Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

It's my understanding that in a multi-team tiebreaker, you use the tiebreaker to get 1 team that wins, then start the whole process again. So in this case, you'd determine the #1 seed, then start it again as a 7-team tie, so the records you used to determine #1 won't be the same. After you determine which team comes out of that, you start all over again with a 6-team tie, etc...

Scott is 100% right...

Is that confirmed with the league office? Hockey East has only had three 3-way ties and twice the head-to-head broke them completely. Only the last time it happened did 2 of the teams remain tied and the tiebreakers have to be reapplied. The current tiebreaker rule states "If more than two teams finish in a tie, the same criteria will be applied to reduce the number of teams tied, and then the process will commence again," but it doesn't say if it will only reduce the tie by one team (and from the top or bottom) and start again with all the remaining teams or just with the remaining tied teams (as I did). If anyone is interested I have added a sheet to my workbook with the previous 3-way ties. For the two completely broken ties dropping one team (from top or botton) and reapplying the tiebreakers didn't change the seeding order. For the third one the top 2 teams remained tied, so the bottom team was dropped and the tiebreakers were reapplied.

Sean

[Felger]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

I'd love to see Albany and Stony Brook add hockey. Would be great to get HE exposure in the Capital District as well as out on LI.

Yes! Two more America East schools

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

But how about the possibility of a D1 program in Hockey for MIT, Brandeis, Tufts or Clark. All top 100 Universities that could use a name brand sport besides swimming or track and field.

Unlikely to happen as those schools are D3 and are probably not going to elevate their athletic programs to D2 or D1. Besides, ice hockey is not one of the 33 men's, women's and coed varsity teams MIT currently offers.

Sean

[BC/HE]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

If you want exposure in NYC get a team from NYC. Not sure who it could be or where they could play but it would be interesting. I think Sacred Heart must be intent on being the 12th team with the on campus rink meeting requirements. Wouldn't be surprised if they had some discussions about it already before proceeding with their plans. Only other prominent schools that fit the footprint are of course those other 4 already mentioned, RPI, Holy Cross, URI and Quinnipiac. But how about the possibility of a D1 program in Hockey for MIT, Brandeis, Tufts or Clark. All top 100 Universities that could use a name brand sport besides swimming or track and field.

[umhockey91]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

I'd love to see Albany and Stony Brook add hockey. Would be great to get HE exposure in the Capital District as well as out on LI.

[BC/HE]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

Scott is 100% right, but it's also 100% not worth the effort of running 28 tiebreakers for it, you already did more than enough.

Agree. Sean always provides lots of useful information but unless this scenario comes close to happening leave it as he presented. Besides it is great to see UConn at the top and BC preparing for a trip to Hartford. If that doesn't motivate BC to turn it up a notch nothing will. That scenario is probably the .2% chance that BC doesn't make the NCAA tournament field. That is of course if they lose to UConn in that Quarterfinal.

[TheRevengeance]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

Scott is 100% right, but it's also 100% not worth the effort of running 28 tiebreakers for it, you already did more than enough.

[ScottK]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

I have no idea if the league would break ties the same way I did, but it makes sense to me to only break the additional ties within the tiebreaker.

It's my understanding that in a multi-team tiebreaker, you use the tiebreaker to get 1 team that wins, then start the whole process again. So in this case, you'd determine the #1 seed, then start it again as a 7-team tie, so the records you used to determine #1 won't be the same. After you determine which team comes out of that, you start all over again with a 6-team tie, etc...

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

Sacred Heart is committed to a new arena but is averaging about 500 at Webster Bank

So really I think Sacred Heart could be the best choice if they continue the success they are having this year.

Sacred Heart also has a women's team and might want both teams to join Hockey East if their men's team received an invitation to join.

Sean

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

In terms of proximity, RPI could work but I don't see that happening.

It's my understanding that RPI has twice declined an invitation to join Hockey East: one when the league was first formed and again before Vermont was invited to join.

Sean

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

Wouldn't this be fun?

Talk about everybody gets a trophy! Are teams listed in order of tiebreaker?

No, it is random. I am not going to try to figure out the tiebreakers.

I decided to take a look at this closer and quickly found at least four different ways this could happen. I then looked at the tiebreakers for each one. Scenario 1:



In this scenario the 8 way tie was broken using records vs the other 7 teams. UConn was awarded the #1 seed as they had the best winning percentage, PC was awarded the #2 seed, BC the #7 seed and UNH the #8 seed. The 4 way tie among the remaing teams was broken using records vs the other 3 teams. UMass was seeded #4, NU was seeded #5, BU #6 and Maine #7.

Scenario 2:



In this scenario the 8 way tie was broken using records vs the other 7 teams. UConn was awarded the #1 seed as they had the best winning percentage, PC was awarded the #2 seed, NU the #3 seed, UNH the #7 seed and BC the #8 seed. The 3 way tie among the remaing teams was broken using records vs the other 2 teams. UMass was awarded the #4 seed, then BU and Maine were compared head-to-head, which Maine won and was seeded #5 and BU #6.

Scenario 3:



In this scenario the 8 way tie was broken using records vs the other 7 teams. NU was awarded the #1 seed as they had the best winning percentage, UConn was awarded the #2 seed, PC the #3 seed, UNH the #7 seed and BC the #8 seed. The 3 way tie among the remaing teams was broken using records vs the other 2 teams. UMass was awarded the #4 seed, then BU and Maine were compared head-to-heaad, which Maine won and was seeded #5, with BU seeded #6.

Scenario 4:



In this scenario the 8 way tie was broken using records vs the other 7 teams. PC was awarded the #1 seed as they had the best winning percentage, NU was awarded the #2 seed, UConn the #3 seed, Maine the #6 seed, UNH the #7 seed and BC the #8 seed. The 2 way tie between BU and UMass was broken using the second tiebreaker. UMass was awarded the #4 seed due to more conference wins then BU, which was seeded #5.

I have no idea if the league would break ties the same way I did, but it makes sense to me to only break the additional ties within the tiebreaker. So, using my results and tiebreakers here are the possible seedings I have come up with:
Boston College - 7th or 8th
Boston University - 5th or 6th
Connecticut - 1st, 2nd or 3rd
Maine - 5th or 6th
Massachusetts - 3rd or 4th
New Hampshire - 7th or 8th
Northeastern - 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th
Providence - 1st, 2nd or 3rd

You can view the projected results I used to come up with the standings and tiebreakers here. If you do please let me know if you find any mistakes so I can correct them.

Sean

[Split-N]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

In terms of proximity, RPI could work but I don't see that happening.

Syracuse or URI would be ideal but I don't see either of those scenarios happening. Among existing programs, can't see QPac trading a conference where it can be a consistent power for a conference where it would be just one of the pack. Holy Cross seems dubious from resource and institutional commitment standpoints. If it can't support its once-dominant hoops program any better than it has, there's little reason to think it would do any better with hockey.

[J.D.]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

The only argument would be that right now there is an unbalanced schedule so whoever finishes 9th could have had a tougher schedule.

[Fishman'81]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

Respectfully disagree. This is the "Everyone Gets a Trophy" mentality at its worst. Yes, a good team is going to get left out in the cold but the drama that is now playing out in the standings give meaning and purpose to the regular season. Reasons for the players to being everything they have for every minute of every game and reasons for folks like us to be in the seats watching this unprecedented passion play unfold.

There you go.

The system as it exists is seriously stupid.

Does the RS simply exist to seed the extraneous conference tournaments?

(Apparently so.)

[J.D.]

Re: Hockey East: 2019/20 season is Joe Bertagna's last as commish

In terms of proximity, RPI could work but I don't see that happening.