Drawback

With their respective victories in todays games S. Minnesota and Texas will play each other again tomorrow.

Say Texas beats the Express by less than four goals they will still be playing for the championship on saturday even though both teams will have one loss and S. Minnesota will have the better goal differential.

There's just too many scenarios that could happen in a five team format that taints the championship where the top two teams might not neccessarily be playing for the title.

The past two season's formats used in both Texas and Bismarck works much better.

If they're going to have four divisions might be time to seriously consider scrapping the host team getting an automatic berth.

Absolutely. Even with a loss in their only game, Mahoning Valley is just one win away from playing for the cup.

Sam,

Have to agree with you on this. I think I have the brackets figured out correctly and if I do there are some potential strange outomes.

Mahoning Valley could finish with a 1 - 2 record and take 3rd or 2nd place or finish 2 - 1 and take 1st.
Bozeman could finish 2 - 1 and take 3rd or 2nd or finish 3 - 0 to take 1st.
S. Minnesota could finish 3 - 1 and fall to 3rd or go 2 - 1 and take 2nd or go 4 - 0 to finish in 1st.
Texas could go 3 - 1 and finish in 1st or go 2 - 2 and finish in 2nd or 3rd.

Too dang many scenarios and something just not quite right about it.

Mahoning Valley could lose their second game tomorrow and STILL have another game on Saturday.

The only way a five team format could work is where bthey stretch the tournament out an extra day and make it a round robin. Where on the final day the top two teams will play for the title, the next two play for third and the last team would be SOL.

I think it is going to work out well if the league ends up with just three divisions sending the champs to the host team. There is very little balance to the NAHL schedule in the first place, so going with three divisions instead of four would really not do any harm.

Round-robin play would be the most fair, but 5 games in 5-6 consecutive days is a lot to ask of the players.

Also Mahoning Valley can finish no lower than 4th place no matter what they do. In fact Cleveland was already eliminated before MV even took the ice for their first game. How fair is that.

Re: Drawback

Sam Hain wrote:

taint

?????????????????????

Taint might not have been the best word to use but look at the numbers.

Both S. Minnesota and Texas are 2-1. S.Minnesota over those three games are a +6 in goal differential while Texas is a -1 over that same period of time. Each team is 1-1 against each other with S. Minnesota having a +3 in goal differential. So tell me who belongs in the championship? This format is 100 layers of suck and could have just as easily gone the other way with Texas getting the shaft. What's worse is that Mahoning Valley could win tonight then lose tomorrow night and finish 1-2 in second place where S. Minnesota could win tomorrow and finish 3-1 in third place?????

I think one of the smart things they could have done is since S. Minnesota and Texas already played each other on Wednesday is cross bracketed today's games and have Texas play Mahoning Valley and S. Minnesota play Bozeman. Wouldn't have been the perfect situation but would have worked better.

A round-robin also isn't a 100% but at least it puts all teams on an equal playing field and an equal amount of games played. It also provides for a very workable tie breaker situation.

Sam Hain wrote:

Taint might not have been the best word to use but look at the numbers. Both S. Minnesota and Texas are 2-1. S.Minnesota over those three games are a +6 in goal differential while Texas is a -1 over that same period of time. Each team is 1-1 against each other with S. Minnesota having a +3 in goal differential. So tell me who belongs in the championship? This format is 100 layers of suck and could have just as easily gone the other way with Texas getting the shaft. What's worse is that Mahoning Valley could win tonight then lose tomorrow night and finish 1-2 in second place where S. Minnesota could win tomorrow and finish 3-1 in third place????? I think one of the smart things they could have done is since S. Minnesota and Texas already played each other on Wednesday is cross bracketed today's games and have Texas play Mahoning Valley and S. Minnesota play Bozeman. Wouldn't have been the perfect situation but would have worked better. A round-robin also isn't a 100% but at least it puts all teams on an equal playing field and an equal amount of games played. It also provides for a very workable tie breaker situation.

I agree. It does seem to be a little screwy in the way the thing is drawn up. Cleveland actually qualified for the tournament by winning their division, yet they can't even play for 4th? However, thems the rules.

yes they are the rule, but the barons went thru the hard way, wish they could play for fourth but oh well. we move on...