Hockey East ADs Vote to Change Playoff Format

[huskymedic]

Hockey East ADs Vote to Change Playoff Format

>>The league's athletic directors, meeting at the annual Coaches' Convention in Naples, Fla., voted this week to eliminate the first round of the Hockey East playoffs, meaning that the top eight teams in the regular-season standings will qualify for the tournament and the bottom three teams will be eliminated.

The quarterfinal format will remain the same, with teams seeded 1-4 hosting teams seeded 5-8 in best-of-three series. The tournament will then move to single-elimination semifinals and finals at TD Garden, per the existing format.<<

 

[Jarhead_1775]

So let me get this right. For the only time ever a team high enough to earn a bye won’t host a series was last season and we were the winners? Rule #1 man. Every single time.

 

[Adios]

This is a smart move. It's not like the bottom three have a shot at winning the tournament championship. Why make some of the better players play more games?

 

[BRG 1]

This is the way it was when I was at PC from '99 to '02
Top 8 in the playoffs, top 4 hosting. Usually 9th team was Merrimack or UMass Amherst.
This proposal is great in that HE is not "forced" to expand to 12 teams and try and shoehorn a school it doesn't want just to get to an artificial 12 (cough Holy Cross cough)
If you can't get into the top 8 then probably don't deserve to get into the playoffs.
By the way, this is how PC and UNH became rivals as they often fought in the playoffs as 4 and 5 seeds - BC, BU and Maine perennially were the top 3.