New WCHA is dead

[moose97]

Re: New WCHA is dead

The Anderson Centre seats 2,000. Your link says that gym is 1,800. But is that like comparing it to Ewigleben at FSU? What are the other capacities in the Horizon League?

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You keep saying Horizon, but its the Summit that has been helping UST. PFW is leaving the Summit for the Horizon leaving a spot for UST. Also, technically, PFW plays a handful of games at the 10k seat Ft Wayne Coliseum each year, but they're definitely 3rd or 4th on the priority list behind the ECHL & D-league teams plus concerts

 

[MavHockey14]

any given Sunday rule.

Right. North Dakota lost to Omaha at home, for example.

 

[cF[Authentic]]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Right. North Dakota lost to Omaha at home, for example.

Exactly. Except UND's lost to Omaha isn't a pairwise killer compared to the top teams in the WCHA losing to the bottom ones. Only one team in the NCHC has a losing non-conference record. 7 in the WCHA have losing records and three have zero wins. Those are going to drag down teams in conference.

The new CCHA is going to have bottom feeders in conference play, but if they can go 7-3-0 in non-con like perennial bottom feeder CC did this year, a win over a top team isn't going to drop them.

 

[MTUHuskies]

Re: New WCHA is dead

You keep saying Horizon, but its the Summit that has been helping UST.

My mistake. I honestly don't pay that much attention to non-hockey conferences and I got them mixed up.

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[moose97]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Exactly. Except UND's lost to Omaha isn't a pairwise killer compared to the top teams in the WCHA losing to the bottom ones. Only one team in the NCHC has a losing non-conference record. 7 in the WCHA have losing records and three have zero wins. Those are going to drag down teams in conference.

The new CCHA is going to have bottom feeders in conference play, but if they can go 7-3-0 in non-con like perennial bottom feeder CC did this year, a win over a top team isn't going to drop them.

You mean like how Bemidji State went 0-5-1 OOC & is #12 in the Pairwise?

 

[moose97]

Re: New WCHA is dead

My mistake. I honestly don't pay that much attention to non-hockey conferences and I got them mixed up.

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I honestly don't pay attention either. I'm just bitter that PFW is losing the Dakota schools for teams I don't care about

 

[manurespreader]

Re: New WCHA is dead

cF is mostly right, but I'd like to make a few other points.
If any number 1 team plays as many games against the bottom 10 in the pairwise as we do they are likely to lose 1 or 2. Not that they should but the disparity isn't that big in college hockey.
Second, I'm sure pairwise is a factor in the Cowardly 7 leaving but it's not the main reason. the main reason is the travel costs.
Third, look at cc's record non con.
they beat AF twice, They beat Princeton twice, the beat St . Lawrence, they split with Michigan State, They split with Minnesota and they lost to Dartmouth.

Our league schedules al these games against NcHc teams and wonders why we have a losing record. Maybe we could play the ECAC more often.

 

[cF[Authentic]]

Re: New WCHA is dead

You mean like how Bemidji State went 0-5-1 OOC & is #12 in the Pairwise?

They went 0-4-2 btw.

But Bemidji is a great example. If you flip the win at LSSU to a loss, they drop to 17. Do the same at NMU and they're 17. It's such a tight window for WCHA teams because they don't have as many options for quality win bonus.

 

[moose97]

Re: New WCHA is dead

They went 0-4-2 btw.

But Bemidji is a great example. If you flip the win at LSSU to a loss, they drop to 17. Do the same at NMU and they're 17. It's such a tight window for WCHA teams because they don't have as many options for quality win bonus.

I largely agree with you, btw, and I misremembered the SCSC weekend. But either way, the NCHC is the one who formed their conference over Pairwise concerns. The nCCHA is, as mentioned, not about the Pairwise. Its about travel costs

 

[thebrain]

Re: New WCHA is dead

@thebrain - what are the odds they play football at the new MLS soccer stadium? Isn't that just down the road?

I think it's an option. I'm not sure if Allianz Field has big enough locker room space for DI football teams and if the turf could hold up. The LA Chargers did just play three seasons at an MLS field, but LA has better weather. Maybe after a couple of summers the turf at Allianz will be better than it was in the first year. To be fair, the construction company forgot to remove a drain cap so the turf was removed in September and replaced right before the UST-SJU game. The field's drainage should now be better.

If UST does go to the Pioneer League, I think their current stadium will be fine. Current stadium capacity ranges between 5,000 to 14,557, according to Wikipedia

 

[cF[Authentic]]

Re: New WCHA is dead

I largely agree with you, btw, and I misremembered the SCSC weekend. But either way, the NCHC is the one who formed their conference over Pairwise concerns. The nCCHA is, as mentioned, not about the Pairwise. Its about travel costs

I'm partially in agreement about creation of the NCHC over Pairwise concerns but it's more of a result that a specific reason.

It was a financial resources decision. The schools that created the NCHC have a history of prioritizing hockey over other sports. And they followed that up with significant monetary support. When the B1G was announced, that left an even number of rich vs less rich schools. The rich schools were seeing they were losing the pull they were used to in the WCHA and they didn't want to be controlled by schools that weren't as interested in increased travel costs, bigger budgets, and more expenses.

Generally, yes you can say that those less rich schools are going to traditionally be lower in the pairwise. Year-to-year, that's usually the case, although there are obviously going to be exceptions each year as teams fluctuate and do well.

