As per tradition…okay, maybe not tradition. As per recent trend, I’m updating my annual NCAA Hockey Tournament Proposal/Discussion to fit this season’s tournament announcement. If you’ve missed the last couple of years, you can read them here and also here. The second one sparked quite a debate in the comments about a number of different options. It’s worth a quick parsing. Also, this is my first real foray into the Pairwise Rankings and matchups since I didn’t write any Rooting Guides this season. Honestly, Michigan didn’t win enough games to get into the Top 20, so it seemed a bit secondary.

Notes: Individual Scoring, Absent Teams, #1 Seed Punishment

• Scoring: Heading into this tournament, only two players have 50 points, and one of those players got eliminated on Saturday and the other is in the NHL right now. Granted, there are still 15 games to be played for players in the mid-to-high 40s, but I think anyone getting to 55 is a stretch. That seems low. I looked back at the previous five seasons or so (lol the CCM line year) and the number of players to reach 50 points were: 6, 13, 10, and 9. Maybe it's just me, but scoring seems more spread out this season. There also might be a lack of high end scorers? Anyway, it caught my attention.
• Absent Teams: Six schools have at least five National Championships. Five of those six missed the tournament (Denver is the exception). Those teams are: Michigan (boo), North Dakota, Wisconsin, Boston College, Boston University, and Minnesota. All three schools with three National Championships missed the tournament. The three with three aren’t quite as prominent or have not been as good recently: Lake State, Michigan State, and Michigan Tech. Either college hockey is reaching some extreme parity or this was a weird year.
• Minnesota State is the #3 overall seed and they are playing a road game at #14 Providence. Literally a road game. Come on. Also, Minn-Duluth is the #2 overall seed and are going to Allentown, PA (why? why is this even an NCAA Tournament location?) to “host” the Arizona State Ice Devils. If this doesn’t reinforce my coming points, I can’t help you.

[After THE JUMP: replicating the first couple days of the basketball tournament, this year's home-site matchups, Frozen Four locations, and the ways to make it all work]

Final Pairwise Ranking with Tournament Champions:

1. St Cloud State

2. Minn-Duluth

3. Minnesota State

4. Massachusetts

5. Clarkson

6. Northeastern

7. Quinnipiac

8. Denver

9. Ohio State

10. The Arizona State Ice Devils!

11. Cornell

12. Notre Dame

13. Harvard

14. Providence

15. Bowling Green

31. American International

There was only ONE stolen bid!? LOLWUT.

 

You KNEW this was coming

Matchups:

Let’s say we stick with my previous best-of-three series at home sites following the 1v16, 2v15, 3v14, 4v13, etc model and included times like the previous years. There are no intraconference matchups!

 

First Round Matchups with Timeslots on Friday Night Frenzy:

6:00pm: (13) Harvard AT (4) Massachusetts ESPN2/NBC or Fox affiliate

6:30pm: (11) Cornell AT (6) Northeastern ESPNU/NBC or Fox affiliate

7:00pm: (12) Notre Dame AT (5) Clarkson ESPN/NBC or Fox affiliate

7:30pm: (10) Arizona State Ice Devils AT (7) Quinnipiac ESPN3/NBC or Fox affiliate

8:00pm: (16) American International AT (1) St Cloud State ESPN3/NBC or Fox affiliate

8:45pm: (15) Bowling Green AT (2) Minn-Duluth ESPN2/NBC or Fox affiliate

9:15pm: (14) Providence AT (3) Minnesota State ESPNU/NBC or Fox affiliate

9:45pm:(9) Ohio State AT (9) Denver ESPN/NBC or Fox affiliate

 

Weekend Games 2 and 3(if necessary):

…could follow a similar path or could break into multiple windows, such as 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm.  All games could still be channeled or streamed, and a RedZone could easily be implemented. Weekends provide more options for more eyeballs. If there is a concern about eight camera crews/announcing tandems, let local stations cover games and allow the national entity to tap-in. Or…let them send their own crew. Are there legal hiccups? Maybe, but this has been done repeatedly before, so it shouldn’t be a Shut-Down Obstacle.

Is this entirely feasible? Haha, I don’t know. I really like it, but a number of people have pointed out that it might be a lot of games. Alright, alright, alright, I hear you. I would accept just home sites single-elimination. Do it the same way as previously listed or spread out those games over the course of a Friday/Saturday. Single elimination increases the road team’s chance of victory, but at least they have to go into a home rink to do so. Baby steps, I guess.  

 

I know the ideas of pods/quads has been discussed. It does allow for less travel and –if done at highest seed’s location- still favors the host team. However, that is still super similar to what we have now…but without the random abandoned buildings. Again, a step in the desired direction, but not quite all of the way, IMO.

