Hockey East future tournament structure

[Craig P.]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

Like AHA and ECAC, right? I like this plan best, but not sure how 2013-2014 would shake out with the odd number 11 teams. I guess that the bottom three regular season teams should be out that year.

That's the CCHA format, both as a 12-team league (top four get byes, two weeks of best-of-three series to cull to four teams) and an 11-team league (top five get byes, two weeks of best-of-three series to cull to four teams).

It's seemed to work pretty well. Obviously, it's not as nervewracking to play for home ice instead of just making the tournament at all, but we did take getting home ice seriously.

 

[ScottK]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

I favor doing away with playoffs and just extending the season and awarding the actual winner over the 25 plus conference season--I mean why should the 1st loser get a second bite at the apple? But I know that isn't happening. just guessing but I would be pretty surprised if at the end of the day they leave anyone out. Here's the model I see: Teams to be re-seeded after each of the 1st 2 rounds based on regular season finish. Round 1: 5-12,6-11, 7-10, 8-9. Reseed winners if necessary Round 2: 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. Semi-finals: re-seed and #1-4, #2-3. Finals: 1-2. re-seeding after each round has the effect of giving more meaning to the regular season, at least a bit and avoids the situation where the rs champ has a tougher road to the finals than the 3rd palce team. It also makes it tougher for the lower regular season finishers to progress. If the 12 wins round 1, it gets reseeded as an 8 and has to play the top team in the 2nd round rather than #4. To me that is as it should be.

Using this logic, we should do away with at-large bids for the NCAA tournament as well. After all, if you can't win your league, you don't deserve to keep playing, right?

 

[brassbonanza]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

Using this logic, we should do away with at-large bids for the NCAA tournament as well. After all, if you can't win your league, you don't deserve to keep playing, right?

You could go further and say just get rid of the NCAA tournament and have the two best teams after the regular season play each other, since it's all about the regular season, right? That structure seems to have worked well elsewhere...

Give me exciting postseason conference or national tournament games with endless OT any day over regular season games with increased relevance that end in a ties.

 

[kingdobbs]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

That's the CCHA format, both as a 12-team league (top four get byes, two weeks of best-of-three series to cull to four teams) and an 11-team league (top five get byes, two weeks of best-of-three series to cull to four teams).

It's seemed to work pretty well. Obviously, it's not as nervewracking to play for home ice instead of just making the tournament at all, but we did take getting home ice seriously.

It's also a system that is easy to sell to your members from a financial standpoint, because 8 of the 12 teams are guaranteed a 2-3 game home series.

 

[mookie1995]

At UConn's press conference today announcing the HE move, the president of the XL Center said he was going to bid on the HET. He can have fun with that one. They can't even keep an AHL team there!

Mookie no wanna go Hartford. Mookie has everything he wants in providence. That is where mookie will go.

 

[Jim]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

The AHL was more of a sarcastic jab. The point is, it ain't moving to Hartford, that's just a pipedream pump-up statement from the XL guy trying to make that irrelevant arena seem a bit more relevant. 80% of the current league can take a train into the basement of the Garden. 30% of the league can practically see the Garden from their dorm window. Why move it to a place where one of 12 teams can easily get there?

Don't disagree, hence my comment about bidding on anything! Look, in these kind of events, people make all kinds of statemnts to pump up the event and the audience. Just like somebody probably from BC took umbrage at Susan Herbst's statement about hoping ot beat thme, this was aimed at making the future seem bright. At some point we probably will beat BC. At some point maybe the XL Center will bid on the Hockey East Finals. We will beat BC...eventually. The XL's bid being successful is less likely...But it gave the even a bit of excitement.

 

[Patman]

It's also a system that is easy to sell to your members from a financial standpoint, because 8 of the 12 teams are guaranteed a 2-3 game home series.

This is true and if the league schedule shrinks then i would have to think a plurality will go for it.

 

[UMLFan]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

This is true and if the league schedule shrinks then i would have to think a plurality will go for it.

I also wonder with only a 22 game regular season in league play going forward (once UConn joins in), how much more of a cluster F the regular season standings will be with 12 teams mixed in.

 

[RSTuthill]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

Why move it to a place where one of 12 teams can easily get there?

Price.

 

[brassbonanza]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

Price.

Hartford/XL has money to give to HE? And when NESN decides it doesn't want to take its HD production (which is already set up in Boston for the Bruins) to Hartford and NBC Sports decides it doesn't want to televise from a one-third full crap hole of arena, that'll end that story right there. It's not happening. Providence is a slight maybe, Hartford is an absolute no. They'd go to Worcester long before Hartford.

 

[brassbonanza]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

It's also a system that is easy to sell to your members from a financial standpoint, because 8 of the 12 teams are guaranteed a 2-3 game home series.

The problem is it cuts the regular season short one week, the CCHA ends the last week of February. It also gives the teams with the bye a lengthy two week layoff, which has proven in the CCHA to lead to some upsets because of the extra off time.

 

[kingdobbs]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

The AHL was more of a sarcastic jab. The point is, it ain't moving to Hartford, that's just a pipedream pump-up statement from the XL guy trying to make that irrelevant arena seem a bit more relevant. 80% of the current league can take a train into the basement of the Garden. 30% of the league can practically see the Garden from their dorm window. Why move it to a place where one of 12 teams can easily get there?

