Opponent and other news and results 2025-2026

[adamw]

Choosing teams for the national tournament based on a formula that is designed to maximize things other than picking the most qualified teams is absolutely nuts! I'm wondering how off the 1.2/0.8 split is though. I could imagine it's close to the "true" advantage...

National home ice advantage last year was .5377 ... which is the lowest in at least 10 years. I think that's also skewed by all the "bigger" teams that still host "smaller" teams in most instances where two such teams meet. But that's somewhat speculative.

[BearLover]

Choosing teams for the national tournament based on a formula that is designed to maximize things other than picking the most qualified teams is absolutely nuts! I'm wondering how off the 1.2/0.8 split is though. I could imagine it's close to the "true" advantage...

National home ice advantage last year was .5377 ... which is the lowest in at least 10 years. I think that's also skewed by all the "bigger" teams that still host "smaller" teams in most instances where two such teams meet. But that's somewhat speculative.

Also I assume it is counting teams that host home playoff games by virtue of having a better record.

If I have time I'll eventually calculate what home ice advantage was within the ECAC regular season last year. Small sample but it would account for most of these issues. If someone else wants to take a crack at it, feel free.

[abmarks]

Choosing teams for the national tournament based on a formula that is designed to maximize things other than picking the most qualified teams is absolutely nuts! I'm wondering how off the 1.2/0.8 split is though. I could imagine it's close to the "true" advantage...

National home ice advantage last year was .5377 ... which is the lowest in at least 10 years. I think that's also skewed by all the "bigger" teams that still host "smaller" teams in most instances where two such teams meet. But that's somewhat speculative.

Adam, is that advantage based on straight win/loss?

It would be more useful to see a krach
adjusted advantage as that would remove the big school small school issue and also adjust for sos.

[adamw]

Choosing teams for the national tournament based on a formula that is designed to maximize things other than picking the most qualified teams is absolutely nuts! I'm wondering how off the 1.2/0.8 split is though. I could imagine it's close to the "true" advantage...

National home ice advantage last year was .5377 ... which is the lowest in at least 10 years. I think that's also skewed by all the "bigger" teams that still host "smaller" teams in most instances where two such teams meet. But that's somewhat speculative.

Also I assume it is counting teams that host home playoff games by virtue of having a better record.

If I have time I'll eventually calculate what home ice advantage was within the ECAC regular season last year. Small sample but it would account for most of these issues. If someone else wants to take a crack at it, feel free.

my bad not including ties in a WL% formula. Doesn't change it much nationally ... .5345

the home ice advantage in just ECAC regular-season games was ... negative - by a lot ... .4394

I checked this for all conferences just to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong ... the national WL% for regular-season games in any conference was .... .4960

This lends credence to the idea that non-conference games are largely by "bigger" teams playing "smaller" teams.

The home WL% in the Big Ten - BTW - was ... .5563

take that for what it's worth

(FYI - I did not do goofy points % math with 3-2-1 points, etc... - Just 2 for a W, 1 for T through OT - so Ws including OTWs)

[upprdeck]

So does it make sense then, that better teams win more home and away and worse teams lose more home and away.

How much does it skew thing if there is no advantage at all for h/a?

A good team in a bad league will win more and also win more away and thus get more credit?  But then its value is lowered by the SOS.

I was listening to a show talking about power rankings and metrices for gambling and they had the discussion that basically the eye test is much better at picking better teams but that with so many teams they computer numbers make it easier to assign value even if its wrong.

[BearLover]

So my question here was whether the current home/away weighting in the NPL is accurate. It assumes home teams should win 60% of the time, all else being equal. Sounds like in effect it's closer to 53.5%. If I have that right, the 1.2/0.8 weighting should be lessened. Obviously, you'd need to cross-check this against more years to confirm last year wasn't a fluke.

This is all a wash if every team plays the same ratio of games home:away.

[adamw]

So my question here was whether the current home/away weighting in the NPL is accurate. It assumes home teams should win 60% of the time, all else being equal. Sounds like in effect it's closer to 53.5%. If I have that right, the 1.2/0.8 weighting should be lessened. Obviously, you'd need to cross-check this against more years to confirm last year wasn't a fluke.

This is all a wash if every team plays the same ratio of games home:away.

Nobody ever believed the home/road weighting was accurate. 100% accuracy was literally never the goal. The fact that it's not accurate is not even a question.

[BearLover]

So my question here was whether the current home/away weighting in the NPL is accurate. It assumes home teams should win 60% of the time, all else being equal. Sounds like in effect it's closer to 53.5%. If I have that right, the 1.2/0.8 weighting should be lessened. Obviously, you'd need to cross-check this against more years to confirm last year wasn't a fluke.

This is all a wash if every team plays the same ratio of games home:away.

Nobody ever believed the home/road weighting was accurate. 100% accuracy was literally never the goal. The fact that it's not accurate is not even a question.

Umm, ok? Obviously no one would expect it to be perfectly accurate. But I would have expected it to be somewhat based in reality, given they had to choose a number. Why 1.2/0.8 instead of 1.1/0.9 or 1.3/0.7? It's pretty clearly implied that the question of "whether the weighting is accurate" also includes the question of "if it's not accurate, then by how much?"

