I looked back to see when the last time was that a team won a national championship without being either the regular season or playoff champion in its conference. It was Lake State in '94, who also had the following in common with this year's champions: -- Had to win four games in the NCAAs (i.e., were not a bye team) -- Won second championship in 3 years Also, in that year, as in this one, the same team (then Michigan, now Michigan State) won the CCHA regular season and tournament titles, only to fall in overtime in the West regionals in a rematch of the CCHA championship game. Those more familiar with the CCHA than I can probably extend the analogy further. 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.