Question regarding the set-up for NCAA Div 1 Hockey

[paul-laus]

I was wondering if anyone can help answer a couple of questions regarding college hockey for me. Please excuse my ignorance as I'm out of my depth here.

I understand that some conferences in Division 1 such as the ECAC have much less games played than say the CCHA or WCHA. How is this weighted (if at all) in terms of berths in the NCAA tournament? Also, how does the play-off set up look at the conclusion of the season? Would I be correct in assuming that in all the conferences other than Hockey East (top 8 qualify) all teams make the postseason and how does it work from there? Is each series a one game winner take all, a best of three? etc. Is it the same lay out as the NHL where the 1st seed would play the 10th, 2nd the 9th, and so on? Is it uniformed across Division 1 hockey?

If a team finishes first in their conference on point totals in the regular season and lose in the conference play-offs could they still potentially make the NCAA tournament and what are the contributing factors to a team qualifying for the NCAA tournament if they don't win the conference play-offs? How is this decided?

Lastly, how does it work with statistics for the conference play-offs and NCAA tournament for individual players and team stats such as goals for and agasint? Are players point totals and team stats in conference tournament games and NCAA tournament tabulated seperately for play-offs or is it all accumulated under a regular and combined post season total. Is it the same for the beanpot tournament with stats being added to one regular season total. Also with an independent school such as Alabama-Hunstsville who are playing many of their games against schools that aren't div. 1. are their player and team stats tabulated under a division 1 banner?

Thanks for any help. I've got to fill my hockey gaps somewhere with the lack of the NHL and if I'm going to follow college hockey I better understand the lay-out of it. Thanks again and I hope people aren't overwhelmed by too many questions.

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[Oilers Chick]

I understand that some conferences in Division 1 such as the ECAC have much less games played than say the CCHA or WCHA. How is this weighted (if at all) in terms of berths in the NCAA tournament? Also, how does the play-off set up look at the conclusion of the season? Would I be correct in assuming that in all the conferences other than Hockey East (top 8 qualify) all teams make the postseason and how does it work from there? Is each series a one game winner take all, a best of three? etc. Is it the same lay out as the NHL where the 1st seed would play the 10th, 2nd the 9th, and so on? Is it uniformed across Division 1 hockey?

The Ivy League, which is a part of the ECAC, can only play a limited number of games due to Ivy League, not NCAA, rules. This applies to ALL of their sports, not just hockey.

Hockey East only advances the top 8 teams, but that'll change next season because Hockey East has adopted a new format where all 11 teams (Notre Dame joins the conference next season) will qualify.

In Atlantic Hockey, the CCHA and the ECAC the playoff format works as follows:

The four teams who finish atop the standings get a first round bye. Teams finishing 5-12 play the first round with #5 hosting #12, #6 hosting #11 and so forth in a best-of-three format The teams are reseeded depending on which 5-12 teams advance. The lowest remaining seeded team will play at the #1 team and the next lowest seed will play at #2 team and so forth in the conference quarterfinal. Again, it's the best of three. In the conference semi-finals the teams are reseeded again and again it depends who advances. The lowest remaining seed will play the highest remaining seed. Again, it's best-of-three.

Each of the first round match ups and conference quarterfinals are played on the campuses of the higher seeded teams, while the conference semi-final and finals are played off campus. This coming post-season, Atlantic Hockey will at Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, NY; the CCHA will play at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit and the ECAC will play at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, NY.

The WCHA works slightly differently. All 12 teams play a best-of-three series with the winners advancing to the Final Five (although there are technically six teams). The two highest-seeded teams advancing get a "bye" on the Thursday of the Final Five weekend. The one-game, winner-take-all quarterfinal has the third highest seeded remaining team vs. the remaining lowest seeded team and the other game has the other two teams meeting. The winners of those games will play the two highest seeded teams that got the one-day bye the following day, with the lowest remaining seeded team playing the top remaining seeded team with the remaining other two teams playing one another. The first round is played on the campuses of the higher seeded teams. The "Final Five" is played at the Xcel Energy Center in Minneapolis.

In Hockey East, the top 8 teams advance with the #8 seed at the #1 seed, #7 seed at the #2 and so forth. This is a best-of-three format. The remaining four teams are reseeded depending on which teams advance. The remaining highest seeded team will play the remaining lowest and the other remaining teams play one another. The first round (quarterfinals) are played at the highest seeded teams' campuses. The Hockey East semi-final and finals are played at TD Banknorth Garden in Boston.

If a team finishes first in their conference on point totals in the regular season and lose in the conference play-offs could they still potentially make the NCAA tournament and what are the contributing factors to a team qualifying for the NCAA tournament if they don't win the conference play-offs? How is this decided?

