Brian Morris writes: >...I also agree that the NC$$ is >playing with fire in altering the playoffs to ensure an East vs. West >match-up in the finals. I would guess (if it's true) this is a reaction to >last year's Albany *bust* where the fans got to see the CCHA playoffs instead >of an interleague scramble. The word on the street was that Knickerbocker >officials expected Maine to bring in 3000-4000 additional fans to the final >four especially impacting on the Thursday schedule. However Maine got ambushed >in Providence leaving a lot of unfilled seats at the Knick. Actually, I don't think it has anything to do with the attendance in Albany last year. Don't forget that the final four has already sold out in Milwaukee, so whether Maine and Wisconsin (the two teams likely to have the biggest following if they're there) make it or not, every seat will still be full (or at least sold). I would bet the rumored change would have more to do with insuring a high attendance for the *regionals*. Detroit didn't draw well at all, and Providence had 5,327 the first night and 8,521 the second in a building that holds about 12,000. Holding the regionals on two consecutive days this year is likely to help boost the attendance, since many fans said they weren't happy with the Thur-Sat or Fri-Sun format. But also, if more local teams were to be sent to a regional (i.e. 6 East teams versus the current 4 East and 2 West), the hope would be that the extra two local teams would bring more fans to the games. Personally, I think the problem is not that there aren't enough local teams (although more will help, to a certain extent). It is that the abandoning of the on-campus format for the opening rounds makes it harder for fans to travel to see their team play, especially when many teams don't know where they'll be playing until the Sunday before the regionals. I would propose sort of a combining of the regional format with a return to on-campus play. This would also allow a return to the old brackets which would give us the possibility of the four best teams making the final four, something I wrote about yesterday. My idea has the two top seeds in each region hosting a regional involving themselves and two other teams. For example, 1E, 5E, and 4W would all travel to the home of 1E. 5E would play 4W on Friday night, and the winner would play host 1E Saturday night with the winner going to the final four. I expect many local fans would attend the Fri game even though their team wouldn't play until the next night, so as to get a preview of who their team would meet up with. Other matchups would have 2E hosting 3W and 6E, 1W hosting 5W/4E, and 2W hosting 3E/6W. This way, if it so happens that the four best teams really are from one region, they'll still have a chance to all make the final four whereas now, only two of the 1-4 seeds from any region can possibly make it. I would bet anything that combined attendance at four regionals as outlined above would at least equal and probably better the attendance we saw at last year's regionals and are likely to see this year. In the East, for example, Maine would sell out with about 5,200, and as I figure the 2nd seed will be BU (~4,000) or Harvard (~3,000), combining those figures gives us about 9,000 - more than Providence got last year. Last year, the top two East seeds were Maine and SLU (4,000), and although Alfond was still being renovated then, it was being used and sellouts at both rinks would have bettered Providence. Also, I think only 8 teams would have to travel as opposed to the current 12. That cuts back on costs for the NC$$. (I believe all six teams are put up in hotels at each regional, but I'm not positive.) >...Why >doesn't the NC$$ adopt the system for seeding the basketball tournament? Both >fans and coaches seem to agree that the basketball system is fair and >equitable, and hardly affects the attendance or tv ratings. And tv ratings aren't even an issue, at least not yet, since the regionals weren't televised last year (there were even cases of stations trying to televise them and roadblocks being put in their way) and I have no reason to suspect it will be different this year. Before the regionals, the on- campus games *were* on tv in most places - both locally and back at the home of the visiting teams. BTW, one thing basketball can do that hockey cannot is to assign a bunch of teams to a regional that aren't even from that region, because of the popularity of the hoop tourney. But even hoop seems to recognize the value of having at least one local team in its own regional - such as the finagling that was done to place UMass in the regional held in Worcester last year. Yet, I also attended the 1987 hoop regional in Syracuse in which the closest team playing was Northeastern, 6 hours away. 30,000 tickets were sold for each session. Hockey could face that problem if, say, the West regional were assigned to Minneapolis/St Paul ahead of time and Minnesota did not have a good enough year to make it into the top four seeds in the West. Even this year, the top four seeds in the West will likely be four of the following five: Michigan, Miami, LSSU, Minnesota-Duluth, and Wisconsin, with only Michigan being a "local" team. MSU is on the outside with a shot if they finish strong, but don't rule out the possibility that if it is close, the committee will assign MSU to the Joe so as to boost attendance. I don't agree with this and hope it won't happen if four teams are more deserving than MSU. --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors (Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.) *HMN*