Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2010-11 edition
Speaking of ties...
Every team in Hockey East has been involved in at least one, in fact two ties. That includes UVM, who has only been in the league for six years. Also at the bottom of the frequency chart is BC, who after twenty-six years in the league has tied only twice.
UMA and MC have been involved in three ties - twice with each other ('98 for 8th, '10 for 6th). Merrimack has won all three of their ties (also '09 with PC for 9th), while UMA has lost all three of theirs (also '99 with UML for 6th) and UVM has lost both of theirs ('07 with ME for 5th and '09 with UNH for 3rd).
NU has had four ties, while UML has had four as UML plus one as Lowell.
BU, ME, UNH and PC have all been in seven ties.
Even our tie frequencies are filled with ties...
BU and Maine have tied each other four times (the most recent also included UML), which is the most frequent pairing. BU has come out on top of all four of those and is 6-1 overall. The single BU tb loss was against PC for the final Home Ice slot in 02-03.
02-03 was also the only year that had three different sets of ties and the year that BC lost their only tb (to UNH for 1st). BC would later beat ME in a tie for 2nd in 05-06.
Maine has won every tie of theirs that wasn't against a Boston school (vs UVM for 5th in 06-07, vs PC for 2nd on 00-01, and vs UML for 4th once BU had taken 3rd in 09-10). That sounds a lot like Miami-Ohio's NCAA run in recent years.
UNH has tied six different teams (Lowell, NU, PC, BU X2, BC, UVM), while PC has also tied six (NU x2, UNH, UML, ME, BU, MC). That leaves UMA as the only team to have never tied either. In fact UMA has never tied any of the teams that have tied seven times. By contrast, BU has only been in ties with the other seven-timers (ME x 4, UNH x 2, PC x 1) with the note that one of the Maine ties also included UML.
UML/Lowell has won all four of their two-way ties (UNH '86, PC '93, UMA '99, NU '03), but was third of three in the only HE 3-way tie (BU, ME, UML). In '86 and '03, those ties were for last place and in '03, it extended UML's season into the quarterfinals.
There has never been a tie for 7th.
Since leaving the seven-team setup, there have been only four years without a tie somewhere in the final standings ('94, the last year with 8; '96 and '04, the second and second-to-last years with 9; and '08). In the five years with seven teams, three of those were tieless.
(No, I am not going to delve into the impact of interleague play with the WCHA on the seven-team format.)
In the 7, 8, 9 and 10-team configurations of the league, there has been a tie for last place four times. Once at 6th (UML over UNH in '86), twice at 8th (MC over UMA in '98 and UML over NU in '03), and once at 9th (MC and PC in '09). Since the tie-breakers are applied to assign seeds, I suppose that technically MC did not beat PC for 9th in '09 because both teams were out of the playoffs. There is no 9th or 10th seed in the current format, only 9th and 10th place. To illustrate the difference: Co-champions share 1st place (and are entitled to hang a banner), but one of them is a 2nd seed.
(Historical Note: In '97, UNH and BU were co-champs with BU getting the 1 seed and UNH the 2nd. UNH hung a banner for the RS title, but BU didn't because they didn't hang RS banners at the time. That resulted in a situation where the top seed didn't hang a banner, but the 2nd seed did. Now most teams hang group banners for RS titles and BU certainly lists 1997 on theirs.)
Each of the places that have been available for ties for the entire history of the league (1st through 6th) have had exactly three ties at their level, with the exception of five ties for 2nd place, which is the most.
Every tie for 4th has involved PC. (over UNH in '91, loss to UML in '93, over BU in '03).
Until '09, the only tie for 3rd was all the way back in the final year of the league's original seven-team alignment ('89: NU over PC). In '09 and '10, five different teams tied for 3rd place ('09: UNH over UVM, '10: BU over ME over UML).
Perhaps not surprisingly, all three ties for 1st were among the so-called "Big Four" and all four were involved ('95: BU over ME, '97: BU over UNH, '03: UNH over BC).
As for the five ties for second, nine of the ten slots have been occupied by the "Big Four" and Maine has been involved four times - with the one ME absence being in the consecutive years where each of the Big Four was involved once ('92: BU over ME, '01: ME over PC, '02: BU over ME, '05: BU over UNH, '06: BC over ME).
BC has never tied below 2nd, while UMA and MC have never tied above 6th.
Every BU tie has had involved Home Ice (1st x 2, 2nd x 3, 3rd and 4th). For the lower two, Home Ice was at risk, with BU avoiding 5th by topping the 3-way for 3rd and losing the 4th seed as previously mentioned.
Indicative of their long-term success, Maine's seven ties were for 1st, 2nd x 4, 3rd and 5th. Perhaps illustrating how PC's fortunes have changed over the years, their ties were for 3rd, 4th, 4th, ... 5th, 2nd, 4th, ... and 9th. ('89, '91, '93, ... '00, '01, '03, ... '09, respectively).
