Bracketology Starts

[marty]

I'm sure you're right. But even though  I am not a Notre Dame fan,  why should they have to travel to New England two years in a row?

Driving wise from South Bend, Bridgeport is not all that more of a drive for fans than Allentown. Maybe 11.5 hour drive for a local fan over a 9.5 hour drive. Bridgeport is more friendly for Irish fans in the New York and New England hubs to attend than Allentown. And as has been widely discussed here, Allentown will be very Penn State partisan with them hosting while Bridgeport, though it will include Providence, is a bit more neutral. There's not another city that makes more sense.

If they put in a successful bid to host in a city closet to home, they would be close to home. Without that, you get sent where the committee thinks makes the most sense.

Good points.

[redGrinch]

I remember reading somewhee that OSU at Allentown saved a plane ride because Columbus<-->Allentown <500 miles.  whereas Notre Dame was >500 miles to all the eastern sites, so it doesn't really matter where they go.

For Cornell, while drawing BU sucks... on the plus side they put us with the weakest #2 seed, by the PWR.

[Anne 85]

I have no problem with this draw.

[upprdeck]

I dont BU is an issue, would rather not potentially play Bu and NE in Ma though..

[underskill]

didn't we beat BC in Worcester in 2003?

[Beeeej]

didn't we beat BC in Worcester in 2003?

We beat Quinnipiac and lost to UNH in Worcester in 2002.
We beat Minnesota State and BC in Providence in 2003.

[djk26]

I think we would find reason to complain if Cornell's regional were Brown, RIT and Alaska Anchorage.  And the games were played at Lynah Rink.  "That's not fair...the other regions get better preparation for the Frozen Four."

It's the NCAA tournament.  There are no easy games.  We lost in the semifinals of our conference tournament, we have a loss to RPI (#58 in the Pairwise) on our resume and we are a #1 seed, we did't get sent west, and our opponent is a team we have beaten this season.

I realize I am oversimplifying a lot, and BU is a LOT better than they were in November.  I really expect Cornell to lose (just based on previous NCAA tournaments), but I will still cheer them on.  I just never expect that we will get an "easy" regional (and really no team ever draws a cakewalk), especially when the committee has to work around the "no intraconference matchups in the first round" rule.

[ugarte]

I think we would find reason to complain if Cornell's regional were Brown, RIT and Alaska Anchorage.  And the games were played at Lynah Rink.  "That's not fair...the other regions get better preparation for the Frozen Four."

It's the NCAA tournament.  There are no easy games.  We lost in the semifinals of our conference tournament, we have a loss to RPI (#58 in the Pairwise) on our resume and we are a #1 seed, we did't get sent west, and our opponent is a team we have beaten this season.

I realize I am oversimplifying a lot, and BU is a LOT better than they were in November.  I really expect Cornell to lose (just based on previous NCAA tournaments), but I will still cheer them on.  I just never expect that we will get an "easy" regional (and really no team ever draws a cakewalk), especially when the committee has to work around the "no intraconference matchups in the first round" rule.

i said this to beeeej offline but i am disturbed less by our getting screwed than by bu getting the benefit of a home game, even though obviously i feel the pain more acutely because cornell gets the short end of the stick. if you aren't the "official" host - an already dubious way of earning a home game - it is bullshit that as a 4 seed you still get to play in your own backyard. if you squeak into the tournament, pack your bags.

[Jim Hyla]

I think we would find reason to complain if Cornell's regional were Brown, RIT and Alaska Anchorage.  And the games were played at Lynah Rink.  "That's not fair...the other regions get better preparation for the Frozen Four."

It's the NCAA tournament.  There are no easy games.  We lost in the semifinals of our conference tournament, we have a loss to RPI (#58 in the Pairwise) on our resume and we are a #1 seed, we did't get sent west, and our opponent is a team we have beaten this season.

I realize I am oversimplifying a lot, and BU is a LOT better than they were in November.  I really expect Cornell to lose (just based on previous NCAA tournaments), but I will still cheer them on.  I just never expect that we will get an "easy" regional (and really no team ever draws a cakewalk), especially when the committee has to work around the "no intraconference matchups in the first round" rule.

i said this to beeeej offline but i am disturbed less by our getting screwed than by bu getting the benefit of a home game, even though obviously i feel the pain more acutely because cornell gets the short end of the stick. if you aren't the "official" host - an already dubious way of earning a home game - it is bullshit that as a 4 seed you still get to play in your own backyard. if you squeak into the tournament, pack your bags.

+1

[Dafatone]

I think we would find reason to complain if Cornell's regional were Brown, RIT and Alaska Anchorage.  And the games were played at Lynah Rink.  "That's not fair...the other regions get better preparation for the Frozen Four."

It's the NCAA tournament.  There are no easy games.  We lost in the semifinals of our conference tournament, we have a loss to RPI (#58 in the Pairwise) on our resume and we are a #1 seed, we did't get sent west, and our opponent is a team we have beaten this season.

I realize I am oversimplifying a lot, and BU is a LOT better than they were in November.  I really expect Cornell to lose (just based on previous NCAA tournaments), but I will still cheer them on.  I just never expect that we will get an "easy" regional (and really no team ever draws a cakewalk), especially when the committee has to work around the "no intraconference matchups in the first round" rule.

i said this to beeeej offline but i am disturbed less by our getting screwed than by bu getting the benefit of a home game, even though obviously i feel the pain more acutely because cornell gets the short end of the stick. if you aren't the "official" host - an already dubious way of earning a home game - it is bullshit that as a 4 seed you still get to play in your own backyard. if you squeak into the tournament, pack your bags.

