nodakvindy

Yep, I'm really hoping to see Yale at 4 and UND at 5 in the pairwise. I really don't want to see the Sioux have to go to Mariucci, where the big sheet puts a premium on special teams and it's a lot more difficult to cycle the puck. Hopefully this year will be the last time you'll ever see a tourney game on Olympic ice.

Here's what I would see as an ideal scenario You have specified the following tournament results: * Hockey East Semifinal #2: Northeastern defeats Mass.-Lowell. * Hockey East Semifinal #1: Boston University defeats Boston College. * Hockey East Championship game: Boston University defeats Northeastern. * ECAC Semifinal #2: Cornell defeats Princeton. * ECAC Semifinal #1: Yale defeats St. Lawrence. * ECAC Championship game: Yale defeats Cornell. * ECAC Consolation game: St. Lawrence defeats Princeton. * Atlantic Hockey Semifinal #2: RIT defeats Mercyhurst. * Atlantic Hockey Semifinal #1: Air Force defeats Bentley. * Atlantic Hockey Championship game: Air Force defeats RIT. * CCHA Semifinal #2: Michigan defeats Alaska. * CCHA Semifinal #1: Notre Dame defeats Northern Michigan. * CCHA Championship game: Notre Dame defeats Michigan. * CCHA Consolation game: Alaska defeats Northern Michigan. * WCHA Play-in #1: Minnesota defeats Minnesota-Duluth. * WCHA Semifinal #2: Wisconsin defeats Denver. * WCHA Semifinal #1: North Dakota defeats Minnesota. * WCHA Championship game: North Dakota defeats Wisconsin. * WCHA Consolation game: Minnesota defeats Denver. Which would spit out the following pairings Overall 1- BU 2- Notre Dame 3- Michigan 4- Yale In Manchester 1 BU - 4 Bemidji and 2 UNH - 3 Cornell In Bridgeport 1 Yale - 4 Air Force and 2 UND - Miami In Minneapolis 1 Michigan - 4 St. Lawrence and 2 Northeastern - 3 Minnesota In Grand Rapids 1 Notre Dame - 4 Minnesota-Duluth and 2 Denver - 3 Vermont The two eastern brackets would meet in one semi and the two western ones would meet in the other. It falls pretty much to form, with only switchs of St. Lawrence/Air Force and Vermont/Cornell to avoid in-conference first round matchups.

I think you are going to start seeing more of that. Many of the major conferences have their women's tourneys early so they don't conflict with the men. North Carolina decided to hold back a game so that they could play in what would have otherwise been an almost two week layoff. I'd love to see UND make an offer to Tennessee or UCONN or somebody for such a game next year. It's a risk we can take since we aren't NCAA tourney eligible and an impressive showing could open the door to a WNIT invite. There won't be a lot of potential opponents available, so hopefully it's something that Roebuck and Faison are looking at.

If MSU is not a TUC, it looks like the only way the Sioux can get a #1 seed is if they win the Final Five and Denver loses the third place game. So results that would be beneficial it getting Mankato back to TUC status are Alaska losing to Ohio State tonight, RIT losing in the AHA semis or Northern Michigan losing in the semis and third place game of the CCHA tourney. Those are the only teams that are close enough to falling and even then I would say an RIT loss is the only sure thing - the other results would make it pretty tight. Due to our loss to Michigan State, comparisons against Notre Dame and Michigan are unwinnable, as is the one with BU, so flipping Denver is the only hope to move that final step up.

IF RPI can beat Cornell tonight, they would play Yale in the semis and even with Mankato a TUC, Yale would max out at 9 TUC games. If Northern Michigan and RIT lose, UAA could sneak back in as a TUC as well.

Bemidji punches the first ticket to the dance. Matt Read with the winner. Good luck against BU!

With Vermont's loss, the Sioux will flip the comparison with them with a win, and should UAA trip up the Pios, the Sioux would move up to #4

Remember that Fargo's "victory" helped to contribute to Grand Forks' "failure". Likewise, the fact that Grand Forks got hammered probably saved Winnipeg. Now, the levees in GF and Wahp also mean that the state can focus pretty heavily on Fargo in this year's flood fight, rather than directing the National Guard and other resources to multiple fronts. The flood of 97 was a turning point in my life - leading me into my chosen profession. I've seen numerous disaster-stricken communities and to call either the city of Grand Forks, or its flood fight in 1997 a failure is utterly ridiculous. I don't know what Walacker possibly hoped to game by turning this into a zero sum game, that somehow helping Grand Forks (or any other community) hurts Fargo. At best it comes off as politically naive and at worst incredibly selfish.

Getting a big name that could draw additional international Olympic hopefuls would be a wise investment. There is a ton of potential media coverage that can come from it. I think virtually every time Kirsty Coventry was mentioned during the Beijing games, so was the fact that she went to Auburn. Recruiting Canadians also makes a lot of sense, as it's a huge untapped reservoir for students as well. Also, the weather is much less a detriment.

Wow, Oakland's just trying to give this one away. If the Bison don't win this it isn't because they didn't have their chances.

UND could almost have caught Denver in RPI had Harvard and Bemidji won last night. Those were very costly, especially Harvard losing to a dreadful Brown team.

