This Week in Atlantic Hockey: Army West Point tasting success, figuring out ‘who we want to be as a team’

The preseason media call is always an exercise in routine.

Coaches talk about their excitement for the upcoming season and touch upon the optimism of their team’s hard work and commitment, and everyone stresses the need to get better as the season advances.

The goal, everyone says, is the same every year: to be playing “your best hockey” when the March postseason rolls around.

This Week in Hockey East: Due to schedule imbalance, new power index assuring teams that ‘every game matters’

In a very challenging year, one thing was clear to first-year commissioner Steve Metcalf early in the 2020-21 Hockey East campaign

It took just a couple of weekends of canceled games and teams and the league working to change opponents to make Metcalf realize come season’s end, there would be a significant imbalance in both number of games played as well as the strength of opponents each team faces.

Thus, Metcalf turned to a somewhat familiar formula to help determine the Hockey East standings: the PairWise.