Yeah but ticket sales.

Also, there were three eastern regionals this year. Allentown is decently far from Boston, but it's still more east than Midwest in my opinion.

[Beeeej]

I think we would find reason to complain if Cornell's regional were Brown, RIT and Alaska Anchorage.  And the games were played at Lynah Rink.  "That's not fair...the other regions get better preparation for the Frozen Four."

It's the NCAA tournament.  There are no easy games.  We lost in the semifinals of our conference tournament, we have a loss to RPI (#58 in the Pairwise) on our resume and we are a #1 seed, we did't get sent west, and our opponent is a team we have beaten this season.

I realize I am oversimplifying a lot, and BU is a LOT better than they were in November.  I really expect Cornell to lose (just based on previous NCAA tournaments), but I will still cheer them on.  I just never expect that we will get an "easy" regional (and really no team ever draws a cakewalk), especially when the committee has to work around the "no intraconference matchups in the first round" rule.

i said this to beeeej offline but i am disturbed less by our getting screwed than by bu getting the benefit of a home game, even though obviously i feel the pain more acutely because cornell gets the short end of the stick. if you aren't the "official" host - an already dubious way of earning a home game - it is bullshit that as a 4 seed you still get to play in your own backyard. if you squeak into the tournament, pack your bags.

At this point, though, the only reasonable way to do that is to swap the entire Worcester regional with the entire Bridgeport regional, and even then I don't think you've accomplished much by moving BU an extra 100 miles. The only real alternative is swapping BU for Michigan Tech, and I don't really believe you value punishing BU for "squeaking in" (by winning their conference tournament, btw) more than you value the overall #2 seed's right to play the overall #15.

[ugarte]

Yeah but ticket sales.

bah. this is an excuse but not a good reason since it is antithetical to "earning" your seed on the ice.

i said this to beeeej offline but i am disturbed less by our getting screwed than by bu getting the benefit of a home game, even though obviously i feel the pain more acutely because cornell gets the short end of the stick. if you aren't the "official" host - an already dubious way of earning a home game - it is bullshit that as a 4 seed you still get to play in your own backyard. if you squeak into the tournament, pack your bags.

At this point, though, the only reasonable way to do that is to swap the entire Worcester regional with the entire Bridgeport regional, and even then I don't think you've accomplished much by moving BU an extra 100 miles. The only real alternative is swapping BU for Michigan Tech, and I don't really believe you value punishing BU for "squeaking in" (by winning their conference tournament, btw) more than you value the overall #2 seed's right to play the overall #15.

As you know, swapping the regionals was literally my proposal. DRIVE THOSE 100 MILES, TERRIER FANS! Obviously Notre Dame earned their #2 overall place and we shouldn't get to benefit at their expense.

[Beeeej]

Yeah but ticket sales.

bah. this is an excuse but not a good reason since it is antithetical to "earning" your seed on the ice.

i said this to beeeej offline but i am disturbed less by our getting screwed than by bu getting the benefit of a home game, even though obviously i feel the pain more acutely because cornell gets the short end of the stick. if you aren't the "official" host - an already dubious way of earning a home game - it is bullshit that as a 4 seed you still get to play in your own backyard. if you squeak into the tournament, pack your bags.

At this point, though, the only reasonable way to do that is to swap the entire Worcester regional with the entire Bridgeport regional, and even then I don't think you've accomplished much by moving BU an extra 100 miles. The only real alternative is swapping BU for Michigan Tech, and I don't really believe you value punishing BU for "squeaking in" (by winning their conference tournament, btw) more than you value the overall #2 seed's right to play the overall #15.

As you know, swapping the regionals was literally my proposal. DRIVE THOSE 100 MILES, TERRIER FANS! Obviously Notre Dame earned their #2 overall place and we shouldn't get to benefit at their expense.

Yeah, hence why I called it reasonable. I just don't think it does squat. :-) IS IT SATURDAY YET?!?!

[Trotsky]

Campus sites or GTFO.

[abmarks]

it is bullshit that as a 4 seed you still get to play in your own backyard. if you squeak into the tournament, pack your bags.

The only way to aviod this problem is to have the tournament be as popular as the basketball tournament.  Remember, one of the criteria the committee talked about in interviews was game-time atmosphere at the arena.  Sellouts guarantee atmosphere.  With half full rinks you'll need some local teams every time to keep it from being a mausoleum.

The other factor here is the geographic dispersion of host rinks.  In the Northeast, there's a pretty regular rota that includes any two of Providence, Worcester, Manchester, Albany and Bridgeport (unless I forgot somewhere else).  This means that every single year you're seeing Prov, Worc, or Manch, if not two of those locations.  With the tremendous number of teams within an hour of those rinks, you're going to get teams placed locally every year.   If this was out west, that problem goes away quiet often since the distances are so great.

No-one is complaining if BU and Northeastern were the higher seeds in their games.

Cornell got the best matchup we could (per the Pairwise) - since we couldn't play #14 Princeton, we get #13 BU.   Since when is 3 v 13 a bad thing?  And it's not like playing at BU where there might be only 500 Cornell fans at their rink.  We'll have several thousand.