Yesterday, I responded to this message: >I've always heard that the tournament champs were the champs, while the >regular season champs got the modifier. After all, the tournament champs >always got the automatic bid, while the regular season champs just started >getting one this year. Any of you types who work for the leagues know what >the rule is? Or is there one? > >Kristen Robinson >MSU '93, UK '95, somewhere... later >LSSU '95 CCHA Champions But meant to respond to this message: >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >Correction: Michigan won the CCHA championship. LSSU won the >postseason tournament. That makes LSSU the CCHA Tournament champions, >not the CCHA champions. It also is much less impressive to me. >Winning the regular season means you have to play excellent hockey >throughout the season. Winning the postseason tournament means you >have to get good/lucky for a very short period of time. > >-Alan Harder >[log in to unmask] > Go Blue! So what I said makes more sense in this context: >I don't agree. If that were true, then why bother with the NCAA >championships, the same thing applies. >It becomes a problem when teams don't feel like they have anything to play >for (like BU and Maine, maybe). But this is the time of the year when teams >should be peaking, and these tournaments *do* mean something. They are a >prelude to the big dance. I stand by what I said and agree with Kristen. It is also worth noting (and I think that this is significant) that, at least in the WCHA, not everybody has the same schedule. Because the NCAA has cut back on the number of games which a team can play, some teams (at least in the WCHA) play against each other twice, others play each other four times. One person e-mailed me directly and said I should stick to facts and not opinions relative to which is the true indicator of a conference champion. Well, it is a fact that teams play different numbers of times. BTW, since when is this board only facts?