The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

[SamluvstheBears]

Perhaps the time has come to limit the amount of bids the EC-Easy conference gets each year. Perhaps one bid is all they deserve. Last night their conference champion got run ruled by UNH and we can all expect the same result today when Yale gets thrashed by North Dakota.

How many EC-Easy teams have advanced to the Frozen Four over the past 20 years? You can count them all on two hands. When did the last EC-Easy program win a NCAA title? I believe that was Harvard in 1989 if my memory serves. I know we have what's become a silly way to select teams for the NCAA hockey tourney (PWR's) but how many of the other NCAA sports use a flawed mathmatical system to select their teams for the post-season? Other NCAA D1 sports have a selection committee who use all kinds of different methods to select the teams that truly deserve to be playing in their tournament.

Perhaps the day has arrived that D1 hockey goes back to their past and gets it right. A selection committee looks at the big picture of who truly belongs in the tournament and then seeds accordingly. Maybe the time has come to re-think neutral sights for NCAA regionals as well. Attendence yesterday was aweful at both regional venues. Maybe they should increase the field and play two weekends best-two-out-three with the first round winners, playing at on campus sights, advancing to pre-determined neutral sights the following week? This year would have been a great year to increase the field to 20 teams because teams like Ferris State, Minnesota-Duluth and Maine deserved to be playing in this tourney over teams like Vermont, Yale, or Alaska.

Just my opinion, I welcome yours!

 

[acs64]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Perhaps the time has come to limit the amount of bids the EC-Easy conference gets each year. Perhaps one bid is all they deserve. Last night their conference champion got run ruled by UNH and we can all expect the same result today when Yale gets thrashed by North Dakota.

How many EC-Easy teams have advanced to the Frozen Four over the past 20 years? You can count them all on two hands. When did the last EC-Easy program win a NCAA title? I believe that was Harvard in 1989 if my memory serves. I know we have what's become a silly way to select teams for the NCAA hockey tourney (PWR's) but how many of the other NCAA sports use a flawed mathmatical system to select their teams for the post-season? Other NCAA D1 sports have a selection committee who use all kinds of different methods to select the teams that truly deserve to be playing in their tournament.

Perhaps the day has arrived that D1 hockey goes back to their past and gets it right. A selection committee looks at the big picture of who truly belongs in the tournament and then seeds accordingly. Maybe the time has come to re-think neutral sights for NCAA regionals as well. Attendence yesterday was aweful at both regional venues. Maybe they should increase the field and play two weekends best-two-out-three with the first round winners, playing at on campus sights, advancing to pre-determined neutral sights the following week? This year would have been a great year to increase the field to 20 teams because teams like Ferris State, Minnesota-Duluth and Maine deserved to be playing in this tourney over teams like Vermont, Yale, or Alaska.

Just my opinion, I welcome yours!

Nope, we dont need or want smoke filled rooms where teams are selected . Have to take peoples opinions out of the equation entirely or you really open up a can of worms.....must be a strictly mechanical system where everyone knows the rules going in. Simple math. Maine effed themselves by losing critical ooc games.

 

[Kenny L Parker]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Perhaps the time has come to limit the amount of bids the EC-Easy conference gets each year. Perhaps one bid is all they deserve. Last night their conference champion got run ruled by UNH and we can all expect the same result today when Yale gets thrashed by North Dakota.

How many EC-Easy teams have advanced to the Frozen Four over the past 20 years? You can count them all on two hands. When did the last EC-Easy program win a NCAA title? I believe that was Harvard in 1989 if my memory serves. I know we have what's become a silly way to select teams for the NCAA hockey tourney (PWR's) but how many of the other NCAA sports use a flawed mathmatical system to select their teams for the post-season? Other NCAA D1 sports have a selection committee who use all kinds of different methods to select the teams that truly deserve to be playing in their tournament.

Perhaps the day has arrived that D1 hockey goes back to their past and gets it right. A selection committee looks at the big picture of who truly belongs in the tournament and then seeds accordingly. Maybe the time has come to re-think neutral sights for NCAA regionals as well. Attendence yesterday was aweful at both regional venues. Maybe they should increase the field and play two weekends best-two-out-three with the first round winners, playing at on campus sights, advancing to pre-determined neutral sights the following week? This year would have been a great year to increase the field to 20 teams because teams like Ferris State, Minnesota-Duluth and Maine deserved to be playing in this tourney over teams like Vermont, Yale, or Alaska.

Just my opinion, I welcome yours!

You're entitled to your opinion, but it would carry weight if you could back it up with facts and logic. I don't think you can.

