College hockey needs better selection system

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

No doubt about it, college hockey needs a new system to figure out who, in fact, makes the tournament and how those teams are placed after the field is selected.

A total of 16 teams make the national tournament with six conferences receiving automatic bids for winning their respective conference tournaments. The remaining 10 slots are filled by at large teams, which are determined by a computer calculated system that weighs several factors in its process of deciding which teams will compete for the national title.

I have absolutely no problem with the NCAA using a computer system in its decision-making process. Computers don’t have biases. They don’t pick favorites and don’t have short memories.
The problem I have is with the specific system used. The biggest problem with the current system is it treats every game equally, whether it be in-conference, out-of-conference, or a conference tournament.

If the college hockey season was longer and had more out-of-conference games on the schedule, this type of system would work. However, a team plays usually around 36 games in a college hockey season and in a league like Hockey East, for example, 27 of those games are league games. And those number don't include conference tournaments.

So in a sport that has its teams play 75 percent or more of their games in-conference, then why are those conference games not worth more? New Hampshire, for example, won the Hockey East regular-season crown, but largely because it had a rough start in games against quality opponents like Wisconsin, Miami (both No. 1 seeds in their respective brackets) and Cornell, it needed help from the favorites in other conference tournaments and the AHA in order to get in.

Vermont got in by virtue of a strong out-of conference schedule even thought they ended up eighth in the conference. Granted, they also beat UNH in the best-of-three quarterfinal with UNH before losing in the semis to eventual champion Boston College. But what about Boston University and Maine? While neither did stupendous against OOC foes, they had a better stretch over the long haul and finished third and fourth in the conference. BU made it just as far in the conference tournament and Maine took BC to overtime in a 7-6 loss in the conference championship game. Shouldn’t that count for something?

The real contradiction lies in the practice of having conference tournament games count the same as regular-season games - the fact that six conferences get automatic bids for winning the tournament. Basically, it’s like saying that all the games in the season (regular or postseason) are worth the same, except for one. The glaring example is Alabama-Huntsville, which won 12 games all season, but won a four-team conference tournament, so they got in.

If conference games and non-conference games count the same and all other tournament games are worth the same, why should one more be any more valuable? If you want to have conference championships worth a shot at the whole shebang, shouldn’t the games that lead up to that game hold at least a little extra clout?

But even if the computer system currently in place remains the system in the future, should the selection committee not follow the data the computer relays to the members when they are seeding the tournament?

While the committee claims it uses a computer system to keep the integrity of the tournament, this tournament layout suggests the committee cares less about integrity and more about selling tickets.

Take the Midwest Regional, for example. Fort Wayne, IN has had a terrible time selling tickets. So, in order to boost ticket sales, the committee compromised the integrity of the bracket by stacking it with Midwest teams. Miami was sure to either go to the Midwest or the West in St. Paul, MN, but being the top seed, got placed in the Midwest to draw a crowd. They will play the last-seeded Alabama-Huntsville and No. 8 Bemidji State is also on that bracket, which is fine, but No. 12 Michigan also being in that bracket makes little sense other than making sure to keep local recognizable teams in the Midwest to boost interest. It also helps that Michigan is one of the hottest teams in college hockey right now.

The Northeast could be the bracket of death. No. 4 Boston College, No. 5 North Dakota, No. 9 Yale and No. 13 Alaska are all in the same bracket. The NCAA loves seeing BC and North Dakota as favorites in games that if won would pit the two against each other. Every time the Sioux and the Eagles share the same ice in the tournament (and it’s happened five times since 2000) it is memorable.

The Sioux won a 4-2 affair to capture the national title in 2000, but the following year, BC got even with a 3-2 overtime win. In 2005, North Dakota knocked off BC in the regional, 6-3. In 2006, the Eagles won a 6-5 national semifinal, a game that shouldn’t have been as close as it was with the Sioux scoring twice (one shorthanded goal and one with 12 second left) in the last five minutes of the game to make it interesting. BC again downed North Dakota in another tight game the following year, 6-4. Both years they ended up losing in the finals to Wisconsin and Michigan State, respectively. In 2008, BC finally got over the hump and won the national championship, and again had to go through North Dakota to make it happen, beating the Sioux handily, 6-1, in the semifinals.

But Yale is the Ivy League school everyone is forgetting about after Barry Melrose spent 10 minutes slobbering all over Cornell and its goalkeeper. Having Yale in that bracket may make some sense in terms of rankings, but obviously is favorable for the NCAA in terms of selling tickets, as folks are sure to come up from Connecticut to Worcester to see a potential BC-Yale showdown.

Denver, who lost not one, but two WCHA tournament games, also faces a difficult field in the East Regional in Albany and could play two upstate New York schools (RIT and Cornell, should the Badgers and Cornell both advance past the first roud) that are bound to bring in some serious gate and give those teams a severe home-ice feel and UNH fans also travel well.

But again, the NCAA can rely on some history here in order to sell tickets. UNH and Cornell have some history, playing a pair of epic games in the early 2000’s, including a Frozen Four tilt won by UNH. There is also sure to be a news article or two about how UNH is looking for revenge in the Big Red’s back yard after Cornell beat the Wildcats, 5-2, at the Whit early this year.

Check back a little bit later and I'll further break down each of the three Hockey East teams' road to the Frozen Four.