What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

Status
Not open for further replies.
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

Shirtless Guy said:
It's exactly what I expect. I told another MTU poster that after we sweep Michigan we still won't get any respect because Michigan will be in a "down year" at 2-5. According to a guy like Ryan, the MTU sweep of Michigan says more about Michigan sucking than MTU being any good. But I highly doubt anyone would be saying Michigan was down if they were 4-3 with an opening night loss to FSU and split with UNH and win vs UML and loss vs BU.
Click to expand...

Excellent point about Michigan. They are 2-2 against Hockey East (Top half HE teams, too - not the perennially crappy ones like Amherst or Merrimack). That seems OK, given the difficulty of the schedule. So why are they considered bad?
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

davyd83 said:
I've joined. Let Puck Daddy know just how I feel. But I did something odd. I used facts to make my point. Apparently the Big Ten, Hockey East and the ECAC aren't "legitimate," because the WCHA is 13-7-3 against them.
Click to expand...
but it's too small of a sample size if you ask him.
I love that argument, we've always had too small of sample size in college hockey, but if the WCHA was crappy in NC play thus far, everyone would use it to show the WCHA is weak, but since they havent been weak, we need more games.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

FWIW, it's the same argument that was used against the CCHA up until about 1984 when they started winning national championships. If you want some irony, we would hear it the loudest from the WCHA. The argument will continue until someone from the league wins it all or, at least, makes it to the championship game.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

BGFan said:
FWIW, it's the same argument that was used against the CCHA up until about 1984 when they started winning national championships. If you want some irony, we would hear it the loudest from the WCHA. The argument will continue until someone from the league wins it all or, at least, makes it to the championship game.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you don't hear much talk about the EZAC anymore with Yale and now Union winning from there do you? Even though top to bottom, I think the WCHA is better than the ECAC. The ECAC has had some teams get hot at the right time and surprisingly great team in Union last year.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

A few years back, I built a "what if" spreadsheet to calculate the old conference alignment games as if they counted for their new conferences.

Had a moment here at work, and did a little reverse engineering of the spreadsheet to turn the new conference alignments back into the old ones. The conference standings would be:

WCHA:
Code: 
WCHA			W	L	T	Pts	Overall
North Dakota		5	1	0	10	7-1-1
Minnesota		4	1	0	8	7-1-0
Minnesota State		4	2	0	8	7-3-0
Minnesota Duluth	4	3	0	8	6-4-0
Michigan Tech		2	0	0	4	8-0-0
Denver			1	1	0	2	5-3-0
Omaha			1	1	0	2	6-1-1
Alaska Anchorage	1	2	0	2	4-4-2
St. Cloud State		1	3	0	2	3-5-0
Bemidji State		1	5	0	2	3-5-0
Colorado College	0	2	0	0	2-6-0
Wisconsin		0	3	0	0	0-6-0

And the CCHA:
Code: 
CCHA			W	L	T	Pts	Overall
Northern Michigan	3	1	0	9	6-1-1
Miami			3	1	0	9	7-3-0
Bowling Green		3	1	0	9	7-2-1
Ferris State		3	2	0	9	4-5-0
Notre Dame		2	0	0	6	5-4-1
Michigan State		1	1	0	3	3-5-0
Western Michigan	1	1	0	3	3-5-0
Alaska			1	3	0	3	5-5-0
Lake Superior State	0	4	0	0	1-9-0
Michigan		0	1	0	0	2-5-0
Ohio State		0	2	0	0	2-5-1


There have been plenty of games against former league foes to make this little experiment work. So far, what I'm seeing is that it's like it used to be.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

The future plan for BG's NC schedule is pretty much fixed, and we'll never have a big enough NC sample size to prove our worth to homer bloggers from Boston. screw him, that's why we have the pairwise.

Bergeron sounds pretty confident that we can get these NC games year-in year-out:
2 vs. Western Mich. (home & home)
2 vs. Miami (home & home)
2 vs. OSU (home & home)
2 vs. RMU/Canisius/RIT/Niagara/Mercyhurst

In my world, that's pretty much a perfect NC schedule: regional rivals, three different conferences, and easy travel. Don't give a rat's *** if they're "legitimate NCAA-caliber" teams or not.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

blackswampboy said:
The future plan for BG's NC schedule is pretty much fixed, and we'll never have a big enough NC sample size to prove our worth to homer bloggers from Boston. screw him, that's why we have the pairwise.

Bergeron sounds pretty confident that we can get these NC games year-in year-out:
2 vs. Western Mich. (home & home)
2 vs. Miami (home & home)
2 vs. OSU (home & home)
2 vs. RMU/Canisius/RIT/Niagara/Mercyhurst

In my world, that's pretty much a perfect NC schedule: regional rivals, three different conferences, and easy travel. Don't give a rat's *** if they're "legitimate NCAA-caliber" teams or not.
Click to expand...

