Every year when the bball 64 is announced, some obviously good teams are left out. My colleagues here and I joke that it would only take a couple more rounds to invite all the teams that play Div I roundball. It is not really a joke. Why not? This would probably create some REAL cinderella stories each year. I recall, from my six years in grad school at U of Ill, that the state used to go crazy over the prep bball championship, in which all schools started evenly, from scratch, all 500+ of them. One year, at tiny school from Cobden, I believe, the Appleknockers, kept on a roll, made it to the finals in Champaign, I believe, whereupon they were wiped by Thornton of Harvey or somesuch, like 152 to 7. The point is the hockey tourney could easily do something like that. Use the league tourneys and regular season championships for seeding purposes, say seed the top 12 or 16, then spend the first few rounds as one game winner-moves-on, then when you get down to the top 16 go over to best 2 of 3, etc, much like it is now. This would give everyone a chance, of course there would be occasional major upsets (sniff, sniff!) but what the heck, it is only a game, right? :-{) This way, if you truly believe your 6th place team could beat the 2nd ranked team in another (weak) league, you could prove it! The only hassle would be the seedings, and for that, I leave it to people more closely connected to the game! On another topic, any hopes ESPN might show some college hockey? Tony Buffa, Ph.D. Professor of Physics Calif Poly St Univ, San Luis Obispo RPI '64, Univ of Illinois (C-U) '66 and '69 Go Engineers!