[adamw]

So my question here was whether the current home/away weighting in the NPL is accurate. It assumes home teams should win 60% of the time, all else being equal. Sounds like in effect it's closer to 53.5%. If I have that right, the 1.2/0.8 weighting should be lessened. Obviously, you'd need to cross-check this against more years to confirm last year wasn't a fluke.

This is all a wash if every team plays the same ratio of games home:away.

Nobody ever believed the home/road weighting was accurate. 100% accuracy was literally never the goal. The fact that it's not accurate is not even a question.

Umm, ok? Obviously no one would expect it to be perfectly accurate. But I would have expected it to be somewhat based in reality, given they had to choose a number. Why 1.2/0.8 instead of 1.1/0.9 or 1.3/0.7? It's pretty clearly implied that the question of "whether the weighting is accurate" also includes the question of "if it's not accurate, then by how much?"

They literally debate 6 ways to Sunday every different possibility all the time. Conference games vs. NC - OT weights - etc... You want the minutes of all the meetings?  I'm telling you the general gist is that it wasn't intended to be accurate. It was intended to encourage bigger programs to play road non-conference games.  So no one has cared about tweaking 1.2/0.8 to fit whatever the exact home ice advantage is every year - which fluctuates.

[Trotsky]

So my question here was whether the current home/away weighting in the NPL is accurate. It assumes home teams should win 60% of the time, all else being equal. Sounds like in effect it's closer to 53.5%. If I have that right, the 1.2/0.8 weighting should be lessened. Obviously, you'd need to cross-check this against more years to confirm last year wasn't a fluke.

This is all a wash if every team plays the same ratio of games home:away.

Nobody ever believed the home/road weighting was accurate. 100% accuracy was literally never the goal. The fact that it's not accurate is not even a question.

If it angers the media due to their innumeracy, so much the better.

Umm, ok? Obviously no one would expect it to be perfectly accurate. But I would have expected it to be somewhat based in reality, given they had to choose a number.

It would be easy enough to let that number "choose" itself from any given year's actual results, normalized the way the poster said above.  They didn't "have" to do anything.  It's arbitrary.  So let the weights determine themselves.  Don't force a (mis-) preconception onto them.

If it infuriates the innumerate masses, so much the better.

[BearLover]

So my question here was whether the current home/away weighting in the NPL is accurate. It assumes home teams should win 60% of the time, all else being equal. Sounds like in effect it's closer to 53.5%. If I have that right, the 1.2/0.8 weighting should be lessened. Obviously, you'd need to cross-check this against more years to confirm last year wasn't a fluke.

This is all a wash if every team plays the same ratio of games home:away.

Nobody ever believed the home/road weighting was accurate. 100% accuracy was literally never the goal. The fact that it's not accurate is not even a question.

If it angers the media due to their innumeracy, so much the better.

Umm, ok? Obviously no one would expect it to be perfectly accurate. But I would have expected it to be somewhat based in reality, given they had to choose a number.

It would be easy enough to let that number "choose" itself from any given year's actual results, normalized the way the poster said above.  They didn't "have" to do anything.  It's arbitrary.  So let the weights determine themselves.  Don't force a (mis-) preconception onto them.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me but this is what I'm calling for, yes. There's a clear misperception here: I was (and I assume most other fans were) under the impression the 1.2/0.8 split was meant to capture the real advantage of home ice. Apparently that isn't the goal at all. That's not only unfair, it's also misleading. Seems like the easiest way to game the system is to schedule a bunch of games on the road, since you get a bonus that exceeds the home team's real advantage. If you want to slightly sweeten the deal for away teams to encourage more teams to travel to Alaska or something, sure, but once we have to start changing other rules to account for this weighting being bad, then it begs the question whether we need to use weights that are totally off in the first place.

[Trotsky]

So my question here was whether the current home/away weighting in the NPL is accurate. It assumes home teams should win 60% of the time, all else being equal. Sounds like in effect it's closer to 53.5%. If I have that right, the 1.2/0.8 weighting should be lessened. Obviously, you'd need to cross-check this against more years to confirm last year wasn't a fluke.

This is all a wash if every team plays the same ratio of games home:away.

Nobody ever believed the home/road weighting was accurate. 100% accuracy was literally never the goal. The fact that it's not accurate is not even a question.

If it angers the media due to their innumeracy, so much the better.

Umm, ok? Obviously no one would expect it to be perfectly accurate. But I would have expected it to be somewhat based in reality, given they had to choose a number.

It would be easy enough to let that number "choose" itself from any given year's actual results, normalized the way the poster said above.  They didn't "have" to do anything.  It's arbitrary.  So let the weights determine themselves.  Don't force a (mis-) preconception onto them.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me but this is what I'm calling for, yes.

I didn't read your post.  I am saying any dictated number is artificial so at least this would be somewhat reality-based and flexible.  Of course, the choice of algorithm which rolls those results in would itself then be arbitrary, and on and on...

Every reality is a social convention so the sane have a beer and the fanatical fight for the right to impose their pet system.  cf. politics, ethics, aesthetics, religion, science, history, law, language, etc...

[marty]

Every reality is a social convention so the sane have a beer and the fanatical fight for the right to impose their pet system.  cf. politics, ethics, aesthetics, religion, science, history, law, language, etc...

As long as the insane aren't allowed to choose the beer I'm fine with this.

[stereax]

Two prime hatewatch opportunities tonight - Stonehill/Harvard and Alaska/Quinnipiac. If either of the non-ECAC teams win, we can brand their opponents absolute frauds.