Jeff Benensohn writes... >I guess we just saw some of Mike's true anti-Cornell colors... Wow! I'm amazed that you can see Mike's colors at all while looking through those thick Big Red glasses. Don't you hate it when Machnik stirs this kind of trouble up?! He's also part of that "best twelve teams should make the NCAA tournament" school of thought. We don't need that kind of dangerous logic here! Btw...is Cornell the only team in the tournament to have their own brand of chewing gum? (Fwiw...I do like Cornell. I'd almost certainly be pulling for them next weekend if they weren't facing the Lakers.) Mr Adam C Wodon writes... >I met Jim Rich and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but he had just >been telling me that his "College Hockey USA" program does NOT have a >bias against the ECAC, and then he called Cornell the "Red Raiders" ... >I had to laugh. Those high and mighty Westerners <G>. I don't know about high...the elevation here isn't much...but I hope the mighty comes to pass. As for the TV guys, is there anyone in college hockey worth their weight in vulcanized rubber? Jim Rich comes across as an idiot every year when he's the roving mike guy on ESPN's NCAA broadcasts. Frank Mazzocco is no better. He had Vermont winning Hockey East on the selection show. I rip on the CCHA commentators too, maybe not enough. Color man Chris McClure has gotten better, IMO. I'll give him that. It was actually kind of funny to see him stroke his WMU Broncos on PASS all season. His interviews are still weak. Either he doesn't know how to ask a good question or the CCHA coaches (the interviewees) have told him that they won't appear if he asks anything that they can't BS around. Probably a little of both. The funniest comment of the season, which I can't pin on McClure but PASS sure gave it enough air time, came while McClure was interviewing WMU senior forward Chris Brooks. On the topic of WMU never getting any respect, Brooks commented to the effect that "it seems like we're picked to finish fourth or fifth every year." Wow! I wonder why, Brooksy. Could it be that WMU had finished fourth, fifth or sixth for NINE consecutive seasons coming into 1995-96? They broke that remarkable run this year by tying for third (fourth seed in the playoffs). Picking the Broncos to finish in the middle of the pack is as easy as predicting the sun will rise tomorrow. Back to the TV guys. PASS play-by-play man Larry Oosterman (sp?) is clueless. How much DOES he drink before/during each telecast? He mispronounces about one out of every four names. The best part is, he generally offers two or three different mispronunciations for each player. And he knows the CCHA so well. During Michigan's CCHA championship celebration, he noted that John Arnold was holding the trophy and that Arnold was a young player, part of Michigan's future. I'm sure John will be happy to hear that, because the registrar's office considers him a senior. Maybe Larry meant that he was part of Michigan's future THIS MONTH. :-) For what it's worth, the only guy that I actually laugh with more often than laugh at is NESN's Bob Norton. He is the John Madden of college hockey broadcasters. But Norton struggles with CCHA and WCHA teams, because most of the players DIDN'T go to Catholic Memorial. :-) Don't get me started on Tom Mees... John H ([log in to unmask]) Kudos to Robin Lock for suggesting the RPI count as 1.5 points in the pairwise selection criteria. A spade is a spade. HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.