I'm pretty sure the NCAA record is Don McSween from Michigan State, who played in 180 straight, his last game coming in a loss to UND in the 1987 NCAA title game. Never missed a game in his career.

Pretty good story from today's USA Today. It is the cover story for sports in the print edition. Wouldn't be surprised to see UND take this approach short term if it comes to that. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/200...-Newberry_N.htm

For actually watching the play, I think mid to high corners are the best. You get to see the play develop and see a lot of things you would otherwise miss. I remember my dad taking me to see the Bismarck Express play the Czech Junior National team and we talked to several NHL scouts, and too a man they said the best place to watch a game was from the high corners. I've done that ever since. Now if you are talking about impact and game day experience/atmosphere then there's nothing like being down on the boards.

From the last WCHA weekly press release In the event that ties are encountered in the determination of WCHA ranking or designation of home teams for playoff purposes, the following procedures will be used in the order given to break the ties: a) If two or more teams are tied, head-to-head competition during the regular (conference) season will be used to break the tie. b) If two or more teams are still tied after (a), the highest seed will go to the team with the most WCHA (conference) wins during the regular season. c) If two or more teams played a four-game series during the regular season and the teams have the same win-loss records for those series and the same number of WCHA wins, the team having the least number of goals scored against it in the four-game series shall have the higher rank. If two or more teams played a two-game series during the regular season, proceed to tie-breaker d). d) If two or more teams are still tied after applying the provisions of (a), (b) and ©, the team having the greatest ‘winning margin’ during the regular season will have the higher rank. Winning margin = WCHA goals for during the regular season minus WCHA goals against. A lot would depend on how they decide to consider the first tie breaker. Would a team have to beat every team head to head to win this tiebreaker? Would it be best overall winning percentage among the tied teams? Would it be the team that had the best series record among the team? Another factor is whether you start over after breaking the first tie. I think the first tiebreaker would be too difficult to determine with 5 teams, so they would go to the second and in that scenario, St. Cloud would be #3 as they would have 15 conference wins. #4 would depend on how Wisconsin got their two points. If it was a split, they would be #4 and Minnesota would be #5, since Wisconsin would have 14 wins and Minnesota 13. If the Sioux and Badgers tie twice, then the #4 and #5 would go to the head to head matchup (UW 2-1-1). Finally UMD and CC would have 12 league wins and the #6 would go UM-D by virtue of their 1-0-1 mark against CC. so I would predict 3. St. Cloud State 4. Wisconsin 5. Minnesota 6. Minnesota-Duluth 7. Colorado College

Jim, you are right and I should have pointed out the discrepancy, as I saw they are showing Denver ahead of Michigan right now. But, when Adam does his pre-announcement picks, he clearly knows it and that's why his predicted brackets have been right and USCHO's have not. Also in Adam's defense, his analysis of the status of the rankings is more useful that a "snapshot" of what the bracket would be right now. There are generally a few teams that are almost locked into a PWR position and therefore safe, while there are others that have a seemingly good PWR position but are hanging on to several comparisons by a thread. I personally like to know which of those teams are the latter. I'm enough of a stats geek to look at it myself, but I think Adam does a great job of analyzing it for those that can't/don't want to.

Adam Wodon has written a couple of articles in the past clarifying this. Pairwise ties are broken by RPI. It was demonstrated on a three way tie between Maine, UMass and St. Lawrence in 2007. The same held true in 2008 on a tie break between Denver and BC. USCHO's belief otherwise is part of why Jason Moy has not correctly picked the final bracket in recent years. http://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2007...8_final2007.php http://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2008/03/24_outof.php

I'm surprised the computer says the chances are so low of moving with a sweep of the Badgers. A sweep will almost certainly flip the comparison against Denver, since the Pios only have one game and will fall behind in RPI. Also if Vermont and New Hampshire split or if UNH takes three points, I think that will allow the Sioux to pass UVM in RPI and flip that comparison, but prevent UNH from overtaking us in RPI. The ECAC and CCHA contenders are all off, so RPI changes should not be significant with them and at this point RPI moves are what will be flipping most comparisons. IF UND flips the Vermont and Denver comparisons, they would likely be at #4 and the final #1 seed. Sioux fans should be cheering hard for Michigan State now. If they win this weekend, they would play either Michigan or Notre Dame next weekend. If they could ride Jeff Lerg to an upset series win over either of those teams, the Sioux could flip that comparison as well.

Yep UND is up to #7 and if the season ended today I'd guess the brackets would go like this. Of course, luckily it doesn't and UND can continue to move up with victories. Bridgeport 2 Notre Dame 15 Air Force 7 UND 9 Yale Minneapolis 4 Denver 14 Ohio State 5 Northeastern 12 Princeton Manchester 1 BU 16 Bemidji 8 New Hampshire 10 Cornell Grand Rapids 3 Michigan 13 Minnesota Duluth 6 Vermont 11 Miami

Great ending for Senior Day. It looks like they are showing Martens' video that was on Brad Miller Time this week.

UNH wins 1-0

BC ties it up 3-3

UNH Merrimack scoreless midway thru the first. Wildcats look a little listless on senior night. And now UNH score 1-0, on their second shot of the game. 6:00 to go in the first.

yep

great interview with Lefty Curran. Gotta love him, a class act.