Here are some of mine:

-- In the old days you long for, only conference champions made the tournament. 4 teams, no at-large bids.

-- Increasing to 20 teams would dilute the tournament even more than it currently is (16 out of 58 teams is ~28%). In fact, we're likely to see the tournament cut back to 12 teams sometime soon.

-- Granted, Cornell *hit the bed last night. But even if you ditch PWR, I challenge you to come up with a "smoke-filled room" argument whereby Cornell should not have received an invitation. They beat UNH soundly on the road this year and split with UND. Last year they split with UND and beat St. Cloud St. They've had good success against HE over the past few years in general (e.g., BU).

-- Maine, the team you say should have taken the ECAC's bid, lost twice to Union College this year.

-- Ferris State's schedule was incredibly weak. The one legit non-conference game they played was against Yale and they were smoked 6-1.

I could go on, but I will await your logical, fact-based response. Nobody's saying that the ECAC is as strong as WCHA or HE, but one could extend your flawed argument to state that Denver should not get a bid (several straight first-round exits) and St. Cloud should be barred (no NCAA wins - oh wait!).

 

[jcarter7669]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Nope, we dont need or want smoke filled rooms where teams are selected . Have to take peoples opinions out of the equation entirely or you really open up a can of worms.....must be a strictly mechanical system where everyone knows the rules going in. Simple math. Maine effed themselves by losing critical ooc games.

I concur totally. And frankly these arguments are getting tiresome. Limit the number of ECAC bids?? Really?? Two ECAC teams played enough games to get into the tourney. Same with UVM, they played enough top quality teams to make the tourney, and they gave Wisco a run for their money. To say they or any other team doesn't deserve to be there comes off as sour grapes. Every team has some good games and some slumps, its going to happen over 30+ games. But a "selection committee" is an entirely subjective and that is bad. The PWR for better or worse are straightforward and completely open for all to see. Each and everyteam knows exactly what they need to do, every fan knows if their team makes it or not, and there really can be little whining after. Scratch that. There really should be little whining after.

Subjectivity does not garner faith in a system. Objectivity does. You don't like the outcome that's fine, but it's not a reason to throw the whole system out. RIT probably didn't "deserve" a shot, but they just beat DU and are moving on. Its that simple.

I would rather all 58 teams play it out (#1 v. #58, #2 v. #57, etc )then to let some committee draw names out of hat to determine whose in and whose out.

 

[critsports]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Perhaps the time has come to limit the amount of bids the EC-Easy conference gets each year. Perhaps one bid is all they deserve. Last night their conference champion got run ruled by UNH and we can all expect the same result today when Yale gets thrashed by North Dakota.

How many EC-Easy teams have advanced to the Frozen Four over the past 20 years? You can count them all on two hands.

Just my opinion, I welcome yours!

Actually if we could count them all on two hands in 20 years that would be a prety good result........there is no denying that the ECAC is not one of the premier conferences........to start they have the highest academic standards to get most of the kids into the universities to begin with but that doesn't mean the hockey isn't good or deserving.

Your lucky Union didn't upset Cornelll in the ECAC finals or there would have been 3 ECAC teams in the tournament. To me the tougher result this year which the rules the way they are set up allow (Conference Winnners advance to the NCAA tournament) was how the CHA with only 4 teams got two into the tournament. But hey......that's the way the rules are set up and we have to live by them.

And if you think Yale isn't a deserving team then your knowledge of hockey is very limited. They smoked the Ferris State team that you think should have gotten in at a neutral site 6-1 and the next night tied Wisconson (at Wisconson) and manhandled, out played and out shot the Badgers by a wide margin in a 2-2 tie. Maybe North Dakota will blow them out as their season ended on a downer losing their best player Backman to an off ice ankle injury but I will say one thing unequivocally........if Scrivens from Cornell or even one of the other top ECAC goalies played for Yale they would be a lock for the Frozen Four and could win the whole thing.

And if you still think your argument holds any water......please explain to me RIT's win over Denver last night???

The current selection system may not be perfect but it's come a long way since things did get done in a smoke filled room and only 4 teams were invited to the Broodmoor and many decisions were made about who went that were far less deserving than the system we employ today.

Both Yale and Cornell deserve to be there based on their results in and out of conference (also don't forget the Ivies have a schedule restriction) that doesn't allow for as early a start nor as many games which tends to limit somewhat their out of conference options.

 

[e.cat]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Perhaps the time has come to limit the amount of bids the EC-Easy conference gets each year. Perhaps one bid is all they deserve. Last night their conference champion got run ruled by UNH and we can all expect the same result today when Yale gets thrashed by North Dakota.