Teams can make the NCAA Tournament in two ways:

1) As Automatic bids by winning their conference tournament. The team that wins the regular season championship isn't always the conference tournament champion.

2) Get an at-large bid.

The NCAA uses a thing called the Pairwise Rankings (PWR) to determine not only the at-large bids but also in how the teams are seeded in the NCAA Tournament. The PWR is a formula that takes into consideration things such as records against ranked opponents, records against ranked opponents within your conference and so forth. If you really want to know all about it in detail, you can check it out HERE.

Lastly, how does it work with statistics for the conference play-offs and NCAA tournament for individual players and team stats such as goals for and agasint? Are players point totals and team stats in conference tournament games and NCAA tournament tabulated seperately for play-offs or is it all accumulated under a regular and combined post season total. Is it the same for the beanpot tournament with stats being added to one regular season total. Also with an independent school such as Alabama-Hunstsville who are playing many of their games against schools that aren't div. 1. are their player and team stats tabulated under a division 1 banner?

Both. The respective conference websites as well as collegehockeystats.com and USCHO.com are good sources to check them out.

BTW if you are able to, I would highly recommend going to a game. You won't regret it. It's an experience that really can't be explained, but I will say that some of the things that you will see at these games are very unique to college hockey. Each team's fans are as unique as their teams. And the fans, especially the student sections, are part of what makes college hockey so special and so much fun to watch!

I hope I've been able to answer all of your questions.

 

[paul-laus]

Much appreciated for answering my questions in detail. And you're right, I think that checking out a college game would be such an insight into college sport atmosphere that Canadians just don't get via the CIS. Luckily for me, I'm only a couple of hours North of Ralph Engelstad Arena and UND. Great venue and lots of history there. Thanks again.

 

[Kane One]

Holy ****, thanks for that explanation. This should be stickied, IMO.

 

[Slowe]

Wow, agreed on the job well done. As I was reading the questions I was cringing at the level of detail needed. Then the next post is about as long as I feared it would have to be. Very thoroughly covered and informative.

 

[Dakota Sioux]

Oilers Chick is the best.

 

[Kane One]

Looking at the 2012 CCHA tournament, it looked like the top 5 teams got a bye and not the top 4.

Also, I need help with the PWR thing. What do they mean by "the winner of each “comparison” earning one PWR point"?

Is there a formula to compare the teams or is there a committee who just decides it?

Edit - Looking at their example, it looks like they just compare the two teams' RPI, record with TUC, H2H, and COP. So if team A has a higher RPI, better record vs TUC, and lets say 2-0 vs team B, leading in COP, they just add them all up and they will be leading 5-0 in the PWR?

Hopefully you understand all that I just said.

If I'm wrong on anything there, please correct me.

Edit #3 - One last thing (hopefully, ). Is the TUC percentage and COP percentage both calculated the same way, by adding up the sum of their winning percentage against the respective teams?

 

[paul-laus]

Without trying to be too redundant, I'm gonna rehash a question from my initial post that I'm still not sure about. My question is this, and I'm gonna use Yale as my example because they just won the NCAA championship. I've often seen team and individual player's stats compiled as one for both regular season and playoff stats.

For example, teams from the ECAC play shorter college seasons as members of the Ivy League- 28 games is my understanding. Now I've often seen team's season ending records compiled as their college season with conference play off record as well as any potential NCAA tournament games, frozen four, and championship game inclusive in their record. Same with player statistics. If a leading scorer on a team potted 13 goals during the college season and then 4 more in conference playoffs and an additional 3 in the NCAA tournament, is this all compiled under one statistical line? Or are playoff and NCAA stats compiled seperately?

Lastly, the Beanpot Tournament. For a team like Harvard is their 3 or 4 games in the tournament seperate from their 28 game college schedule? Or is it part of their regular college season? Same for BC, BU, and NorthEastern?
Any answers help me understand the set-up if college hockey a little better. Thanks!

 

[Drummer]

Without trying to be too redundant, I'm gonna rehash a question from my initial post that I'm still not sure about. My question is this, and I'm gonna use Yale as my example because they just won the NCAA championship. I've often seen team and individual player's stats compiled as one for both regular season and playoff stats.

Lastly, the Beanpot Tournament. For a team like Harvard is their 3 or 4 games in the tournament seperate from their 28 game college schedule? Or is it part of their regular college season? Same for BC, BU, and NorthEastern?
Any answers help me understand the set-up if college hockey a little better. Thanks!

I'll stick my Canadian nose in here - games played at any tournament, including the NCAA Frozen tournament are listed as NC-Non-Conference even if you are playing a team from your own conference. So, despite the fact that BC could play NE at the Beanpot - this is not a Hockey East game (not part of the Hockey East schedule).

