There is a simple way to normalize between the conferences, and I hate it and am not suggesting it. However, it is more practical than any plan involving upping the number of NC regular season games, since travel and other considerations means this will never happen. Simple, ugly, solution: Eliminate the conference tournaments. Take the top 8 teams from each conference by regular season standing, and send them to the eight RS number 1's and 2s' home rinks as follows: Conferences: A, B, C, and D. at A1: A1 plays B8, C4 plays D5; at A2: A2 plays B7, C3 plays D6; and like that. The winners of the two Saturday games at each site play Sunday. That Sunday night, the selection committee just happens to "invite" the eight survivors to the NCAA tournament. You can do their relative seeding by RPICH or whatever you want. The merit of this system is that it eliminates the idea that the committee "screws" any one team. You must play your way into the tournament. OK, what if a #1 blows their game against a #8? Well, if you want to protect a team from a too quick exit (see the "Harvard rule change" of the ECAC's in 1993), split the games between two weekends and make them best of three or whatever you want. Or have a 3 game round robin where each team plays each of the others and the winner is picked by record with a clearly defined tie-breaker for the inevitable ties. Greg Boston Let's Go ECAC!