2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

[Jon]

Home bench???

The only home bench rigged for any advantage is a couple miles up the road in Foxboro

Let’s not drag Bob Kraft’s various misdeeds into this.

[RPI fan 4 life]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Just a thought:
As of this moment, there is a possibility of all-New England FF.
UMass, Providence, QU, and AIC are alive in the four regions.

[state of hockey]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

And the B1G bites the dust.

[ticapnews]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

There's no way the NCAA is going to allow tournament games to move behind the ESPN+ paywall. They're streamed on ESPN3 already (the free part) and a few sometimes are streamed exclusively every year, but there's a contractual reason they are being broadcast and available. That deal includes online streaming obviously but the NCAA would gain nothing out of them being moved to ESPN+ (if they wanted to put these games behind a paywall, you can bet the NCAA would do it themselves if they could and cut out ESPN completely).

Besides, even if they generate scant ratings, what else does ESPNU and ESPNews have to televise at the end of March? Hoops is over, the other winter sports are all done. A couple of lax games aren't going to get bigger numbers, so it's not like something significant is being pre-empted that's going to necessarily draw that many more eyeballs for them opposite NCAA basketball.

I knew the NCAA makes ESPN cover these but wondered about the wording. Thanks for the information. It sounds like the games won't be on ESPN+ unless Disney renegotiates the contract with the NCAA. Works for me.

[mookie1995]

Just a thought:
As of this moment, there is a possibility of all-New England FF.
UMass, Providence, QU, and AIC are alive in the four regions.

Kick AIC into Hockey Rast!!!

[ticapnews]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

And the B1G bites the dust.

Breaks my heart.

[UMD21]

You can watch it on the ESPN app. I believe that game is scheduled for ESPNU but the UMD/BGSU game is in overtime.

Hey, at least it isn't lacrosse...

No, at least it isn’t basketball. Nothing worse than missing almost half a period because the last minute of a b-ball game goes for 15 minutes because one team refuses to admit defeat. What a horrible rule I can’t believe they let that technicality be

I feel bad for BGSU. They looked to have the game under control with 3 minutes left in the 3rd. A tough bounce of the puck.

If it weren’t for that bounce, I don’t think there would have been OT. I felt like the Dogs were uncharacteristically discombobulated and BGSU was playing tight. Didn’t have a good feeling. Especially with the MN chokefest. But what, 10-0 now in first round? At least somebody is picking up the slack for the state’s **** performance in college hockey. Even the Gophers, considering it’s a huge budget school in the state of hockey, 5 championships is kinda pathetic for what it should be

[Fishman'81]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I feel bad for BGSU. They looked to have the game under control with 3 minutes left in the 3rd. A tough bounce of the puck.

Yeah, I agree. Nothing against Duluth, but that was a fluke goal, and BG was playing well enough to win.

"That's hockey".

[Stauber1]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Convince the NCAA money is overrated and maybe they will stop putting Providence in Providence.

Wow, despite all the bad-faith arguments and BS that you have posted about this, there is an actual earnest sentiment mixed in.

For years I argued that games at the X were home games for the Gophers but was told repeatedly that they weren't. So neither is this.

Don't like it? Bid to host.

Congratulations, all you have succeeded to do with post is to show that:
A. You are totally OK with schools being able to purchase a location advantage.
B. You are as big of a hypocrite as can be on this subject.

Minnesota playing games at the X was an advantage for the Gophers, and people who argued it wasn't were obviously just as wrong as those who said the only reason MN won games there is because of said advantage.

And if you can't see the difference between a team like Minnesota advancing to the Frozen Four in St. Paul (or BU advancing to it in Boston), and a #4 Providence being placed in a regional in Providence (or a hypothetical #4 UND placed in a regional in Fargo or a hypothetical #4 MN placed in a regional in St. Paul)........

[Fishman'81]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I would say that most of these games have not been all that compelling. the BG vs UMD game being the exception. I thought the Clarkson/ ND game was a snoozer.

BG/UMD was compelling. The PC comeback was a big surprise... But yeah, CU/ND was very nearly coma-inducing.

