CHAMPIONS!

[Greg Berge]

After all of last night's results, Cornell is tied for 9th in PWR with Michigan and UA-Fairbanks.  They are behind both in RPI, so they are effectively 11th at the moment.

A bright spot is that the clumping of PWR rankings occurs immediately above Cornell: 3 schools have 24 pair victories, 1 has 23, 1 has 22, 3 have 21 (Cornell among them).  The next team below has 18 pairs.  That suggests there may be a lot of fluidity in the ranking from 11th all the way up to 4th.  Of course, for Cornell to take advantage, they probably have to win from here on out.

[jtwcornell91]

Greg Berge wrote:

After all of last night's results, Cornell is tied for 9th in PWR with Michigan and UA-Fairbanks.  They are behind both in RPI, so they are effectively 11th at the moment.

More to the point, they lose the individual comparisons with both.

[Greg Berge]

Some perspective on the title:

http://www.spiritone.com/~kepler/ecac/ecac_rs_one_seeds.htm

[littleredfan]

does anyone know what % of teams that have won the RS have also won the ECAC title?

[tml5]

Only 15 out of 40 top seeds have won the ECAC tourney (provided I can count, which I can't), but I think the numbers from before the final five format won't matter as much, due to the various flaws in the final five system that stack the deck in favor of the top seed.  Since the final five was instituted, 2 out of 4 #1 seeds have won the ECAC title.  However, 3 of 4 #1 seeds at Placid have gone on to win the Whitelaw since 1998.  

Of course, 4 tournaments isn't what I'd call a big sample size.  Still, it is nice to know that *if* Cornell gets to Placid, then a) there will be 2 Cornell games, regardless of outcome, and b) Cornell gets a tired opponent in the SF game.

The bigger concern at this point is who Cornell will face in the *first* round.  Yale and SLU are scary, although given the choice I'd rather see Yale.  I think SLU has more depth and an edge in goaltending.

[Al DeFlorio]

And Cornell has won four out of five as top seed (but long ago); Clarkson, three out of ten, for comparison.

Except for the 1-3 PIG-avoidance advantage over 4-5 (barring upsets), and the 1-5 home ice advantage over 6-10, the seedings don't mean much--especially with the balance from 2 through 11 this year.  I just hope the "RS title" business hasn't taken the team's usual focus off the tournament.

[cbuckser]

Having the last line change throughout the ECAC Tournament will be helpful, as will facing the play-in-game winner in the semifinals.

[Al DeFlorio]

Hard to say.  Depends who wins the PIG.

[Craine]

I think there are 3 distinct advantages to being #1:

1)  We get to play on Friday afternoon against a team who had to play the night before - It doesn't matter who it is that comes out of the PIG, they're going to be a tired team, and that will give us an advantage... I can't think of any team that would PREFER playing Friday afternoon after playing Thursday night as opposed to playing Friday afternoon with almost a full week of rest.

2)  Assuming we make the finals, we will have more rest than the team we play... The # 1 team gets to choose which of the Semi-final games (Friday afternoon or Friday night) they get, and I can't remember the # 1 team ever choosing the later game... It may not be much, but it does give the # 1 team a few more hours of rest

3)  Line changes - # 1 team is the home team throughout, and gets to make the last line change before a face off, therefore they can always get the line combinations they want

[kaelistus]

About #2, I thought they decided the #1 teams plays #4/5 on the Friday Night game always. I remember someone telling me that they decided that it was too much to have the play-in winner play in the afternoon.

I know I remember that we played Harvard last year Friday afternoon... and SLU had the home ice on that one.

On #3. How does that work? I didn't know home ice worked that way.

[Craine]

I may be wrong on #2... I know that before the Final Five, and the PIG, the #1 team got to choose which of the Friday games they wanted...  But, now that I'm looking at the ECAC home page, it appears I was incorrect on that point, so I apologize...

So, it appears that the # 1 seed actually does have less rest on Saturday (which is more fair overall, since it gives the PIG winner a bit more time to rest), but since it's only 3 hours, I never really considered it that big a deal...

As for face-offs, the home team (in both college and the NHL) gets to make the last line change before a face off... So, when the whistle stops play, the visiting team makes their changes, and then the home team can match-up with their own changes... This way, if we know we want a certain line against, say, the top scoring line of another team, we can ensure, for the most part, that we get that matchup...

[KeithK]

They stopped allowing the #1 seed to choose (and they always chose the early game Friday) after the first year of the PIG when it was clear that this was more of an unfair advantage than the league wanted to give the top team (the league wanted the #1 to win back then to take advantage of the Clarkson rule).
Probably they'll go back to giving the top seed the choice next year when the PIG is gone.

[Greg Berge]

I could be wrong, but wasn't 1998 the first year of the PIG (i.e., the year that Princetoin swept the PIG, SF, and F (in double overtime)?

[Al DeFlorio]

Correct.

[ugarte]

:-D I am stoked. ECAC Regular season champions. Ivy League Champions.  What a great damn year. I couldn't care less who we play in the tournament.  We are the best team in the league this year, and it shouldn't matter what order we play the other teams in.  Either we will win, or we won't.

LET'S GO RED!!!