How many EC-Easy teams have advanced to the Frozen Four over the past 20 years? You can count them all on two hands. When did the last EC-Easy program win a NCAA title? I believe that was Harvard in 1989 if my memory serves. I know we have what's become a silly way to select teams for the NCAA hockey tourney (PWR's) but how many of the other NCAA sports use a flawed mathmatical system to select their teams for the post-season? Other NCAA D1 sports have a selection committee who use all kinds of different methods to select the teams that truly deserve to be playing in their tournament.

Perhaps the day has arrived that D1 hockey goes back to their past and gets it right. A selection committee looks at the big picture of who truly belongs in the tournament and then seeds accordingly. Maybe the time has come to re-think neutral sights for NCAA regionals as well. Attendence yesterday was aweful at both regional venues. Maybe they should increase the field and play two weekends best-two-out-three with the first round winners, playing at on campus sights, advancing to pre-determined neutral sights the following week? This year would have been a great year to increase the field to 20 teams because teams like Ferris State, Minnesota-Duluth and Maine deserved to be playing in this tourney over teams like Vermont, Yale, or Alaska.

Just my opinion, I welcome yours!

I used to harbor resentment directed at the ECAC after Hockey East spun off but not anymore. No to selection by committee. No to playing NCAA games on campus sites. No to expanding the field. The system we have now is working just fine and if the ECAC gets two or three or four teams in the tournamnent based on their rankings then good for them.

 

[BoSox3066]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

The ECAC flops in the tournament year after year. They have the same number of NCAA wins as Atlantic Hockey since 2007.

The league is big enough and talented enough to prop up each other's RPI and that usually is enough to grab someone a fradulent 1 seed (Clarkson 2007) and prop a few more teams in.

That said, I have no idea how to fix it. Maybe KRACH? Cornell was 17th there, and rated as the 37th best sked in the country.

No smoke filled rooms. The "answer" is to simply remember history and not get suckered into picking ECAC teams in your bracket. I can't believe the number of people who were surprised by last night's result.

 

[thecomicbookguy]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

My question is why you went with "EC-Easy" when the standard, and much less convoluted "EZAC" would have worked just fine.

 

[Brett Gobe]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

It's EZAC, at least keep your letter changing insults consistent.

 

[Union93]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

12 team league. 7 offer no athletic scholarships. 6 are Ivies. Union, RPI and Colgate don't exactly admit every hack who can skate and Clarkson and SLU aren't exactly community colleges either. Yet every year, the league posts some impressive out of conference wins and sends players to the NHL.

Screw it, lets just take teams from the WCHA, CCHA and HE. Sorry RIT. Sorry Bemidji- no Frozen Four for you last year, and you didn't beat and #3 seed (yes, the ECAC's own Cornell) to get there in the Regional Final. Hey Holy Cross, you actually never did beat Minnesota and that Michigan W over Air Force last year was a real snoozer.

Actually, why am I wasting my time with this? The ECAC regular season champ and the conference champ got into the tournament this year. How can anyone possibly complain about that?

 

[walrus]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Wouldn't it be, Easy-AC. Why read anything else when you screw that up

 

[BoSox3066]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Screw it, lets just take teams from the WCHA, CCHA and HE. Sorry RIT. Sorry Bemidji- no Frozen Four for you last year, and you didn't beat and #3 seed (yes, the ECAC's own Cornell) to get there in the Regional Final. Hey Holy Cross, you actually never did beat Minnesota and that Michigan W over Air Force last year was a real snoozer.

That's the point genius. The AHA is having more success in the NCAA tournament than the mighty ECAC of late.

 

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Actually, why am I wasting my time with this? The ECAC regular season champ and the conference champ got into the tournament this year. How can anyone possibly complain about that?

No matter what the selection process is, people will complain. The ECAC received the bids that they earned, same with every other conference in Division I.

Now, what they do with those bids can be up for discussion, but as far as limiting bids for poor performance...well, I'm glad they didn't implement that, because after last year, the WCHA probably would have only placed 1 or 2 teams

 

[SamluvstheBears]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

You're entitled to your opinion, but it would carry weight if you could back it up with facts and logic. I don't think you can.

Here are some of mine:

-- In the old days you long for, only conference champions made the tournament. 4 teams, no at-large bids.

-- Increasing to 20 teams would dilute the tournament even more than it currently is (16 out of 58 teams is ~28%). In fact, we're likely to see the tournament cut back to 12 teams sometime soon.

