2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

[ticapnews]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

And you can add this year’s FF host. The MAAC is hosting it, and there hasn’t been a MAAC hockey league in years (though most of their teams are now in Atlantic Hockey).

I'm still waiting for UHawaii to host one in Honolulu.

[BC/HE]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

And you can add this year’s FF host. The MAAC is hosting it, and there hasn’t been a MAAC hockey league in years (though most of their teams are now in Atlantic Hockey).

Except that Niagara and Canisius are co-hosting with the MAAC(of which they both are members for non hockey sports). Canisius is essentially on the same street as the Key Bank Center about 5 miles down the line and Niagara is less than 25 miles away.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Except that Niagara and Canisius are co-hosting with the MAAC(of which they both are members for non hockey sports). Canisius is essentially on the same street as the Key Bank Center about 5 miles down the line and Niagara is less than 25 miles away.

NCAA doesn’t mention either of those teams.

[Bruin]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

2s and 3s seem less of a problem, because there is much less of a metrical difference between them

See, to me, this kind of logic is unfair and I mentioned this in one of my other responses on this topic. It's fine you are trying to be fair to #1s, but then you disregard the fairness going to #2s. As far as the "metrical difference" goes - the difference in a #4 (the worst #1 seed) vs #13 (the best number #4 seed) matchup teams is very close to the difference in a #5 (the best #2 seed) vs #12 (the worst #3 seed). So, I really think it's unfair to #2s when the solution to the "Providence issue" disregards the fairness across the board. Of course, that adds another constraint, which is a problem in itself.

[Bruin]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Very much agree with your approach that the "inaccuracies" can average out over the years.

And to be fair to the players, while statistically it works itself out over a number of years, it doesn't do much for the players (as far as the fairness goes) who stay with the team at most 4 years (and are likely not going to go to the tournament every year).

It would be really helpful if posters from the East could simply acknowledge that, and participate in the search for a solution. Instead, "I'm not taking a position; it's not my fight" is a typical reaction. That's what I hear you saying in the above comment. If you care about the long term health of the regionals -- and I believe you do -- you should engage and try to move the puck forward.

Look, I already said I am all for campus tournaments. As far as my tone goes, frankly, the only reason I am reserved because I am honestly not that familiar with the situation (and all the dynamics between different programs, teams, ADs and fan bases) in the West. I am somewhat informed about the East (Hockey East specifically). I wish I could contribute "moving the puck forward", but other than a chance conversation with an AD of one of the HE schools (as I described below), I am just a very average college hockey fan.

I wanted to take this item seriously, and tried to look at it from the point of view of each of the 8 teams seeded #2 or #3 this year. My conclusion? Nobody's talking about it because none of those teams were treated unfairly. Including Ohio State. Given the constraints of this year's rules & sites, of course.

Do you have a specific example from a previous tournament?

Here's one (though I really don't want to go back and analyze every bracket), and it's just from 2018: Northeastern and BU were put as (#3 and #4) in Worcester (Holy Cross was the host). Believe me, the support those two teams (specifically BU) would get in Worcester far surpasses what PC gets in Providence. Of course, now the question is - was there a better solution? Swapping BU with Air Force, or even better with Tech (in Bridgeport)? Or 2015, where everyone talks about PC's placement as #4 seed, but BC's placement as #3 seed is not that much more fair, at least with respect to Denver (could have put them in Manchester and bring Minnesota in, or South Bend and swap with Harvard). I don't know, it's all history now...

That is an interesting story, and I'm going to let your information percolate for a while. Even though it didn't work out for Hockey East, having a conference host a set of regionals might be a productive idea for the West. Why not? Conferences have served as hosts for the FF.

In the story I told, I gave HE campus examples. The negotiations were not specifically between HE and NCAA only. As far as their tourney, Hockey East schools came to an agreement for their conference tourney (this is what I meant earlier by "dynamics" between the schools) - it seems that HE schools are able to present a much more unified front when dealing with NCAA. It seems (to me, correct me if I'm wrong) that the teams in the West are much more rivalry-first oriented.

[mookie1995]

Top 25 isn’t a problem. Only if it vaulted them into the top 12-14.

Then all those teams in the top 14 got credit for beating the top 25 team 4x

[Hockeybuckeye]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

South Bend is a freakin' suburb of Chicago

You think? If you saw the woman's bouncy ball regional in Chicago last weekend Notre Dame was playing and you had to look hard to see someone in the crowd who wasn't a ND fan!

[mookie1995]

You think? If you saw the woman's bouncy ball regional in Chicago last weekend Notre Dame was playing and you had to look hard to see someone in the crown who wasn't a ND fan!

Who the hell else is going to watch that???

[chickod]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

You think? If you saw the woman's bouncy ball regional in Chicago last weekend Notre Dame was playing and you had to look hard to see someone in the crown who wasn't a ND fan!

Well they were playing Stanford. Did you expect 5,000 people from Palo Alto there?

[Hockeybuckeye]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Who the hell else is going to watch that???

Just agreeing anything in Chicago is a home game for any ND sport.

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

South Bend is a freakin' suburb of Chicago

I knew including that one was only on a technicality, but I couldn't help it.

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Well they were playing Stanford. Did you expect 5,000 people from Palo Alto there?

or from anywhere, ftm.

5,000 people went to a Women's basketball game without being held against their will? Wow.

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

NCAA doesn’t mention either of those teams.

The promotion logo when you go to the MAAC website does list CC and NU as co-hosts.
https://maacsports.com/splash.aspx?id=splash_8

It's kind of an odd promotion to see when you go to a site for a conference that doesn't sponsor hockey. But then again, it's an odd host to begin with. That was the same trio of co-hosts in 2003, but it made sense back then.

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

(though most of their teams are now in Atlantic Hockey).

If by most, you mean 2 out of 3, then yes that is correct. NU, CC and Quinnipiac are the only MAAC schools left with hockey.
Although, Robert Morris and Sacred Heart are affiliate members, whatever that means.

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I'm still waiting for UHawaii to host one in Honolulu.

That would rock... and the game times would be awesome (for us, not necessarily for the players): 11:00 am and 2:30 pm for the semi-finals. 2:00 pm for the finals.