Although, let's not pretend that Hartford is some inaccessible place on the far edges of the frontier. It's still basically a two hour drive from anywhere in the league except for NDame, UVM, UNH and Maine (and three of those four, that's true for Boston anyway).

Focus on the real flaws of the XL center, like the fact that it's an outdated dump that needed to be replaced twenty years ago.

 

[brassbonanza]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

Although, let's not pretend that Hartford is some inaccessible place on the far edges of the frontier. It's still basically a two hour drive from anywhere in the league except for NDame, UVM, UNH and Maine (and three of those four, that's true for Boston anyway).

Focus on the real flaws of the XL center, like the fact that it's an outdated dump that needed to be replaced twenty years ago.

Yes, but what you're doing is exchanging a place that's accessible by a $2 20 minute subway ride into the basement for 30% of the league, a <$10 <one hour train ride into the basement for another 30% of the league, and an Amtrak into the basement ride for another 20% of the league, and replacing it with a venue that's two hours FURTHER away for everyone except UMass and UVM, (who have larger alumni bases in Boston than Hartford) the 20% that already needed a car in the first place! You also will lose all student attendance from the Boston schools as well as the suburb/Downeaster Amtrak schools since most don't have cars. ND has to fly no matter what, and they have more alums in Boston than Hartford anyway, and UConn still would have to drive into Hartford, so moving it to Hartford more or less benefits no one.

This in addition to your correct points about the physical state of the XL Center. Simply put, it's not happening. While Hartford isn't actually a geographical outlier, if you compare accessibility to XL versus the Garden, it may as well be in California.

 

[Chris_NH]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

Although, let's not pretend that Hartford is some inaccessible place on the far edges of the frontier.

Well, it IS populated with people who root for the Red Sox AND Yankees, which is like saying you like cod liver oil on your Frosted Flakes. So, 'far edges of the frontier' isn't a bad metaphor.

 

[REDMEN2002]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

hartford will never host the hockey east tournament.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

Yes, but what you're doing is exchanging a place that's accessible by a $2 20 minute subway ride into the basement for 30% of the league, a <$10 <one hour train ride into the basement for another 30% of the league, and an Amtrak into the basement ride for another 20% of the league, and replacing it with a venue that's two hours FURTHER away for everyone except UMass and UVM, (who have larger alumni bases in Boston than Hartford) the 20% that already needed a car in the first place! You also will lose all student attendance from the Boston schools as well as the suburb/Downeaster Amtrak schools since most don't have cars. ND has to fly no matter what, and they have more alums in Boston than Hartford anyway, and UConn still would have to drive into Hartford, so moving it to Hartford more or less benefits no one.

This in addition to your correct points about the physical state of the XL Center. Simply put, it's not happening. While Hartford isn't actually a geographical outlier, if you compare accessibility to XL versus the Garden, it may as well be in California.

what y'all are not bringing up is will jacobs give hea three nights? if hea wants to get as much volume out of 12 (or 14? how many teams will there be? ;P) they can certainly go the way of a final 5 and have three nights worth of games (play in, semi finals, finals).

so if the bruins schedule their traditional thursday night game, that precludes hea from having a final five. hello DD center or XL center.

(plus, god forbid, the day comes when bc and bu are not regular fixtures in the hea finals weekend. you COULD have four teams who are looking for hotel rooms regardless if it is boston, providence, worcester, or hartford. as it is now mainers and uhn'ers are big buyers of tickets and a majority of them don't drive home every night. if nd makes it, and through in a wildcard of uvm/uconn/umass one day it is not a T token and it becomes easier to shack up.)

but again, will jacobs commit to three nights? wouldn't have surprised me if joe has wondered/talk to them about it, and suggested to the uconn folks that if things work out a certain way, he'd be open to hartford

 

[brassbonanza]

what y'all are not bringing up is will jacobs give hea three nights? if hea wants to get as much volume out of 12 (or 14? how many teams will there be? ;P) they can certainly go the way of a final 5 and have three nights worth of games (play in, semi finals, finals).

so if the bruins schedule their traditional thursday night game, that precludes hea from having a final five. hello DD center or XL center.

(plus, god forbid, the day comes when bc and bu are not regular fixtures in the hea finals weekend. you COULD have four teams who are looking for hotel rooms regardless if it is boston, providence, worcester, or hartford. as it is now mainers and uhn'ers are big buyers of tickets and a majority of them don't drive home every night. if nd makes it, and through in a wildcard of uvm/uconn/umass one day it is not a T token and it becomes easier to shack up.)

but again, will jacobs commit to three nights? wouldn't have surprised me if joe has wondered/talk to them about it, and suggested to the uconn folks that if things work out a certain way, he'd be open to hartford

You're counting on unh to win games in March?

 

[Yuppie Scum]

Hartford/XL has money to give to HE? And when NESN decides it doesn't want to take its HD production (which is already set up in Boston for the Bruins) to Hartford and NBC Sports decides it doesn't want to televise from a one-third full crap hole of arena, that'll end that story right there. It's not happening. Providence is a slight maybe, Hartford is an absolute no. They'd go to Worcester long before Hartford.

If they can broadcast HD from the Lawler, they can broadcast it from anywhere. HD camera gear has to be getting dirt cheap by now anyway.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

You're counting on unh to win games in March?

march? sure
april??????

 

[Patman]

Re: Hockey East future tournament structure

hartford will never host the hockey east tournament.

no, but if it forces the garden to spend more it can't be that bad