2022 University Cup

[UNB Bruins Fan]

Assuming expectations are met. Honestly rather play X (known) than UQTR (unknown)

I may regret saying this…but when’s the last time you were concerned about UQTR? UNB has handled them pretty well the last 20 years….especially at the UCup.

 

[Rob]

Assuming expectations are met. Honestly rather play X (known) than UQTR (unknown)

Not me. Remember 2018?

I’m happy with our bracket.

 

[Rob]

The only game I see being competitive is UQTR vs UBC.

 

[UNB Bruins Fan]

The Seeding system is flawed.
We all know it.
There is nothing in the history of USports hockey over the last 20 years to justify having OUA 1 and 2 as the 3rd and 4th seeds every year...with AUS and CW the obviously stronger Conferences.
But the Coaches and Administrators are NOT concerned about treating USports like a Meritocracy!

Why are the top 4 seeds restricted to the conference/division champions anyways? Why is that even a thing? As far as I know, no other sport does it that way.

 

[AUS Fan]

They've done that for a while. Looking back at some of the 6 team tournaments the same format is used.

 

[dm8895]

Not me. Remember 2018?

I’m happy with our bracket.

I agree , I’d almost rather UofA than X … We all know GMac and Brad don’t like each other , but I can’t deny that X is always extremely well coached and I can think of a few times where he just out coached Gardiner (2010)…

 

[UNB Bruins Fan]

*Incoming annual rant alert*

I complain about this every year…and this year is going to be no exception. I LOATHE the fact that teams on each side of the bracket play on the same day…it has never, ever made sense to me and I don’t know why it has never been addressed. They say it is to maintain the integrity of the bracket, but all it does is give the Thursday winners the advantage of a day off. To me, it is more important to keep the teams in each bracket in the same time slot…which is essentially what they used to do with old 6 team format when they had afternoon and evening pools.

Plus, it would make each bracket more fair in terms of days off. For example, #1 Alberta might play 3 in 4 while #2 UNB has to go 3 in 3….they should both have similar paths.

My ideal schedule:

Thursday
Afternoon - #1 vs. #8
Evening - #2 vs. #7

Friday
Afternoon - #4 vs. #5
Evening - #3 vs. #6

Saturday
Afternoon - 1/8 vs. 4/5 winner
Evening - 2/7 vs. 4/5 winner


- top two teams play on the first day and get the advantage of a day off if they win. #1 seed plays earlier so they get a little bit more rest.
- I would actually make this mandatory and do away with giving the host team any leeway when they play. Does having the host wait until Friday to play (instead of Thursday and possibly losing) really make a difference in overall attendance like has always been argued?
- each side of the bracket plays in the same time slot Thurs/Fri/Sat…either the afternoon or evening. A much more structured set-up than we see currently when you could play Thursday night and then Saturday afternoon (and then Sunday night)…or Friday afternoon and then Saturday night. I remember in 2017 UNB played games at, I think, 8PM on Thursday night, 12PM Saturday, and 1PM Sunday.
- the only issue I see is trying to work around the cross-country travel, particularly for western teams coming east. Not sure Alberta would love to play Thursday afternoon, for instance.

 

[AUS Fan]

Someone could do 3 in 3 if they win.

 

[AdamMcg83]

Why are the top 4 seeds restricted to the conference/division champions anyways? Why is that even a thing? As far as I know, no other sport does it that way.

Usports Women's hockey does it this way, while both M and W Usports basketball and volleyball have a variation of these seeding rules (conference playoff results must be respected, and conference champions must be seeded in the top 6, regardless of their last top-10 ranking). NHL, MLB, NFL, and several other sports also provide seeding rewards for winning a division title. It's not exactly a novel concept!

 

[MiamiHockeyII]

The Seeding system is flawed.
We all know it.
There is nothing in the history of USports hockey over the last 20 years to justify having OUA 1 and 2 as the 3rd and 4th seeds every year...with AUS and CW the obviously stronger Conferences.
But the Coaches and Administrators are NOT concerned about treating USports like a Meritocracy!