Because strength of schedule is so important and is the main component of the PWR rankings, a team's overall record is more important than their conference record - which is why you see both listed a lot.

The only games that do not count towards the PWR are 'true' exhibition games - these are games against non-NCAA opponents; Canadian schools, international visiting teams, US-U18 team, etc. I believe each team gets one(1) Exhibition game a year (usually a Canadian school) and can add one(1) additional game if the opponent is the the US-U18 team. Finally - this limit can be higher if the NCAA team travels internationally (to Europe or Canada), but they can only do that once every 5 years.

It's also worth noting that the PWR has no committee input - straight math that calculates the top teams with the top 12 (not already in the tournament because of automatic spots) going to the tournament (so a team could lose out in the first round of the playoffs but advance to the tournament while the conference runner-up does not; BC loses to BU in HE Semi's but advances to the tournament while BU loses in the Finals and does not - BC's lose did not drop their PWR below the top 12 while BU was unable to get into the top 12).

The PWR is not a static equation, it is dynamic and fluid and constantly changes based on the seasons results as they occur. Because of this, it can look like voodoo because a regular user can't do the math on a basic spreadsheet themselves. As an example, a win over a strong team in October may carry less weight later on in the season if that team continues to lose - you get less credit for that win as a result.

 

[GopherState]

The conference tournament question needs updating with the realignment that takes place next season.

As Oilers Chick previously stated, Hockey East adds new member Notre Dame and will change its conference tournament format to where every team gets their chance. Hockey East will use the CCHA's old 11 team format. The first round has 6-11, 7-10 & 8-9 playing each other on campus in best-of-3 series with the winners playing the top three seeds (depending on the order; 4-5 play each other) on campus the next weekend in another best-of-3 series. The four winners then advance to Boston to play single elimination games for the Hockey East championship.

The CCHA dissolved after last season so it no longer exists. It sends teams to Hockey East (ND), WCHA (Lake Superior State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Northern Michigan and Alaska), the brand new NCHC (Miami and Western Michigan) and new Big Ten (Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State).

Atlantic Hockey and the ECAC maintain the same conference tournament formats from last season.

The WCHA, which is now composed of 5 CCHA teams, independent Alabama-Huntsville and 4 remaining teams from the conference (Alaska-Anchorage, Bemidji State, Minnesota State and Michigan Tech), moves to Hockey East's old model. The bottom two teams do not make the conference tournament. The top eight teams play in best-of-3 series on campus with the 4 winners advancing to the WCHA Final Five (keeping the name despite no longer having 5 teams or games, which was the case for the 12 team version). Grand Rapids' Van Andel Arena hosts the 2014 & 2016 versions with the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN hosting the 2015 & 2017 tournaments.

The National College Hockey Conference (NCHC) is made up of 6 old WCHA teams (Colorado College, Denver, Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota and St. Cloud State) and 2 CCHA teams (Miami, WMU). It is essentially doing the same tournament as the WCHA with 8 teams. The NCHC will host its 4-team single elimination conference tournament at the Target Center in Minneapolis, MN.

Finally, the Big Ten sees Minnesota and Wisconsin from the WCHA join CCHA schools Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State and independent Penn State. With just 6 teams, the Big Ten will forego an opening round and just have one single-elimination weekend where every team is there. The top two teams get a first-round bye with 3-6 and 4-5 playing each other. The winners advance.

(Essentially the format is the same as the old WCHA Final Five just without the opening best-of-three round.)

Xcel Energy Center hosts the 2014 and 2016 B1G conference tournaments. Joe Louis Arena in Detroit hosts the 2015 and 2017 B1G conference tournaments.

 

[paul-laus]

So Johnny Gaudreau being the first NCAA player to put up 80 points since Peter Sejna in the early 2000's is Gaudreau's point total combining his regular season, any beanpot games, as well as NCAA tournament and Frozen Four games right? This point total isn't just regular season Boston College games its everything combined correct?

 

[Bonk]

That's correct. Points totals in college include all games played, including tournaments.

I never really thought about that before, but all NCAA sports combine regular season and playoffs. The pros separate them.

 

[paul-laus]

That's correct. Points totals in college include all games played, including tournaments.

I never really thought about that before, but all NCAA sports combine regular season and playoffs. The pros separate them.

Really? I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize all college sports are combined regular season and playoff stats.....

 

[Chevy Cheveldae]

Really? I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize all college sports are combined regular season and playoff stats.....

Here you go, for example Boston College played 40 games last season, there's a lot of tournaments and other stuff going on

http://www.uscho.com/scoreboard/boston-college/mens-hockey/2013-2014/