Although the CCHA's official website makes no mention of this yet, an article in the Omaha World-Herald indicates that the CCHA is"radically" changing the playoff system for its post-season tournament, starting with the 2005-06 season.
Old system: All 12 teams make the playoffs. Top six host bottom six (12 at 1, 11 at 2, etc.) in a best-of-three first round. The six winners advance. The following Thursday, 3 plays 6 and 4 plays 5 in a play-in game, with the winners advancing to meet the top two seeds in the semis.
New system (stop me if you've heard this one): All 12 teams make playoffs. Top four get first-round byes, while 5 through 8 host 12 through 9 in a best-of-three first round. Those four winners advance to the best-of-three quarterfinals, hosted by the top four seeds. The four q-final winners advance to the semis.
Reason for the change? The Thursday night games were not well attended. Which also sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Here's the World-Herald article:
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=38&u_sid=1393745
This site requires registration, which probably opens you up to all kinds of spam, but it might be worth it to read how the CCHA discussed the playoff format with a school official from "the East Coast Athletic Conference".
Man, and they didn't even say "yoink". ::twitch::
So we never have to deal with the term "Super Six" ever again? Yay. Now all we have to do is figure out a way to get the WCHA to give the axe to the term "Final Five" and we'd be golden. :-P
Anyone care to speculate on how the loss of a week's worth of play might affect the PWR rankings next year? I know it will have only a small impact, but when we see teams win tiebreakers over an RPI difference of 0.001, you never know how this might factor in...
The change will likely help the top teams in the CCHA marginally, because they will be playing the winners of the first round instead of possibly the bottom feeders. While your RPI can't drop by playing the #12 team it's better to have it maybe rise by playing #8. (Assume you still win, of course).
Otherwise it shouldn't make much difference at all.
There will be that chance of a quarterfinal upset, though, where now the top two teams got a QF bye. That and all teams at the tourney are playing on relatively equal rest. Plus more games means more chance of injuries.
Has there been any discussion of Hockey East changing their playoffs now that they have 10 teams? Or will they simply leave two teams out?
Everything I've heard indicates that HE will continue to have an 8 team playoff system. Always subject to change, of course. Especially if they're trying to compete with the WCHA. ::rolleyes::