![\"logos\/conf-ec.gif\"](\"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/images\/logos\/conf-ec.gif\")
\n<\/div>\nThe teams and coaches in the conference still deserve a tremendous amount of credit for being as competitive as they are given the inherent recruiting restrictions they are under. But that’s been the case for the last 15 years, why is this year suddenly worse than ever?<\/p>\n
The ECAC’s out-of-conference record this year stands at 21-48-5 against so-called “Big Four” schools, including 1-13-1 against the WCHA. Needless to say, that’s poor. Why are ECAC teams getting soundly defeated by bottom-rung CCHA and WCHA teams?<\/p>\n
Is it a part of a cycle? If so, the down part of the cycle has dropped down farther than any previous down part.<\/p>\n
Did too many players jump ship? Well, the ECAC did have two prominent players defect for the pros, Brandon Dietrich and Derek Gustafson, but that only explains one team’s troubles, St. Lawrence’s. The Saints would be scary with those guys: they are mediocre without them, at least when it comes to the national picture.<\/p>\n
Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni recently tried this spin:<\/p>\n
“We’re doing well against Hockey East, and that’s who we play the most. One thing about the ECAC people forget, we’ve got smaller buildings. So the majority of the time, people go on the road. The out-of-conference record is not a true indicator, and when you look at us against Hockey East, I think we’re above .500, and that’s who we play our games against.”<\/p>\n
But the ECAC had already slipped to under .500 vs. Hockey East teams when Mazzoleni made that comment, a record that now stands at 14-20-2. So much for that.<\/p>\n
There is some validity in his comment. ECAC teams start the season later, and are going on the road for tournaments, and that combination does lead to a bit of a disadvantage. But, by midseason, that should wash itself out, and yet the ECAC was still losing out-of-conference games.<\/p>\n
Part of this could be an inevitable downtrend that’s finally becoming apparent. In society at large, as advancements have happened, the poor have gotten a little poorer, and the rich have gotten ridiculously richer.<\/p>\n
There are analogies to sports, especially in football and basketball. Many decades ago, Ivy League schools were prominent in both sports. But, as each sport grew in popularity, and, consequently, each sport began pulling in more and more television revenue, those that benefited were the bigger-named schools. This happened in football in the ’60s. It happened in basketball by the time the ’80s rolled around.<\/p>\n
After years of miniscule moves in this direction, this might be the start of a major acceleration of this phenomenon in college hockey. College hockey has not boomed in popularity like football and basketball, but it is leaps and bounds ahead of where it used to be. So, while we don’t expect Cornell, for example, to slip into the same obscurity they did in football, the trend is certainly in that direction.<\/p>\n
Part of this is inevitable, and part of this is the ECAC’s fault. I’ve written about this<\/a> to the point where I’m just repeating myself, but the ECAC — the prehistoric, bureaucratic behemoth that can’t get out of its own way — is in the dark ages on too many topics. This winds up coming at the expense of the great coaches and programs that make up the league.<\/p>\n But, my views on this issue<\/a> are well-documented.<\/p>\n Every year we say the ECAC playoff race can’t get any tighter, and every year, it somehow does. And this year is no exception. But as fascinating the playoff race is, the ECAC seems destined to go the way of those basketball conferences who get their annual automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, and maybe occasionally sneak a second team in.<\/p>\n If this happens because of an inevitable trend, it’s a shame, but so be it. If it happens by the inherent ineptitude of the ECAC bureaucracy, that is truly sad.<\/p>\n Harvard was once again a Beanpot<\/a> failure this year, not winning a game. The Crimson did, however, have a legitimate point about the difficulty in playing the first-round game, facing off against No. 2 Boston College on the Monday after playing a full weekend’s worth of league games.<\/p>\n The Hockey East teams are given a lighter schedule by the league on the weekend leading up to the tournament. Harvard was not afforded the same luxury by ECAC schedule makers.