John MacKinnon wrote:
>
> Moreover, I would venture to say, at the risk of being flamed that no
> more than 4 teams from the east should make the NCAA playoffs this year.
>  I would say Maine, BU, the ECAC champion and maybe Northeastern should
> make it.
>
 
I think you're viewing things through west-colored glasses.  Both the east
and the west seem to have 4 or so teams that are ahead of the others.  But
after that it seems as easy to dismiss the western teams as it is the eastern
ones.  It's terribly early.  At this point LSSU isn't even worth talking about
and I doubt that will be true in another couple months.
 
> BU is the class of Hockey East.  Maine can play well with BU & NU but is
> really small like RPI and will get beat up by the more physical CCHA &
> WCHA teams.  Northeastern is a physiical team but really is a mystery
> after getting smoked by a mediocre denver team.
>
 
Last night's game notwithstanding, BU has *not* been the class of HE.  They
may have it on paper and Maine may not, but the lunchpail gang from Alfond has
done the job on the ice.  BU has underperformed their talent.  But again it's
very early.  The mirrors that SHawn Walsh seems to be doing the job with may
shatter and BU may realize their full potential.
 
And Maine hasn't just beaten BU & NU.  They've beaten a lot of teams.
Including a BU team that is bigger and physical that they are.  There's no
evidence that having beaten a physical BU team, that they couldn't also do so
against the physical western teams.
 
And the '93 Black Bears won a title against a much more physical team than
they.  Granted they had talent that the current squad does not, but
automatically assuming that physical teams will dominate speed teams
seems presumptious.  Do I think the '95 Black Bears can do it?  I'd be
shocked if they did.  But then I'm shocked to see them high atop HE.  Nothing
seems impossible this year.
 
> Therefore I say that the trend of the west dominating the NCAA's over
> the last couple of years will continue...but then again, who am I.
>
 
What trend?  The trend has been LSSU dominating all the other teams over the
past three years.  Not west vs. East.  And if you just look at the last two
in '93 Maine won it and in '94 you had two eastern teams in the
final four and it could have easily been three.  (UMass-Lowell beat MSU and
then went to double OT the next night against a rested Minnesota team.  Had
both sides been equally rested or tired, a different outcome would have been
*very* conceivable.  And don't forget that Northeastern also took LSSU into
overtime and had a disallowed goal that replays showed was in.)  One could
easily say that except for the title game, last year's NC$$s were more eastern
dominated than western.  That combined with an eastern team winning it the
previous year seems to invalidate any claim of western domination.
 
DaveH