There's only a couple-three boring teams still alive at this moment, and at least one will survive the Regionals.

[Stauber1]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

The amount of bad-faith argument going on in this thread is pretty astounding.

I haven't seen people saying the only reason MSU lost is because they were playing in Providence, or that they shouldn't have choked away a 3-goal lead. Nor have I seen anyone "blame" the Providence team for being placed in their home town regional. Even if I have missed posts saying as much, those would be bad arguments and obviously not the thrust of the actual criticism.
Yet those are exactly the things being argued against - either because people are too stupid to understand what is being said, or in bad faith because they don't want to acknowledge it.

It is obvious there is an advantage to playing a regional in your home town when none of the other teams are from that town. If you don't believe that, just ask yourself where each coaching staff would choose to play their NCAA Tournament games if they could pick anywhere. And don't try to obfuscate with some claim about "not their actual rink" - I'm talking about town.
If you can't admit that virtually every coach would pick to play in their home town, you are a clown.
And it is obvious they would choose their home town because they think it would be better for them.
(Cue people making ridiculous claims about how Harvard managed to beat Providence in Providence, or that MSU shouldn't have choked a 3-goal lead. Just as every coach would choose to have last change if they could, having last change is not some magic recipe for a win. That's not the argument, and the more a person tries to make it the argument the more foolish they look).

Since a few people seem so intent on obfuscating the argument, let's spell it out clearly:
The ENTIRE reason for moving to neutral sites for the regionals was to eliminate advantage based on location. It wasn't done to increase attendance or to make more money. It was done because people felt like there was too much of an advantage being awarded to teams based solely on their ability to host a regional and not on where they were seeded. That effort to eliminate location advantage has clearly failed.
Now, I can understand the claim that the current setup is "better" than previously because the games are no longer in a host's regular season arena, but to claim the "neutral" sites have eliminated location advantage is stupid at best and dishonest at worst.


There are two issues at play in the current iteration of this discussion:

First, Providence received an advantage that was wholly unnecessary to give them - There is no reason why that regional couldn't have been swapped out with another wholesale. There was no requirement to place Providence in Providence as they were not the host. They did not "earn" that advantage as they were the bottom seed in their regional. So the only reason to do it was for money - and it seems a lot of people are saying they are OK with that precedent.

Second, if there is going to be an advantage handed out, it seems much more fair for that advantage to be dictated by seeding rather than money (or in some cases flat out who can afford to buy it).

[alan]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

This one was emotional. I don’t post here very much anymore but this one was for all the 8 win seasons and road trips to see UMass get blown out. We are going to the frozen four!

[Fishman'81]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Wow, despite all the bad-faith arguments and BS that you have posted about this, there is an actual earnest sentiment mixed in.




Congratulations, all you have succeeded to do with post is to show that:
A. You are totally OK with schools being able to purchase a location advantage.
B. You are as big of a hypocrite as can be on this subject.

Minnesota playing games at the X was an advantage for the Gophers, and people who argued it wasn't were obviously just as wrong as those who said the only reason MN won games there is because of said advantage.

And if you can't see the difference between a team like Minnesota advancing to the Frozen Four in St. Paul (or BU advancing to it in Boston), and a #4 Providence being placed in a regional in Providence (or a hypothetical #4 UND placed in a regional in Fargo or a hypothetical #4 MN placed in a regional in St. Paul)........

He's still chafed from the days when MN hosted Regionals in the Mariucci, as did MI at Yost.

(Me, too.)

[BlackI]

This one was emotional. I don’t post here very much anymore but this one was for all the 8 win seasons and road trips to see UMass get blown out. We are going to the frozen four!

Awesome Alan! Go Umass go hockey east! -Mainuh

[BlackI]

He's still chafed from the days when MN hosted Regionals in the Mariucci, as did MI at Yost.

(Me, too.)

I sat in nose bleeds to watch Maine lose in OT to Minnesota. I have no ounce of empathy with that game being a neutral site. You give you take... Minny fans are the last set of fans that should *****. Period.