John Hassaleur writes: > BGSU was a 1980s powerhouse and has been the "13th team" >for the NCAA tournament for two years running. Only upsets in the >ECAC tournament have kept them out. Off-season nit-pick: this is not strictly true. It is true that Bowling Green was in the top twelve eligible teams according to the selection criteria each of the last two years, and got squeezed out by ECAC champions receiving automatic bids. However: 1994: BGSU is 12th in RPI (the rating method), but RPI (the school, ranked 18th) wins the ECAC tournament and becomes the 12th team to make the NC$$s. HOWEVER, even if Clarkson (#8, and the ECAC RS champ) wins the ECAC tournament, BGSU doesn't go to the NC$$s, as Clarkson is the only ECAC team in the top twelve, and a lower ranking team (Vermont) would have to be given "BGSU's bid" to give the ECAC the minimum of two. 1995: BGSU is 11th (not including Maine) in the PWC selection criterion, and Cornell is 12th. If there are no upsets in conference tourneys, BGSU and Cornell both go. (As there are two ECAC teams and two HE teams ranked 10 and up, minimum bids don't come into play.) Unfortunately for Bowling Green, Providence (#16) wins the Hockey East tournament, and Cornell wins the ECAC tournament, so they go to the NC$$s, and BGSU stays home. So, yes, BGSU would have gone in place of Cornell if Vermont or Clarkson had won the ECACs (although not if Harvard, the other semifinalist, had won), but they would also have gone in place of Providence if Maine, BU or Lowell had won the Hockey East tournament. So in 1994 BGSU was squeezed out by the ECAC's minimum of two bids, regardless of the outcome of the ECAC tourney, and in 1995 they were kept home by the combined effects of upsets in both Eastern tournaments. None of which takes away from your premise that Bowling Green is no more a CCHA have-not than Denver is a WCHA have-not. John Whelan, Cornell '91 <[log in to unmask]> <http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/people/john_whelan/jphock.html> 1996 Cornell Hockey: Ivy League Women's Champions Ivy League Men's Champions/ECAC Men's Champions HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.