2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

[jjmc85]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

There's nothing preventing Hockey East Teams from scheduling OOC games with each other too.

[boblav1]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

There's nothing preventing Hockey East Teams from scheduling OOC games with each other too.

Maine will be playing 2 OOC games with UVM and UMA next season. I'm sure the other HE teams may be doing the same thing to fill out their schedules. Why the push for more OOC games when you end up playing league members any way?

[Spartanforlife4]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

ECAC has no change to their league and thus no increase in available OOC slots.
AHA has no changes next season and thus no increase in available OOC slots... next year when UCONN moves to HE, AHA teams will each have 2 (???) more OOC opportunities.

Meanwhile, Hockey East teams all picked up 7 more OOC chances..... so really, if you look at the numbers of available slots, the math to "stay east" for OOC games really does not work.... unless you are scheduling other Hockey East teams for OOC dates.

I have not studied how many conference games the Big 10, New WCHA, and NCHC will have and how many OOC games they will all have.

B1G has 20 conference games. So 14 OOC. MSU/UM and Minnesota are already down to 12 because of the GLI and Mariucci tournaments.

[ericredaxe]

Maine will be playing 2 OOC games with UVM and UMA next season. I'm sure the other HE teams may be doing the same thing to fill out their schedules. Why the push for more OOC games when you end up playing league members any way?

I'm not sure there was a push for more OOC games so much as that's what was dictated by the new league schedule as a result of hockey east expanding.

[irishfan85]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

I'll probably get laughed out of the thread for this comment, but what about splitting HEA into 2 divisions once UCONN arrives. Play the 5 other teams in your division 3 times, the 6 teams in other division twice. 27 total games (15 in your division, 12 out of division).
PRIVATE DIVISION
BC
MC
PC
BU
ND
NU

PUBLIC DIVISION
UNH
Maine
UMass
Lowell
UVM
UCONN

OK...so I'm joking about public vs private divisions, but the rest is a possibility for making more conference games and less nc games. I personally think it's ridiculous to play teams in non-conference games unless it's a tournament. The public vs private divisions thing would never fly, but each division would have 2 of the "big four" (insert joke about Maine not being in big 4 anymore). It would also allow UNH-Maine, BU-BC, BC-Notre Dame to play more than twice.

[kingdobbs]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

I'm not sure there was a push for more OOC games so much as that's what was dictated by the new league schedule as a result of hockey east expanding.

And not wanting to have an unbalanced league schedule, I suppose.

[mookie1995]

I'll probably get laughed ....

Mookie did this years ago, but nice try (even recycled his division names ). Silly rabbit

[boblav1]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

I'm not sure there was a push for more OOC games so much as that's what was dictated by the new league schedule as a result of hockey east expanding.

True, once the league expanded there was no choice but to reduce the number of league games. I thought some used the increase in OOC games as an argument for expanding. I could be wrong.

As you mentioned, it will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

[ericredaxe]

True, once the league expanded there was no choice but to reduce the number of league games. I thought some used the increase in OOC games as an argument for expanding. I could be wrong.

As you mentioned, it will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

No doubt... Depending on how many league games the new wcha and Nchc has.... We could find a situation where teams in hockey east have more OOC slots than teams in other conferences have available....

[Snively65]

I'll probably get laughed out of the thread for this comment, but what about splitting HEA into 2 divisions once UCONN arrives. Play the 5 other teams in your division 3 times, the 6 teams in other division twice. 27 total games (15 in your division, 12 out of division).
PRIVATE DIVISION
BC
MC
PC
BU
ND
NU

PUBLIC DIVISION
UNH
Maine
UMass
Lowell
UVM
UCONN

OK...so I'm joking about public vs private divisions, but the rest is a possibility for making more conference games and less nc games. I personally think it's ridiculous to play teams in non-conference games unless it's a tournament. The public vs private divisions thing would never fly, but each division would have 2 of the "big four" (insert joke about Maine not being in big 4 anymore). It would also allow UNH-Maine, BU-BC, BC-Notre Dame to play more than twice.

The split model is used by the AHA, which leads to constant whining by the western pod fans about eastern pod teams having an undeserved route to a higher seeding for the post-season. I could see the same whining by BC and BU fans about UNH with those extra five games in a perceived weaker pod.