 

[Numbers]

Re: New WCHA is dead

I'm partially in agreement about creation of the NCHC over Pairwise concerns but it's more of a result that a specific reason.

It was a financial resources decision. The schools that created the NCHC have a history of prioritizing hockey over other sports. And they followed that up with significant monetary support. When the B1G was announced, that left an even number of rich vs less rich schools. The rich schools were seeing they were losing the pull they were used to in the WCHA and they didn't want to be controlled by schools that weren't as interested in increased travel costs, bigger budgets, and more expenses.

Generally, yes you can say that those less rich schools are going to traditionally be lower in the pairwise. Year-to-year, that's usually the case, although there are obviously going to be exceptions each year as teams fluctuate and do well.

I agree with this. The above example about Bemidji moving from 12 to 17 (or whatever it is) by flipping one win to a loss......That's going to happen with almost any school in the 10-20 range. The problem isn't a loss against a lower team. The RPI calculation doesn't distinguish between these 2 things:
1) Win at home at #20 in the RPI, loss at home against #59 in the RPI or...
2) Loss at home against #20, win against #59.

The real issue there is that margins are soooo tight in that range of the RPI. Basically, wherever you are right now, if your RPI is between .52 and .535, and you win your next 2 games, your RPI will rise to about .53 or .545. So, there really isn't much conclusion which can be formed about that.

Now, in general, the WCHA teams right now will start the conference season lower in the PWR rankings, because of the usual sub-.500 non-con record. So, there is 'drag' on the top schools because the lower schools don't have as good of results. But, it's not the losses, per se, which pull the Mankato's and Bemidji's down. It's the schedule in the first place.

And, that is a discussion for the 'accounting guys', because the reality is that all the tiny tweeks in the RPI calc are more evidence that it's a poor system. As has been said on this site numerous times, the best system would be a modified KRACH (I call it the Bradley-Terry method), with the further parameter of a nationwide home-ice advantage. And, you can find that under KASA on the RPI (the school) website.

However, as stated above, the move by NCHC wasn't because of PWR. It was because of being the schools which emphasize hockey to the extent they do...

 

[Lost_Husky]

Re: New WCHA is dead

The biggest problem for the Selective Seven is that they're not good enough to destroy UAH and UAA. Want to not hurt your PWR? Finish the job.

It hasn't been a problem for Minnesota State to drill UAH game after game. It wasn't for Tech until they began to lose their edge.

Bowling Green gave a truly terrible UAH team their first WCHA win. Bemidji State gave them their second.

There's a reason that the WCHA isn't that great — its best teams aren't good enough to withstand losing to one of the truly terrible teams in this league.

UAH has sucked for 15 years, outside of last season. The run of 20 losses is unending; they'll hit 30 this year unless they do another sniper job. And yet UAH picks off a second-tier WCHA team or two every season.

Do the incoming CCHA teams think that beating the crap out of each other is going to fly? That having LSSU and FSU to kick around is going to be enough? These people have never had a mathematics book with them in the same room for the last decade, much less had one hit them upside of the head or attempt a rectal incursion, both of which are sorely needed.

[Note: if you accept UAH as the eighth team, I'll delete this post.]

GFM

This is hockey. Rarely does a team, even a horrid team, go 0-fer on the season. Every league is going to have its bottom feeder(s).

Tech fans know what it is like to be in UAH's situation and know a thing or two about math. The rest of the CCHA-7 thinks 2 plus 2 always makes 5.

 

[4four4]

Re: New WCHA is dead

@thebrain - what are the odds they play football at the new MLS soccer stadium? Isn't that just down the road?

Zero. The Loons fanbase would be livid if Minnesota United decided to have a renter on their ground. A game is one thing but a whole schedule is another animal. I may be wrong but I don't see it happening.

 

[moose97]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Zero. The Loons fanbase would be livid if Minnesota United decided to have a renter on their ground. A game is one thing but a whole schedule is another animal. I may be wrong but I don't see it happening.

Yes, because decisions are made based on what fans want. If its financially beneficial enough for them to resod the field 6 times a year and host UST football, the fans will just have to get over it.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Also… no more D-II play ups unless the NCAA reclassifies hockey like they did with the women’s side.

Where are you getting this? DII playups are allowed in hockey because NCAA doesn't sponsor a championship unless Im missing some rule change?

 

[UncleRay]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Where are you getting this? DII playups are allowed in hockey because NCAA doesn't sponsor a championship unless Im missing some rule change?

I think that's a grandfather issue. The more appropriate statement may have been that no additional DII playups will be allowed.

 

[amkirby10]

Where are you getting this? DII playups are allowed in hockey because NCAA doesn't sponsor a championship unless Im missing some rule change?

Didn't they change that a while ago, that you can only participate in the D1 championship if you're a full D1 school now unless you've been grandfathered in?

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: New WCHA is dead

My problem with this is that even bad teams win games...when the rest of the conference plays the bottom 60+ times, the bottom is bound to win 6+ times minimum. Going 4-0 against a bad team is hard. And when a conference consistently has 3 teams in the bottom 10 in pairwise and the rest of the country has 30 games against those teams and the WCHA has 84, its going to hurt because all those wins count very little in PWR and a loss is crushing.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: New WCHA is dead

Didn't they change that a while ago, that you can only participate in the D1 championship if you're a full D1 school now unless you've been grandfathered in?

for D3, not for D2...because NCAA doesn't support a D2 Hockey Championship, NCAA can't stop a D2 school from starting a D1 hockey team.