This is an early-bird special, just for HOCKEY-L. I'd appreciate comments and/or questions (email me, don't ask the list) from you all. I'll summarize the responses in mid-December when the first official TCHCR is released. For the many of you who have been following and supporting TCHCR, here is what has changed from last year. I simplified the game outcome measure as much as possible, so only winning and losing count--goal margin, site, OT, etc are ignored. I sacrificed some accuracy for simplicity. The other major change is that the basis team has been eliminated. This year, the weighted sum of the ratings is zero (and a BIG thanks to Tim Danehy for doing the math for me to make this possible!). I hope no one suffers from a fear of negative numbers (nega-numa-phobia?), because TCHCR has them for the first time. For those of you who have never heard of TCHCR before, it is the longest-running mathematical ranking of Division I college hockey teams (yes, a grand-daddy at age 4). Computing TCHCR involves collecting all of the Division I results, building a big graph that represents who has played whom, and then a bunch of number crunching to get the ratings. It is not a poll, but a RATING. A disclaimer: I may be changing the algorithm for schedule computation in the future. We (Tim, Mike and I) are studying the "connectedness" of college hockey. Depending on who meets whom in the Christmas tournaments, it may become necessary to reduce or alter the way the schedule aspect of the rating is computed. For example, no ECAC team will play a WCHA team unless Minnesota & St. Lawrence meet in the Mariucci. Tim already has a plan prepared; we just have to decide how much of it to implement, based on how the match-ups fall. Again, comments and questions welcome, as always. Keith [log in to unmask] (Obviously, this does not include the Tuesday night results.)