Bri Farenell writes: >Whether or not the forfeits are fair is another question, but >what is the purpose of assessing them forfeits if they don't >affect the ultimate goal of the regular season: making the NC$$ >tournament? That's a good question. I have been trying to think of possible precedents in this case, and I'm quickly finding there really aren't any. I think both HE and probably the NC$$ selection committee are treading on unfamiliar ground here. Three cases that might be worth citing: 1) Maine's earlier forfeits this year due to Jeff Tory's ineligibility. HE did not deem it necessary at that time to suspend Maine from the playoffs, and that seems to be a case where the hockey program itself had the most responsibility. The latest seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. But where do you draw the line? 2) Lowell's sanctions of a few years back, when the Chiefs were placed on NC$$ probation and banned from the tournament for a season. At the time, it was rumored that HE would not allow the Chiefs to participate in the HE tourney because if they won, HE would lose its automatic bid. The league decided to allow Lowell in. There are two key differences I see, one in Maine's favor and one not. In their favor is the fact that Lowell had been put on NC$$ probation; Maine has not. Also, most would consider Lowell's violations to have been more serious than Maine's. On the other hand, by the time the HE tourney rolled around the season after Lowell's sanctions were handed down (which occurred in the summer), Lowell had cleared up the problems that existed and everyone seemed satisfied that things were where they should be. But there still seems to be turmoil at Maine that may take a while to overcome. A side question: what if Maine did not "get its house in order" to HE's satisfaction by next season? Would they see fit to hand down the same punishment? I do believe HE has opened a whole new can of worms by taking the action they did. However, I don't think the argument that all HE teams qualify for the tourney is a good one. My guess is that there is nothing in the HE by-laws to deal with this sort of situation; thus, the various and lengthy conference calls among the ADs. But that does not mean that HE has not reserved the right to decide what should be done in cases that aren't specifically covered in its regulations. This is exactly what happened in the Lowell-NU and NU-MC brawls, when then-commissioner Stu Haskell handed down extra suspensions to the players involved. Another thought: I wouldn't be surprised if HE decides after all this to shy away from any possible playoff format involving 9 or more teams. When UMass comes in to give the league 9 teams, they may just decide to stick with 8 playoff teams to try to avoid this mess in the future. 3) In 1972-73, BU went 11-4-0 in its first 15 games and then was discovered to have been using an ineligible player for all 15. Their record was changed to 0-15-0. BU went 11-1-1 in its last 13 regular season games and with the forfeits, finished 8th in the ECAC with an overall record of 11-16-1. However, the ECAC seeded BU 4th for the ECAC tourney. BU lost its opening game to Penn and finished 11-17-1, 22-6-1 without the forfeits. The two teams selected from the East that year for the NC$$ tourney were Cornell (22-6-1) and BC (22-7-1), who met for the ECAC Championship which was won by Cornell. Cornell had received a forfeit win over BU, but BC, which had beaten BU legitimately, had not. I always wondered what would have happened if BU had won the ECAC - or even made it to the championship game. Practice at that time seemed to be to take the teams that met for the ECAC title. Tourney selection has changed drastically since then, and there has never been a case truly like Maine's. I will be curious (as we all will, especially those of you in Maine) to see how the NC$$ handles this. For the teams other than Maine, it makes sense to calculate the ratings with the original results of the games because otherwise, the schedule strength of the others is hurt by Maine's wins/ties being changed to losses. But it also doesn't seem fair to allow Maine to keep its rating when it was earned illegally. Something else that came to mind...at first, when it seemed clear that the forfeits would be handed down, Maine still believed it had a chance to defend its HE and NC$$ titles because they were still going to get into the HE tourney no matter what happened. Then when Maine was suspended from the tourney (or perhaps when it first seemed possible that this might happen), Maine turned to the RPI rating and the claim (possibly based in fact, according to Rick Comley) that they could still get in since the rating was not supposed to count the forfeits as such. The odd thing is that to me, I think things should go the opposite way - Maine should be allowed to play in the HE tourney, but the forfeits should hurt them in the rating. I don't see it as being much different from a team that actually goes 6-27-1 and then rallies to pull an upset and win its conference tourney, therebye earning the automatic bid - although this hasn't happened before. But then again, a lot of things have not appeared to make sense lately. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93 <<<<< Color Voice of the (16-17-2) Merrimack Warriors WCCM 800 AM >>>>>