-- Granted, Cornell *hit the bed last night. But even if you ditch PWR, I challenge you to come up with a "smoke-filled room" argument whereby Cornell should not have received an invitation. They beat UNH soundly on the road this year and split with UND. Last year they split with UND and beat St. Cloud St. They've had good success against HE over the past few years in general (e.g., BU).

-- Maine, the team you say should have taken the ECAC's bid, lost twice to Union College this year.

-- Ferris State's schedule was incredibly weak. The one legit non-conference game they played was against Yale and they were smoked 6-1.

I could go on, but I will await your logical, fact-based response. Nobody's saying that the ECAC is as strong as WCHA or HE, but one could extend your flawed argument to state that Denver should not get a bid (several straight first-round exits) and St. Cloud should be barred (no NCAA wins - oh wait!).

Actually Cornell would have received the ECAC automatic bid because they won the conference post-season title. It would have been Yale that would have been out. I think Minnesota-Duluth or Ferris State should have taken their spot until the EC-Easy improved how they play in the NCAA tournament.
I agree that the OOC schedule of Ferris State was horrible other then Yale, but they do play a much better league in the CCHA then does Yale and I think night in and night out if Cornell or Yale played in the WCHA, CCHA or Hockey East we wouldn't even be discussing them being in the NCAA tourney! Finishing #3 in the CCHA should count for more then it did.

As for Maine they had to many issues early and late to be seriously considered and even if they had gotten in via the PWR's a committee could decide that because Maine was playing with their #3 goalie to finish the season that perhaps an at-large bid wasn't the right thing to do. However, I'm sure a lot of #1 seeds, like Wisconsin, were happier to see UVM in that first game instead of Maine. Even with their #3 goaltender playing instead of Scott Darling.

 

[SamluvstheBears]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

No matter what the selection process is, people will complain. The ECAC received the bids that they earned, same with every other conference in Division I.

Now, what they do with those bids can be up for discussion, but as far as limiting bids for poor performance...well, I'm glad they didn't implement that, because after last year, the WCHA probably would have only placed 1 or 2 teams

Fighting Sioux 23, you should be very happy that the ECAC gets more then one bid very shortly. If the UND plays well today you'll be able to go to bed early and start dreaming of playing a much better opponent tommorrow and perhaps the Frozen Four. Thank you PWR's for letting Yale into the dance. That will be like a bye for UND!

 

[Got 6 Want More]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Fighting Sioux 23, you should be very happy that the ECAC gets more then one bid very shortly. If the UND plays well today you'll be able to go to bed early and start dreaming of playing a much better opponent tommorrow and perhaps the Frozen Four. Thank you PWR's for letting Yale into the dance. That will be like a bye for UND!

Any ECACHL fans who dignify this with a response should be tethered to a tree and beaten senseless with a wet noodle. A better question is how a former ECAC team made the tourney when they had to win the last weekend of the RS to even make the Hockey East Tourney. Maybe we should just forbid upsets while we are at it. I mean RIT had zero non-conference wins all season until last night when they bounced the WCHA regular season champ.

 

[DisplacedCornellian]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Any ECACHL fans who dignify this with a response should be tethered to a tree and beaten senseless with a wet noodle.

Oh, the irony.

 

[hockeyplayer1015]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Fighting Sioux 23, you should be very happy that the ECAC gets more then one bid very shortly. If the UND plays well today you'll be able to go to bed early and start dreaming of playing a much better opponent tommorrow and perhaps the Frozen Four. Thank you PWR's for letting Yale into the dance. That will be like a bye for UND!

Not so fast, batman. 1-0 Yale early. Just like a bye, isn't it?

 

[SamluvstheBears]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Not so fast, batman. 1-0 Yale early. Just like a bye, isn't it?

Even a blind mouse can find some cheese now and then! Still 40 minutes left in the game, but Yale did play a very solid first 20 minutes and they start the 2nd on the power play. Maybe like UNH the extra time off really helped them? When you injuries that extra week to heal up an be important.

 

[frmbostn]

Re: The EC-Easy Conference strikes again...

Nope, we dont need or want smoke filled rooms where teams are selected . Have to take peoples opinions out of the equation entirely or you really open up a can of worms.....must be a strictly mechanical system where everyone knows the rules going in. Simple math. Maine effed themselves by losing critical ooc games.

Actually the rooms are smoke free now. The NCAA does not allow smoking or smokeless tobacco use at any NCAA event.

Unless you meant a artificial smoke machine like they have at strip clubs (or so I have heard) or they use for overly dramatic team introductions; if that was the case, Carry on. I apologize.