Dave Berger

Can we add a tag line for Aaron and Andrew to please stay as well? I'm getting the feeling that all five will be in a North Dakota uniform next season. Dave

The three pairs that we could get in our pod next season would be Denver/Colorado College, Duluth/Michigan Tech, or Anchorage/Mankato. I can't pick up any sort of pattern from the last two seasons that would lead me in one direction or another. The tidbit about already making our last trip to Anchorage sounds familiar to me, too. So that leaves Denver/Colorado College or Duluth/Michigan Tech. Unless there is some other information, I would lean toward Duluth/Michigan Tech in our pod since the Colorado schools will both be in the NCHC with North Dakota beginning in 2013-14. Anyone else have information on this? Dave

Thank you for the kind words, and I will definitely be back at it next year. Teaser alert: watch for my "Top Ten Sioux Hockey Moments from 2011-2012" coming later this week. And to your kids: tell them the Hamburger says hello! Dave

And remarkably, if UND wins today, they will advance at least as far in the NCAA tournament as last year's squad. Of course, the 2010-11 team also won the MacNaughton, but I never would have guessed that we would be in this position when this season started. And that's before injuries/defections/etc. Dave

NCAA West Regional Preview: UND vs. Minnesota Discuss. Dave

Air Force showing some signs of life late in the first, but it's 1-0 Boston College after one period. Dave

My initial reaction was that the net was off. After replay, though, I think what sealed the deal for the refs is that it did look like the puck was batted out of the air with a hand. It might be one of those weird calls where it went like this: it was waved off by the on-ice official, it may have been played with a hand or shoulder, and the net may have been dislodged. A sort of perfect storm of reasonable doubt. My non-biased gut feeling about the play is that it was not a goal. But it was very close. Dave

I feel pretty good about my earlier prediction. The game basically played out as a 3-2 game either way, just that UND got a fortunate bounce on the Knight goal and WMU had one waved off (correctly, but it's a game of inches..) And I really do believe that Minnesota advances from the late game. It could take 4 overtimes, though.. Dave

BC up 1-0 over Air Force late in the first period. And my goodness, those are not nice-looking alternate home jerseys for the Eagles. Dave

SiouxHockeyPrint.com, iirc Dave

I find it odd that ESPNU calls it "Sudden Victory", not "Sudden Death"... Dave

And of course it's overtime for Johns Hopkins and Virginia lax on ESPNU. I'm getting Lacrosse flashbacks... Dave

NCAA West Regional Preview: UND vs. Western Michigan Discuss. Dave

It's objective, yes, but for the reasons I've summarized above, the numbers don't always add up. For example, if Team A has a 4-0 record against Team B and meets Team B in a best-of-3 playoff format, Team A may not want to sweep Team B if Team B's record is perliously close to the Teams Under Consideration "cliff". If Team A wins Game 1 , Team A may benefit from losing Game 2 and then winning Game 3. Any system which rewards a team for losing a game has serious flaws. Furthermore, Head-to-Head and Record vs. Common Opponents are often restricted to a game or two throughout the whole season. I would argue for using KRACH to rank the teams (or RPI, if you're held to that, but KRACH is better mathematically and does a better job, imho, of handling strength-of-schedule issues) and saving the other critera (Head-to-head and Common Opponents) if the KRACH is very close (say, within 5 points...) I want to say for the record that I like the fact that the Pairwise is objective, and that's a good thing, but there are more mathematically sound ways to be objective. Dave

Yes. The following was posted by "Rich" in one of the USCHO forums regarding the ranking systems, and gives a point-by-point argument for embracing KRACH... 1. If a team wins a game, they always increase their rating in KRACH. PWR can drop a team for winning, and it can happen in RPI too. 2. A team's rating always increases more for beating a higher-ranked team than beating a lower-ranked team. That's not always true for PWR. 3. A team's KRACH rating always drops if they lose, and by more if they lose to a lower-rated team. Losing to the No. 1 team cannot increase a team's KRACH rating. If KRACH rewarded SoS somehow, then this wouldn't be true. KRACH does not reward losses to good teams. Period. 4. Tying a better team increases a team's KRACH rating, and tying a worse team decreases it. This makes perfect sense, but is not always true with PWR. 5. A .500 team's KRACH rating is exactly equal to their strength of schedule. 6. If two teams have the same record, the team who has played the toughest schedule is always ranked higher. If two teams have played the same schedule, the team with the better record is ranked higher. 7. If a hypothetical team goes .500 against teams in a given place in the rankings (say, 1-5), they will be ranked within that group (assuming those are the only games that team has played). Neither RPI nor PWR guarantee this. And most importantly: 8. Given every team's KRACH ratings and the schedule they have played, you can calculate the team's record exactly! If the strength of schedule component was exaggerated in any way, this wouldn't work. This is the most convincing evidence that SoS is properly weighted in KRACH. You sure can't say that about PWR or RPI! If you look at all of those reasons, you can see that they are exactly what one would hope a rating system would do. I find it amazing that you can take all of the given KRACH ratings and the schedule any given team has played and work out what their winning percentage is. Well, amazing until I understood how it's calculated. I hope this helps. Dave