Last 20 years?

Here's a complete list of Canada West teams that have won the University Cup since 2000:

Alberta

Here's a complete list of OUA teams that have won the University Cup since 2000:

UQTR
Western
McGill

Here's a complete list of Canada West teams that have made the University Cup Finals since 2000:

Alberta
Saskatchewan

Here's a complete list of OUA teams that have won made the University Cup Finals since 2000:

UQTR
Western
McGill
Lakehead

Canada West has Alberta and Saskatchewan. When Alberta repeatedly approaches an undefeated season, it's not because Canada West is such a strong conference, Bob.

 

[Drummer]

I may regret saying this…but when’s the last time you were concerned about UQTR? UNB has handled them pretty well the last 20 years….especially at the UCup.

2003 when they defeated UNB in the Semi's.

Since then 9-0 (Exh+UCup). Last three meetings at UCup were all wins for UNB; 8-3 (2013-Sask), 6-1 (2012-Freddy) and 6-0 (Moncton-2007).

Interesting in 2013 and 2012 they met in the Fall with UNB winning both games 3-2, then really dominated them at UCup.

 

[Drummer]

Why are the top 4 seeds restricted to the conference/division champions anyways? Why is that even a thing? As far as I know, no other sport does it that way.

It's just the way USPORTS does it. Each conference gets some PR Points. In reality - it frigs up the tournament because strength of each team is not represented from 1 to 8 very well. That said - you have to win 3 games regardless of how the teams are seeded.

 

[AUS Fan]

If the teams were seeded according to the Mar 22 rankings it would look like this:

UofA-ACA
UNB-BRK
SFX-UBC
UQTR-RYE

I can't find the latest rankings. The U Sports site is not very good to find stuff.

 

[RED ARMY EAST]

2003 when they defeated UNB in the Semi's.

Since then 9-0 (Exh+UCup). Last three meetings at UCup were all wins for UNB; 8-3 (2013-Sask), 6-1 (2012-Freddy) and 6-0 (Moncton-2007).

Interesting in 2013 and 2012 they met in the Fall with UNB winning both games 3-2, then really dominated them at UCup.

Don't underestimate UQTR, they have a good team.

 

[AUS Fan]

The number of times winning the University Cup since 2000:

UofA - 7
UNB - 7
UQTR - 2
MCG - 1
SFX - 1
SMU - 1
UWO - 1

7 of the last 10 years has seen either UofA (3) or UNB (4) win. Pretty easy to see who the 2 powerhouse teams are.

 

[Rob]

2003 when they defeated UNB in the Semi's.

Since then 9-0 (Exh+UCup). Last three meetings at UCup were all wins for UNB; 8-3 (2013-Sask), 6-1 (2012-Freddy) and 6-0 (Moncton-2007).

Interesting in 2013 and 2012 they met in the Fall with UNB winning both games 3-2, then really dominated them at UCup.

UNB and UQTR used to face each other in exhibition games quite often. Then in 2014 UNB recruited Francis Beauvillier from the QMJHL. I believe it was the coach of UQTR who basically accused UNB of paying him under the table to come to UNB.

They haven't played each other since. Probably still some bad blood there.

 

[Drummer]

Here is the Log5 winning percentages (over 10K iterations) for this year's UCup.

UNB (73.8%), ALB (13.4%), SFX (6.4%), RYS (2.4%), UQTR (1.9%), BRK (0.5%) & ACD (0.1%)

UNB has such a strong bias due to their .888% and ALB and SFX keep splitting their semi-final game while UNB has a relatively weaker semi-final opponent and get to the final more often as a result.

 

[Drummer]

If the teams were seeded according to the Mar 22 rankings it would look like this:

UofA-ACA / UNB-BRK / SFX-UBC / UQTR-RYE

I can't find the latest rankings. The U Sports site is not very good to find stuff.