[jjmc85]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

Maine will be playing 2 OOC games with UVM and UMA next season. I'm sure the other HE teams may be doing the same thing to fill out their schedules. Why the push for more OOC games when you end up playing league members any way?

I could be wrong, but I don't think UMass, Northeastern, Merrimack, UMass-Lowell, Providence, or Vermont pushed for more Out of Conference Games. I bet the six thought "Would we rather be in the conference with the Big Four and have less conference games, or risk having what happened out west happen here too?" Based on this, they all voted to include Notre Dame and reduce the conference schedule. Doing so probably kept BC and BU happy. This is all 100% speculation on my part, and even though I'm 100% speculating, I don't feel comfortable guessing where UNH or Maine stood on the issue.

Does it suck compared to what we have now? Yes. Is it better than being in the WCHA without the big schools? Yes

How I would try to fill the seven games from UMass's prospective:

2 games: MAC tournament UMass, Bowling Green, Western Michigan and Miami. Rotate who hosts each year.

1 Game: Make Quinnipiac a home and home every year instead of the one game after Thanksgiving the two play.

1 Game: Turkey Tuesday Tilt with Vermont. Yeah, nonconference against a conference opponent kind of sucks, and the Tuesday before Thanksgiving also sucks, but it's tradition, and I like tradition.

1 Game: UMass usually hosts an AHA team. This year was UConn. Pick up an extra one for a home game. Play Holy Cross every year and rotate between AIC and Bentley for the other. Sure, those are two less than exciting home games, but whatever. Beggars can't be choosers and I'm seeing 3 road games and only 1 home game most years for what I suggested, so there's a need to balance this out a bit.

For the other two games, it would be wonderful if you could get a Big 10 team to agree to playing 4 games over two years, two at each rink. I realize this sounds ridiculous, but I believe Michigan State is coming to Mullins Center next season for two, so it can happen. If not, I'd hope to fill them with two ECAC opponents, one at home and one on the road.

So UMass is losing 7 Hockey East games, split 4-3 or 3-4 road and away. My suggestion worst case scenario has UMass replace those with 2 home games and 5 road games. Best case scenario it's 6 home games, one road game.

EDIT: Maybe instead of MAC pot, play 2 of 3 other MAC schools, two home and two away each year. That's four games. Add the Vermont and Q-pac games and the other AHA game. Now you have a nice schedule where you have half of them at home and half on the road. Every once in a while, 2 of the MAC games could be replaced by 2 Big 10 games. I like this much better. So yeah, there are options.

[Patman]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

I might be interested in making the alumni cup be four games instead of two and maybe another tilt with Merrimack. But between the stated adds of B10 opponents, DU/CC making a return trip in the near future, so on, I'm not sure how much we need.

[UncleRay]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

The split model is used by the AHA, which leads to constant whining by the western pod fans about eastern pod teams having an undeserved route to a higher seeding for the post-season. I could see the same whining by BC and BU fans about UNH with those extra five games in a perceived weaker pod.

I think the pods would have to rotate. Nobody would want the extra travel to ND every year.

[ericredaxe]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

1 Game: Make Quinnipiac a home and home every year instead of the one game after Thanksgiving the two play.

1 Game: UMass usually hosts an AHA team. This year was UConn. Pick up an extra one for a home game. Play Holy Cross every year and rotate between AIC and Bentley for the other. Sure, those are two less than exciting home games, but whatever. Beggars can't be choosers and I'm seeing 3 road games and only 1 home game most years for what I suggested, so there's a need to balance this out a bit.

If not, I'd hope to fill them with two ECAC opponents, one at home and one on the road.

As I was saying though, is that ECAC and AHA teams will not have additional slots for OOC games next year, so even though Hockey East teams might like to schedule them, the ECAC and AHA teams will not have open slots that need filling.

[Patman]

Re: 2013-14 Hockey East scheduling

As I was saying though, is that ECAC and AHA teams will not have additional slots for OOC games next year, so even though Hockey East teams might like to schedule them, the ECAC and AHA teams will not have open slots that need filling.

No, but the B10 and the NWHA (New Western Hockey Association... none of this national b-s) will have a ton of open dates... don't know about the re-constituted WCHA, yet. Of course the ECAC would rather spend their OOC games against Hockey East rather than loading up on Atlantic Hockey... everything shifts here... no reason for it to remain static, especially when games are scheduled at most 3 years out and often no more than one year out.