East Regional: Miami over Michigan State Midwest Regional: Michigan over Ferris State West Regional: North Dakota over Boston University Northeast Regional: Boston College over Minnesota-Duluth Championship game: Miami over Boston College Dave

East Regional: Miami over Michigan State Midwest Regional: Michigan over Ferris State West Regional: North Dakota over Boston University Northeast Regional: Boston College over Minnesota-Duluth Championship game: Miami over Boston College Dave

More than that, I'm saying it should be Miami's bracket... Dave

This. According to KRACH (the best system for ranking teams, imho), Western Michigan was the #7 team in the country. Strict brackets based on KRACH: #1 Boston College vs. #16 Air Force (#37 in KRACH, autobid) #8 Maine vs. #9 Boston University #2 Michigan vs #15 Union #7 Western Michigan vs. #10 Minnesota #3 North Dakota vs. #14 Northern Michigan #6 Minnesota-Duluth vs. #11 Denver #4 Miami vs. #13 Michigan State #5 Ferris State vs. #12 Mass-Lowell Yes, I know, the teams could not be seeded this way, but it's interesting to compare these to what the Pairwise spits out. Cornell is the beneficiary of the Pairwise system (Northern Michigan belongs instead, according to KRACH). And here's what we actually have (KRACH ratings instead of Pairwise): #1 Boston College vs. #37 Air Force #6 Minnesota-Duluth vs. #8 Maine #2 Michigan vs. #22 Cornell #5 Ferris State vs. #11 Denver #15 Union vs. #13 Michigan State #4 Miami vs. #12 Mass-Lowell #3 North Dakota vs. #7 Western Michigan #10 Minnesota vs. #9 Boston University Dave

Not sure it's my favorite place to watch a game overall, but my favorite memory of watching the regionals on TV was at Buffalo Wild Wings in Grand Forks. UND vs. Wisconsin were playing in the 2008 Midwest Regional Final in Madison. The boys in green and white were down 2-0 in the third (and probably should have been down a lot more) but scored two goals in under a minute in the final frame before Andrew Kozek netted the game-winner in overtime. By the time that third goal was scored, everybody in the place was going bonkers - sort of like the scene at the X on Friday night, but with a berth in the Frozen Four on the line. Dave

Tickets are sold, thank you for all the interest! Dave

Forgot to add that I have the tickets in Grand Forks and can meet sometime this week or send to wherever you need them. Dave

We have four extra packages for the West Regional this weekend. Looking to get face value for the tickets. Section 102 Row 17. Perfect lower level seats right at the top of the face-off circles. $400 takes all four plus a parking pass for each day. PM me or email daveberger18@gmail.com if you're interested. Go Sioux! Dave

WCHA Final Five Preview: UND vs. St. Cloud State Discuss. :-) Dave

If Denver wins, we have #1 Minnesota (1st in WCHA regular season) #2 Minnesota-Duluth (2nd) #3 Denver (3rd) #4 North Dakota (4th) #5 St. Cloud State (6th) #6 Michigan Tech (8th) UND would play SCSU with the winner facing Minnesota in the semifinals. Denver would play MTU with the winner playing Duluth on Friday. If Wisconsin wins, we have: #1 Minnesota (1st) #2 Minnesota-Duluth (2nd) #3 North Dakota (4th) #4 St. Cloud State (6th) #5 Michigan Tech (8th) #6 Wisconsin (10th) In this case, UND would play Wisconsin with the winner facing Duluth in the semis. SCSU would draw Michigan Tech in a Husky Battle for the right to take on the Gophers. Dave