The tournaments over the last two years have had some discouraging results: == Last year, all of the eastern teams lost. Both the Hockey East and the ECAC had a week off between their tournaments and the NC$$ playoffs. I think this was due to scheduling conflicts at the Boston Garden, where both tournaments were held. The western leagues held their tournaments the weekend before the NC$$ first rounds began. Thus, you could argue that all of the eastern teams lost their edge with the extra weekend off. There was one day of rest between the first round and the quarterfinals, providing the winners of the first nights (MSU and Wisconsin in the east) with enough time to "recuperate". == This year, all of the teams with byes won. This year, all four leagues ended their tournaments the weekend before the NC$$ tournament. There was also no day off between the first round and the quarterfinals and it can be argued that fatigue might have come into play, especially for Northern Michigan who took two overtimes to beat Harvard. I think that all four teams winning due to the byes was just how it happened to come out. After all, the reason they received the byes is that they were supposedly the better teams. The two games out west were pretty close, with the Michigan-Wisconsin game going to overtime, so it is very possible that a team with a bye will be beaten. It just happened that this year they all won. I say leave it as it is, it seems to have worked out fine. adam ps. I much prefered the best of three series, since I think hockey is a game that can too easily be decided by a fluke goal to let one game decide it. Of course, that means that the semi-finals and championship should also be best of three. :)