Richard Hungerford says: >I like it a lot, because you're always in it, right up until the end of >the second game. A 5-10 minute spell of magic anytime can give you the >overall win. Unless my math is lacking (and they do say that about physicists), a team is less likely to be "in it" till the end in a total-goals series than in a best-of-three, three points, or even two games + mini-game series. If you get blown out in game one, it's a lot harder to win the total goals series in game two than it is just to win the second *game* and tie the series. In any situation where a total goals series would still be up for grabs, a real two-game series would have just as strong a possibility of going to a deciding game. Granted, a team might fall hopelessly behind in the deciding game, but they could fall even further behind in a two-game total-goals series. (5-1, 5-1 means you need an eight-goal comeback in a total goals series. How much magic are you looking for?) Then again, I think 2-1 is the most exciting score a hockey game can have, so perhaps I'm one of those defensive types. :-) John Whelan, Cornell '91 <[log in to unmask]> <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html> Learn about the NCAA selection process on the web at http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pairwise HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.