<\/p>\n You would think that the ECAC would be doing everything it could for Harvard, in hopes they could carry the flag for the league at the prestigious and heavily-publicized Beanpot. But, just chalk that up as another ECAC “issue.”<\/p>\n Actually, in the past, ECAC coaches would complain that Harvard received favorable treatment in scheduling, so they could do better in the Beanpot. They complained this gave the Crimson an advantage when playing those league games, because they were playing just one game a weekend while their opponents were playing two. Then some coaches nodded towards the guy who ran ECAC hockey at the time, Joe Bertagna, and suggested that the Harvard graduate was giving his alma mater favorable treatment.<\/p>\n Of course, come to think of it, I used to hear a lot of this griping from then-Princeton coach Don Cahoon — who just so happens to be a Boston University graduate. So, maybe he was just helping his old school. Maybe we should give “Toot” the assist on BU’s six-year run.<\/p>\n But seriously, folks …<\/p>\n Give Harvard the break, and let the Crimson at least have a shot in the first round of the Beanpot.<\/p>\n USCHO was criticized by some fans for making too big a deal of the Beanpot. It is a completely parochial event, after all. But, then again, what is wrong about celebrating a slice of college hockey tradition that runs so deep?<\/p>\n I didn’t grow up anywhere near Boston, nor have I ever had an affinity for any of the schools involved in the 49-year old tournament. But a tournament like the Beanpot is what college hockey is all about. Anything that fosters that much passion in the fans and participants, has to be reveled in.<\/p>\n It’s unfortunate that some people from other parts of the country choose to thumb their nose at the Beanpot, belittling it as a “Boston tournament.” It’s a slice of Americana, hockey-style, and it should be celebrated.<\/p>\n I feel the same way about the state high school championships in Minnesota, the Great Lakes Invitational, or a game between Clarkson and St. Lawrence. Or, for that matter, a game between the New York Islanders and New York Rangers, or Colorado and Detroit, or making a trip to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park, regardless of where I grew up.<\/p>\n Anything that brings out the local passions in the fans, schools and players, should be appreciated for what it is. A sports fan owes it to themselves to just enjoy it.<\/p>\n Wouldn’t it be great if USCHO could broadcast a lengthy pre- and post-game show surrounding the Frozen Four? The Regionals? The conference tournaments? The NCAA selection show?<\/p>\n It’s something that’s been proposed, that much is certain. But with the demise of BroadcastSports.com, that possibility is far less likely. A lot of bandwidth is needed for such a production, and bandwidth is not free. In general, revenue is down across the dot.com board, and it makes funding such a project very difficult.<\/p>\n But we can dream.<\/p>\n As we approach the end of the regular season, it’s that time of year again, when we play everyone’s favorite game show … “Wheel of Tournament Selection Misconceptions.”<\/p>\n While the NCAA, for some reason, doesn’t feel comfortable making its selection process 100 percent officially public, USCHO has done its best — with NCAA cooperation, for sure — to educate college hockey fans, media, coaches and players about how the selection process works.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, there is still a (too-)large contingent of people who don’t understand the process. Worse are the people who are told there is a defined process, but choose to ignore it or not believe it. But the biggest culprits, inevitably, each year, are the local media organizations that perpetuate myths about the process, blaming the committee for this and that without understanding how the teams were selected.<\/p>\n This invariably does a disservice to the readers, who believe what they’re reading, and also causes me to get very angry and start writing letters that get those writers angry at me. But, hey, it’s fun.<\/p>\n Nationwide Internet access was recently tagged at 56 percent. And while I’m pretty sure that the college hockey fan populace has a tad higher percentage than that, there’s still a sizable number of people that cannot read this web site. In addition, I’m not crazy enough to believe that even all those people who are online have read the articles on our site about the tournament selection, and how it is done.