I like coach Bergeron, most of the time anyway. That's a good deal for you, and better than almost anyone else in the conference has.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

Complaining about small sample sizes in non-conference play is ridiculous when you look at the ratio of conference games to the maximum allowable. I mean, it's hard to book eight NC dates against the top schools unless you want to play them all on the road (welcome to UAH's 14-15, although I wouldn't call anything on our road NC slate "top"). None of exactly plays in a garden spot and has a vast record of recent success at the national level.

GFM
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

gfmorris said:
Complaining about small sample sizes in non-conference play is ridiculous when you look at the ratio of conference games to the maximum allowable. I mean, it's hard to book eight NC dates against the top schools unless you want to play them all on the road (welcome to UAH's 14-15, although I wouldn't call anything on our road NC slate "top"). None of exactly plays in a garden spot and has a vast record of recent success at the national level.

GFM
Click to expand...
Michigan Tech has Michigan (x3), Minnesota-Duluth (x2), Wisconsin (x2) and the other GLI game on their schedule. Seems like a pretty tough NC schedule to me, but since Michigan and Wisconsin "suck" through no fault of their own, their NC schedule sucks now...ok
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

A Boston sportswriter ignorant of anything beyond a 20 mile radius of the Hub?

Wow, color me shocked. Quit giving him clicks.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

Northern beating WI = Wins vs a weak team, doesn't count for much.
UND (who already lost to BSU) beating WI = Strong sweep, and as a result I'll rank UND #2.
Strong logic...
Ryan J
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

http://siouxsports.com/hockey/rankings/rpi/ Then sort by SOS.

Tech has the fourth toughest schedule currently.

Top 10 Strength of Schedule:
1. tUMD (NCHC) (RPI 7)
2. Minnesota (B1G) (RPI 2)
3. MSU-Mankato (WCHA) (RPI 3)
4. Michigan Tech (WCHA) (RPI 4)
5. Miami (NCHC) (RPI 6)
6. Merrimack (HE) (RPI 8)
7. Denver (NCHC) (RPI 16)
8. St. Cloud (NCHC) (RPI 27)
9. Nebraska Omaha (NCHC) (RPI 4)
10. Notre Dame (HE) (RPI 21)

ECAC appears at 12 St. Lawrence (RPI 14)
B1G reappears at 23 tOSU (RPI 37)
AHA appears at 34 Mercyhurst (RPI 20)

Robert Morris comes in at 42nd toughest strength of schedule (or, to put it in terms that the blogger who now shall not be named could understand: 17th easiest schedule)



I think what frustrates me most is how much stock is placed by bloggers and the schools on the polls. Is it really something to celebrate being 20th in some meaningless poll when the top 16 (or less) in the PWR are the schools who make the tourney.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

And at the end of the year when the 16 teams are named to the tournament (which everyone who knows the slightest bit about college hockey will know ahead of time), Lambert will be writing about "Western Bias".
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

This conference is as tough as nails. We could probably go undefeated the rest of the season and still not make the playoffs. :o:(
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

Squarebanks said:
A Boston sportswriter ignorant of anything beyond a 20 mile radius of the Hub?

Wow, color me shocked. Quit giving him clicks.
Click to expand...

This. Seriously.

It amuses me how almost everyone here has given this guy exactly what he wants - hits and advertising.
 
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

Since the expansion of the NCAA tournament in 1981, the West (WCHA/CCHA) has made up the Frozen Four field with all 4 teams 5 times:

1981 - Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan
1984 - Bowling Green, Minnesota-Duluth, North Dakota, Michigan State
1992 - Lake Superior St, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Michigan
2005 - Denver, North Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado College (all WCHA)
2011 - Minnesota-Duluth, Michigan, Notre Dame, North Dakota

The West also had 3 teams in the 1987 Frozen Four (North Dakota, Michigan State, Minnesota).

In that same span of time, the best that the East (HE/ECAC) has done is 3 teams in one Frozen Four:

1985 - RPI, Providence, Boston College
1990 - Colgate, Boston College, Boston University (Wisconsin won the title)
1999 - Maine, New Hampshire, Boston College
2000 - Boston College, St. Lawrence, Maine (North Dakota won the title)
2013 - Yale, Quinnipiac, UMass-Lowell

I think this is very helpful in determining that the West, as a whole, is better than the East. :D
 
Last edited:
Re: WCHA 2014-15: Semi-colons make things seem important

John J. MacInnes said:
Since the expansion of the NCAA tournament in 1981, the West (WCHA/CCHA) has made up the Frozen Four field with all 4 teams 5 times:
2005 - Denver, North Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado College (all WCHA)
Click to expand...
I think the odds of this every happening again, for any conference, are pretty much nill. Just getting four teams in the tourney from one conference is impressive (WI was also in the tourney that year as the FIFTH WCHA team), but all the seedings have to shake out in such a way that the teams don't end up playing each other in the regional finals. Pretty much impossible today.
Ryan J
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top