Frozen Four Expanded 2010

[WFR]

Just a thought/what could have been/what should be in coming years.

East Region:

1.U New Hampshire vs 8 Yale
2.Boston College vs 7 Providence
3.Dartmouth vs 6 Boston University
4.Harvard vs 5 Uconn

Mid Region/New york New Jersey

1.St Lawrence vs 8 Union
2.Princeton vs 7 Niagara
3.Colgate vs 6 Cornell
4.Rensselaer vs 5 clarkson

West Region

1.Wisconsin vs 8 North Dakota
2.Minnesota vs 7 Minnesota State
3.Mercyhurst vs 6 St Cloud State
4.Minn.Duluth vs 5 Wayne State

Take 3 from the East and West.
Take 2 from the Mid Region
Based on power rankings of all teams involved.

Eight teams go to Nationals Frozen Four site.

4 Games on Thursday
2 games on Saturday
Finals on Sunday.
This format would be for both the Regionals and Nationals.


This would be subject to change each year and the number of teams from each region determined by the NCAA Committee. (either 2 or 3 teams each/no less or more)


Any thoughts ?

[vellnueve]

You want to have 24 teams out of 34 total teams? That's insane.

[dave1381]

No. NCAA isn't likely to fund a national tourney for any sport with much more than 25% of the sponsoring institutions participating. With 33 teams in major conferences (plus 4 teams that play a lot of D-III games), we're pretty much right on the nose now. I don't see any expansion to 12 until at least 4 or 5 more schools at the sport (and probably a second conference in the west region), and schools aren't exactly in the process of adding to their budgets right now.

[WFR]

You want to have 24 teams out of 34 total teams? That's insane.

I guess what I'm striving for is 8 teams at one sight playing for the Nationals.

[WHKY blogger]

I guess what I'm striving for is 8 teams at one sight playing for the Nationals.

I doubt you will ever see that.

Most rinks have a hard enough time with 4 teams in the building at the same time let alone eight. Most places don't have the locker room facilities for that and with eight teams that all have to practice/skate around on the same ice. It can get too cumbersome as well to accomplish that and still have good ice for games.

[dave1381]

The WCHA tried 8 teams, one site, for the conference tournament in 2005, and never again. Didn't they even do 8 teams, 8 hotels? That barely even worked in Minneapolis. Anyway, I'm sure there are other good reasons why they never tried it again.

[ARM]

Coach Miller was very vocal about not liking 3 games in 4 days, and half the field would have needed to play 3 games in 3 days to claim the championship. Wisconsin did have to go the 3 in 3 route, with OT for the last 2, and I don't remember Coach Johnson making a big deal about it. I think at the conference level the concern may have been that it took too much out of the teams in advance of the NCAA quarterfinal knockout round.

[freak]

I guess what I'm striving for is 8 teams at one sight playing for the Nationals.

The MEN don't even do that. They had 6 teams at one site when the tourney was 12 teams (2 regionals, #1/#2 seeds in each received a bye), and with the expansion to 16 teams, there are only 4 teams at each regional.

And I'll second vell.......24 teams?!!!

The men, with 59 Div I teams and greater parity, just went to 16 teams in 2003.

[quixote]

Coach Miller was very vocal about not liking 3 games in 4 days, and half the field would have needed to play 3 games in 3 days to claim the championship. Wisconsin did have to go the 3 in 3 route, with OT for the last 2, and I don't remember Coach Johnson making a big deal about it. I think at the conference level the concern may have been that it took too much out of the teams in advance of the NCAA quarterfinal knockout round.

agreed....plus the geography doesn't work....Niagara and Mercyhurst are in the same region (a long way from the east and from the west as you have it).

[UW Womens Hockey]

Coach Miller was very vocal about not liking 3 games in 4 days, and half the field would have needed to play 3 games in 3 days to claim the championship. Wisconsin did have to go the 3 in 3 route, with OT for the last 2, and I don't remember Coach Johnson making a big deal about it. I think at the conference level the concern may have been that it took too much out of the teams in advance of the NCAA quarterfinal knockout round.

this was my first year following the women. Talking with the coaches and players afterwords it sounds like the single site had many many challenges and luckily the league hasn't continued to venture down this road.

[ARM]

I think part of it may have been that it was the first year that they had all teams advance to the conference tourney after a couple years of Final 5 format. When the WCHA first started, quarterfinal games between the #2 seed and the #7 weren't pretty. So the fear may have been that we'd see blowouts, thus favoring single-game quarters instead of best-of-three series. It was a pleasant surprise that the quarterfinal games in 2005 were quite competitive. That may have indicated to the league that there was sufficient balance to justify a best-of-three opening round.