Form: Memo Text: (26 lines follow) Dave Delchamps wrote: -------------- (begin quoted material) So, how about letting regular-season #1 *choose* what team it wants to face in the first round? Then, regular-season #2 (unless chosen by #1) picks *its* opponent, and so on. Might not the resulting series be more competitive? Might not the "chosen" team be especialy fired up? -------------- (end quoted material) And that's exactly what the CCHA did when UAF was an "associate" member! The #1 finisher had the choice of #11 or UAF in the first round; if UAF wasn't selected, #2 had the choice of #10 or UAF, and so on until, if playing UAF passed all the way (and it did), #6 had to play UAF. I don't know if any Seawolf fans took compliments from their team being passed in favor of #11...#7, but they should've been. I actually like the idea. If you've earned a high ranking, why should you face a "weaker" team that happens to match up very well against you? It also gives you an idea of what the coaches think the *real* ranking is. The only problem is that, in cases of a true home team, like MSU and Wisconsin in recent years, statistically "weaker" teams may get farther in the tournament because the teams most likely to knock them off will shy away from the home town crowd (what does CHODR currently have? something like +/- .3 goal for home ice?) Steve G Use Proportional Font: true Attachment Count: 0 --$----Novell--Attachment----$ X-NVL-Content-Type: UNKNOWN X-NVL-Content-Typename: UNKNOWN X-NVL-Content-Charset: X-IBM-437 X-NVL-Content-Filename: ATTRIBS.BND X-NVL-Content-Transfer-Encoding: X-UUENCODE begin 777 ATTRIBS.BND M0F5Y;VYD(%!A8VME9"!!='1R:6)U=&5S`([]")<C"@``````0F5Y;VYD(%!R M;W!R:65T87)Y($1A=&$:`````!$```````0`!``Y`0`````````````````` M````````5&5X=$4%1$<`````````````)P$#`$4%(`$!``$````:``$``0`! M`$4%````````./\```````"0`0``````````0V]U<FEE<@`````````````` M`````````````````````````0`!`!8``0`7`!<``0`8`#X``0`_`(0``0"% M`,X``0#/`!8!`0`7`5\!`0!@`80!`0"%`84!`0"&`<X!`0#/`18"`0`7`EP" M`0!=`J8"`0"G`NT"`0#N`AP#`0`=`QT#`0`>`V0#`0!E`ZT#`0"N`_0#`0#U M`SL$`0`\!(`$`0"!!,8$`0#'!`P%`0`-!3T%`0`^!3X%`0`_!48%```````` M````````9``!L`$!8`,!$`4!P`8!<`@!(`H!T`L!@`T!,`\!X!`!D!(!0!0! (\!4!H!<````! ` end --$----Novell--Attachment----$-- HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.