<\/p>\n That leaves plenty of room for ignorance, and that’s why it’s imperative for the writers and broadcasters in the local markets to be up to speed, and to stop perpetuating the misconceptions that abound.<\/p>\n USCHO’s FAQ<\/a> does not exist as a self-serving document of propaganda. It is a fact sheet, period. So, please, if you are so inclined, print out the FAQ and take it to your local arena. Then go to the press box and ask the local media what PWR is. If they have a clue, give them a lollipop and move on. If not, tell them you will heckle them until they read the FAQ.<\/p>\n And, please, do this quickly. Time is running out.<\/p>\n Amazingly, along these lines, there was some recent confusion over the selection committee’s process on choosing bye teams to this year’s tournament. In the past, the top two seeds in each region — i.e. the bye teams — had to be from that region. Last summer, that was changed.<\/p>\n But, despite an article in the NCAA News, on USCHO<\/a>, and, presumably, some sort of internal memoranda and discussion, some coaches and administrators were unaware of this change as recently as last week. They proceeded to tell anyone who asked that the bye teams still had to come from the home region.<\/p>\n Adding to the problem was that the NCAA forgot to remove the paragraph in the rules handbook that mentions that bye teams have to come from the home region. Had that paragraph been removed, or more done to make commissioners and coaches aware of the change, there wouldn’t have been a problem.<\/p>\n Apparently, this became such a hot-button topic that there was some consideration given to reverting to the old rule<\/a> for this season, because apparently so many people had been led to believe the old rule was in effect.<\/p>\n Particular concern was expressed by Hockey East commissioner Joe Bertagna, whose conference stands to lose out under the new system. Currently, Boston College is the only Eastern team in position to receive a bye, whereas in the past, New Hampshire, currently No. 8 in PWR, would have received the other one. Bertagna was irked by the committee’s poor handling of the situation, and suggested that many people may have already bought tickets to the East Regional in Worcester expecting to see two Eastern teams as the byes.<\/p>\n It seems here, however, that whatever consternation there was over this issue, was a result of embarrassment more than anything else.<\/p>\n Sure, folks like Bertagna look bad to anyone who was told the wrong information, and I sympathize with that. And sure, the committee could have done a better job of making things clear. But it seems there was still ample opportunity to read the articles about all of the changes that took place.<\/p>\n In addition, the concern over the people who may have bought tickets to Worcester under the presumption of seeing two Eastern bye teams is a total red herring. No team that will be a big draw will be removed from Worcester that otherwise would’ve been there. Just because New Hampshire isn’t going to be the No. 2 seed in the East, doesn’t mean they won’t play in Worcester.<\/p>\n Other than the embarrassment factor — which is bad, but means nothing tangible — this is not a big deal.<\/p>\n You’ve all heard of the Sports Illustrated jinx. What about the USCHO jinx? Last year, when the site featured a particular player’s picture on the front page, his team would invariably lose.<\/p>\n This year, it has reared its ugly head based upon front-page features.<\/p>\n After publishing a story on Western Michigan’s success<\/a>, the Broncos went right into the tank and haven’t recovered. Quinnipiac was swept the weekend a feature came out on it<\/a>. After USCHO’s Ryan Miller feature<\/a>, he proceeded to let up four goals in an OT loss to Michigan. Even Ricky DiPietro was tainted, having his worst game yet as a pro after the “Catching Up With …” feature<\/a> on him was published.<\/p>\n Beware fans: A feature was recently added on Dartmouth<\/a>, and one is being planned on North Dakota. I’ve heard USCHO can be persuaded to cancel its plans, for the right price (or bandwith).<\/p>\nGoing to ‘Pot<\/h4>\n
Apple Pie and Beanpots<\/h4>\n
My Kingdom for Bandwidth<\/h4>\n
Who Wants to be a Crusader?<\/h4>\n
Bye-bye, bye<\/h4>\n
The jinx<\/h4>\n
Seawolves’ Struggles<\/h4>\n
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