They don't publish the pre-tournament Top Ten official. I get a copy from the coordinator after the tournament to add to my Top 10 Site.

I would expect it to look the same as Mar. 22nd, but UQTR at 3rd and SFX drops to 4th (they swap). I can't see McGill displacing USask due to McGill's very low ELO score and maybe Brock moves up to 8th (ahead of Queen's), but their ELO is also very low - they would need a lot of human scores to make that happen. So - ALB, UNB, UQTR, SFX, RYS, UBC, BRK, ACD

ALB-ACD & SFX-RYS / UNB-BRK & UQTR-UBC

Which is really close to what we have (just RYS/BRK are swapped), The other thing to note is SFX is now the home-team instead of the visitor.

The question I have is - why is Alberta #1? I shouldn't complain - happy to be #2 and be on the bottom, even if it means playing 3 in 3 days.

 

[AUS Fan]

Thanks for the info.

 

[Hollywood3]

*Incoming annual rant alert*

I complain about this every year…and this year is going to be no exception. I LOATHE the fact that teams on each side of the bracket play on the same day…it has never, ever made sense to me and I don’t know why it has never been addressed. They say it is to maintain the integrity of the bracket, but all it does is give the Thursday winners the advantage of a day off. To me, it is more important to keep the teams in each bracket in the same time slot…which is essentially what they used to do with old 6 team format when they had afternoon and evening pools.

Plus, it would make each bracket more fair in terms of days off. For example, #1 Alberta might play 3 in 4 while #2 UNB has to go 3 in 3….they should both have similar paths.

My ideal schedule:

Thursday
Afternoon - #1 vs. #8
Evening - #2 vs. #7

Friday
Afternoon - #4 vs. #5
Evening - #3 vs. #6

Saturday
Afternoon - 1/8 vs. 4/5 winner
Evening - 2/7 vs. 4/5 winner


- top two teams play on the first day and get the advantage of a day off if they win. #1 seed plays earlier so they get a little bit more rest.
- I would actually make this mandatory and do away with giving the host team any leeway when they play. Does having the host wait until Friday to play (instead of Thursday and possibly losing) really make a difference in overall attendance like has always been argued?
- each side of the bracket plays in the same time slot Thurs/Fri/Sat…either the afternoon or evening. A much more structured set-up than we see currently when you could play Thursday night and then Saturday afternoon (and then Sunday night)…or Friday afternoon and then Saturday night. I remember in 2017 UNB played games at, I think, 8PM on Thursday night, 12PM Saturday, and 1PM Sunday.
- the only issue I see is trying to work around the cross-country travel, particularly for western teams coming east. Not sure Alberta would love to play Thursday afternoon, for instance.

No
Thursday winners play Saturday early, Friday winners play Saturday late.
The only rule they ignore every year is the one that western teams can't play Thursday morning.

 

[AUS Fan]

It will be interesting for the team that loses on Saturday night. They will bus to Halifax, go out drinking and then bus back to Wolfville to play the Bronze game at 1 pm. Meanwhile, the team that lost the 1 pm game on Saturday has a 5 hour head start on the drinking.

 

[UNB Bruins Fan]

No
Thursday winners play Saturday early, Friday winners play Saturday late.
The only rule they ignore every year is the one that western teams can't play Thursday morning.

But doesn’t it make more sense to keep each side of the bracket in the same time slot on Thurs/Fri/Sat…rather than some teams having to jump between afternoon/night games or vice versa? As I mentioned, that was how the old six team format was set-up with afternoon/evening pools and it seemed to work well.

 

[AUS Fan]

Two more sleeps until the start of U-Cup 20222.

Any predictions for day 1?

I'll take SFX over Brock and UofA over ACA. I'm going with my head over my heart on the ACA game. I wouldn't mind being wrong on that one.

 

[UNB Bruins Fan]

Hard to argue with either of those choices. As much as I would love to see either knocked off, an Alberta/X game would be tasty.

 

[UNB Bruins Fan]

When do teams start arriving…today?