During the intermission between the first and second periods of Friday night's Cornell-Michigan game (WOW!), the radio announcers interviewed Cornell athletic director Laing Kennedy, who also chairs the NCAA Division I hockey committee, and he shed some light on the process the committee went through in selecting this year's bids. First of all, when Cornell was selected, Kennedy was not in the room. The committee has long followed the custom that committee members leave the room when the discussions involve their team. I would assume that Rick Comley was not present when the com- mittee was talking about Northern Michigan (short discussion there), and that Jack Parker was likewise out of the room when Boston University was being talked about. The selection criteria, according to Kennedy, are win-loss percentage in Division I competition and "strength of schedule". If there is no clear winner in these two areas, the committee then considers head-to-head results. There is also a fourth criteria, which is record against "teams under consideration". Kennedy said Cornell got the #6 seed over St. Law- rence due to the Big Red's 2-1 record against the Saints, as Cornell's winning percentage was better than St. Lawrence's (0.638 to 0.614) while the Saints had the stronger schedule (in addition, Cornell's record against teams under consideration was 4-3-1 while St. Lawrence went 2-9). Interestingly enough, Kennedy said he felt that Clarkson deserved the #3 seed going into the discussion, but upon looking at the criteria, the committee put Boston College third and dropped Clarkson to number four. Kennedy didn't provide any details, but this one probably came down to BC's victory over Clarkson during the season, since Clarkson had the better winning percentage and BC's schedule was stronger. Maybe Clarkson fans should thank the committee for seeding the Knights fourth and allowing them to avoid that Alaska-Anchorage juggernaut :-) Kennedy also mentioned that the committee decided to put in a rule, starting this year, that no league will have fewer than two representatives in the NCAA playoffs. Even though this would probably benefit my favorite league, the ECAC, I don't think this is a particularly good idea. If there are four or five teams in one league that deserve to get a bid ahead of the second team in another league (based on the committee's selection criteria), then they should get bids. The NCAA should not shut out one of them just to give another league the magic two bids. According to Kennedy, last year the committee proposed to the NCAA that the hockey playoffs be expanded to 16 teams, and the NCAA turned them down immediately, because they felt that the ratio between the total number of teams and the number of playoff teams would be too low. Kennedy said the committee may propose to keep the current 12-team format but make the first round and the quarterfinals single-game affairs, and also have the games take place at one Eastern and one Western site. Personally, I'm in favor of the single-game idea (it has always seemed strange to me for college hockey to play a multiple-game series in its first two playoff rounds and then switch to a single game in the Final Four), but I don't like the two-site idea. One other note: check out Ron Fimrite's article about Hobey Baker in this week's _Sports Illustrated_. It's a pretty good, though somewhat roman- ticized, account of Baker's life, and Fimrite even mentions, in passing, that college hockey's highest individual award is named after Baker. (I often wonder about SI's coverage of college hockey) Bill Fenwick Cornell '86 LET'S GO RED!! "Some parents will film the firth of their child -- my wife and I filmed the conception." -- Dennis Wolfberg