1k

Made 1000 miles for the year today.  Unlike Brother Dave, I have not started using the metric system to keep track. 

January was a great start, got 365 miles in for the month, as part of a challenge group.  Have been keeping up since then.  I've had a few lulls where I took a few extra days off, but then got back on the horse, so I'm feeling good about things.  First race next week, that should give a few hints as to where the form is.

Ticket punched

Ticket Punched
Here's a list of teams that have punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament:
Quinnipiac, Minnesota, UMass-Lowell, Notre Dame, Miami, Boston College, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Denver, Niagara, Minnesota State, Union, St. Cloud State, Wisconsin, and Canisius.

I know what I am doing next friday night.  Some solid teams in there, it will be a nailbiter.  Will have to postpone that ski trip to Stowe.  The mountain will still be there...


What was I saying about the stochatic element?
 Tournament selection

The seeding process is partly driven by a strict process, while other parts are under the discretion of the committee. This year, the NCAA men's ice hockey committee decided to maximize the attendance possibilities over sticking strictly to its natural Pairwise ordering.

So who gets to play in the national tournament is not decided by season records, strength of schedule or anything like that, but a popularity contest (which teams have the most rabid fans?).  Happy with the way things turned out, but the selection process seems a bit cooky.

College Hockey Part II

Forget it, he's rolling

So now that NH has been out of the Hockey East tournament, I've been living on a hope and a prayer that they will get a bid to the NCAA tourney.

Stranger things have happened.

NH was in the top 5 in the polls.  They've now dropped to 10th and 11th.  http://www.hockeyeastonline.com/men/polls.php 
Edit:  Miami is in 4th?  Real hockey teams must live north of the Mason-Dixon line.  Yes, the Mighty Ducts are not a real hockey team.
 
NCAA tourney is a 16 team seed.  5 teams are selected by the winner of the conference, which right now is looking like Umass Lowell ( good grief ).  BU, you have 3 minutes to prove me wrong!  Edit:  Umass Lowell won.  Congrats.

So who makes it into the NCAA playoffs?  Outside of the individual conference champions?

Apparently, the other 11 teams are selected by some byzantine selection method involving polls, animal sacrifice, and something called the Pair Wise Predictor

As well as a stochastic factor.

Sounds devious, doesn't it?

In any case, NH is in a tie for 7th place in the PWP.  http://www.uscho.com/rankings/pwp/   Even if they lose that one, they'd be in 8th place, which by my calculations, would mean an automatic berth into the NCAA playoffs.  Which would mean the first game would be an hour away.  Which means...

WE'RE THERE DUDE!!

College Hockey

Let's talk about something else for a change, shall we?

Been getting back into college hockey this year after ignoring it for several seasons.  Since college, or just after, really.  Can't really catch Hockey East games on the west coast, for some reason.

I'm a big supporter of New Hampshire (duh) (Hockey East, the only conference that matters, IMO), but campus is a bit far, so have been catching some closer games.  Have been to Dartmouth twice (ECAC), Franklin Pierce (Northeast 10), Umass Amherst (Hockey East) and even caught the local high school team for a game.  Great games all.  Only saw NH play one game up in Dartmouth, which was great, but not a conference game.  They won that one, by the way.

NH was in a 3 way tie for first place in the conf until last week.  A few ties in their last couple of games brought them back down to 5th.  Edit:  now in a 3 way tie for third http://www.hockeyeastonline.com/men/standings.php Not sure what changed there.

Which meant that instead of home ice for the conf. quaterfinals, which I could have made it for a game or two, they would be playing in Providence.  Getting to Providence was going to be logistically impossible.

They lost the series, despite outscoring PC 8-7.  Just did not get the goals spread out across all 3 games when it counted.  Got to watch the last game from the bar, at least.

As my team was out, I had a bit less invested in it, but have been keeping up on the semi, and tonight the finals.  I'm without cable here, which is fine, as I never watch tv.  But there are 2-3 nights a year I wish there was such a thing as on-demand cable.  Not worth paying $44/month for 6 hours a year though.  CBS has a live-stream kind of thing for the BC games, and I kept on that game via that.  It was cheesy, but I could not make it out to watch a game.

Unfortunately, BC got dropped by Umass Lowell ( don't get me started), and the final this evening is not even covered by that.  I've been relegated to constantly reloading a box scores page to see what is going on.  And this one looks like it's headed into overtime.  Drat!!!

Back on the road

Weather here in New England has been warming up.  Been on the road a few times in recent weeks.  Got a snowstorm last mon/tues, and had a killer ski day, but the roads were cleaned up, and got a 40 mile ride in friday, and 56 miles with Darren today.  Always fun riding with friends.