soon after I post this. Questions, comments, and entries can be sent to [log in to unmask] . Simply hitting "reply" MAY NOT WORK -- be sure to check the Email address before you send. Thanks and good luck! -- Bill Fenwick DJF 5/27/94 Cornell '86 and '95 JCF 12/2/97 LET'S GO RED!!