Yes, YES…think about this. Think long and hard…[Know Your Meme and EmojiTerra]

Second Round: Round of 8

Let’s say the previous home teams advance– as the objective enthusiast would probably prefer.

There are now four series. This could be similarly scheduled or spread out -depending on the teams involved and times played.

-Friday could be 6pm, 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm - or 7pm, 7:30pm, 9:30pm, and 10pm. Channel and/or stream them, and have a RedZone if necessary. This would probably be lot better hockey, and there would hopefully not be as many blowouts as the first round could have.

-Saturday and Sunday could be similar. By the time the tournament reaches this point, each game will be worth focusing on, instead of the spectacle of mass hysteria.

 

First Round Matchups with Timeslots on Friday Night Frenzy Part 2:

7:00pm: (5) Clarkson AT (4) Massachusetts ESPNU

8:00pm: (6) Northeastern AT (3) Minnesota State ESPN

9:00pm: (7) Quinnipiac AT (2) Minn-Duluth ESPN2

10:00pm: (8) Denver AT (1) St Cloud State ESPNU

I bumped the times forward an hour since over half of these teams not in the Eastern time zone. Again, weekend games could be spread throughout the day, or we could do this all over again on Saturday evening. Either would work.

 

Frozen Four:

This is from last year’s column:

This might be the most popular part of college hockey. It is generally well-attended– and not just by fans of the qualified teams. I do think that there needs to be a bit of renovation to location, though.

Thanks a ton to @The_Mathlete for making these charts

What are the four best locations geographically? The left is the No Alaska, Huntsville, or Arizona State: Unweighted. The right is the Core Footprint: Unweighted. Hmm. I assume no one wants to play in the Finger Lakes, so shift the New York dot to Buffalo or Pittsburgh and slide the Michigan dot a smidge to the east and voila! Also, add a fifth spot for Denver.

Rotation among Six. The Frozen Four has been rotated all over the country, mostly settling in the Midwest/Northeast. Some of these sites have been great, others have been head-scratchers. I think that there are five great sites: Denver, Minneapolis/St Paul, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Boston. All five are known as great hockey cities, and almost all of the current DI hockey programs are located near-ish to one of these five locations. The sixth site can be random. Grow the sport. Go to Phoenix, Nashville, Anaheim, New York, or even Anchorage. Just make sure the five strongest mini-regions get to host and then go on a whim for the sixth.

Only go to Anchorage if Kentucky gets a DI program. I’ve also heard the Toronto idea floated. Maybe? Would anyone care? Isn’t there already tons of hockey bandy up there? Anyway, I am open to this as a sixth site if the research seems to reinforce the idea. I suppose passports could be a problem, etc.

So, I still really like this idea because it keeps the best college hockey event within a reasonable area of…well, almost all of college hockey. I do understand that going to exotic locations can be desirable and will probably still be well-attended, but that is the purpose of the sixth year-option. I also do want to reiterate that if nothing about the Frozen Four changes, that’s acceptable, as well. My biggest beef is with the first couple of rounds and locations. One good point that was made was switching from Thursday-Saturday to Sunday-Monday. I could do that. I like the way that the Final Four works.

I’m not sure what these are but they seem apropos [youtube.com and Fox Fiver Valley Public Library]

April Absurdity:

I am still in favor of this.

-First Round: April 12th-14th

-Eskimo Eight: 19th-21st

-Frozen Four: 26th-28th

 

Being the college sports enthusiast that I am, I wouldn’t mind seeing the latter implemented. Give hockey its own month with no inherent basketball competition. March Madness followed by April Absurdity.

Let’s try NOT competing against the most popular sport in America. Start a month later, add a week of games in December– or eliminate a Bye Week- and all of a sudden there is less competition with football or head-to-head between the NCAA basketball and hockey tournaments.

 

Is it possible/feasible to start the season in November? It seems like it should be? Have the non-conference run through December (or start your conference slate if you want) and then pick up with the Conference games in January. There are still 12 weeks of regular season with a couple of weeks left for conference tournaments. Or play one or two conference series in December if a conference wants to make room for three weeks of conference tournaments. I will say that this will conflict with drafted players signing with NHL teams for the last couple weeks of the regular season…or the playoffs. That’s unfortunate, but players can sign if their team doesn’t make the NCAA Tournament. I’m not sure that the schedule needs to remain the same in order to accommodate these few players. Plus, are there not fewer high end players in college hockey, now anyway? I guess that would be a different article. [Ed. A- I'm a fan of starting the conference slate after the new year. The way things are now it's so disjointed with conference play starting, then stopping for weeks, then (in Michigan's case) a non-conference holiday tournament, that I think you lose something in terms of intrigue when there's a league like this year's Big Ten waiting to cannibalize itself for your entertainment and a bunch of said entertaining games are played during football season.]