I can't believe my winter recess is (almost) over.  But although I'm 
        going to miss doing whatever I please, I've missed watching some good 
        college hockey for too long.  Real Audio just doesn't cut it, especially 
        on a 14.4 modem on a 486-33 system.  And seeing Cornell play Colgate at 
        Nassau Coliseum in a well-played game made me even more anxious to see 
        the rest of the season.  Over this break, while I've sat around 
        listening to the Cornell Hockey .ram site get stuck, I've had time to 
        think about what's going on in the ECAC.  Joe Fanter has made lots of 
        changes, including television contracts for ECAC games.  But here are my 
        thoughts on some other issues that have arisen:


        FINAL FIVE: FRIEND OR FOE?

        As part of his freshman-year initiative as commissioner of the ECAC, 
        Joe Fanter has executed a change in the format of the ECAC playoffs.  As 
        I understand it, the top 10 of 12 teams make the quarterfinals, and the 
        semifinals and finals are in a Final Five format.  This may seem like a 
        great idea on its surface, but underneath it all I'm not so sure about 
        that. 

        I remember last year's playoff series.  The excitement never seemed to 
        stop.  The whole quarterfinals series was very exhilarating, but 
        exhausting as well.  Tuesday night games are rough on student fans, and 
        I can imagine how they are on student-athletes.  But I still don't think 
        that the Final Five will do much better, particularly for the fourth and 
        fifth seeded teams.  These guys would have to win not only two, but 
        three games in a row in order to clinch the championship title.  That's 
        near impossible.  I remember how worked up everyone was getting at the 
        NCAA semifinals on the first round teams having to play not once but 
        also again the next day.   Many of the coaches talk about the hardship, 
        both physically and academically, of the former Tuesday night series, 
        but will this mitigate any of that?  How do you think your body would 
        feel after three straight days of hockey?  And on top of all that, would 
        you want to go back to school right after that?  (The ECAC finals occur 
        on the tail end of spring break - Cornell's for that matter, whether 
        it's the same at other schools is probably likely.)  

        And not only that, it just seems like even some of the teams that don't 
        deserve to make any forms of playoff round get to fight it out one last 
        time.  Didn't they have the entire season to try to qualify for a higher 
        seed?  It just doesn't make sense to me, but this may be coming from the 
        whole 90's PC, let's-make-everyone-feel-good-even-if-they-lose 
        sentiment, which I think is just stupid.  What next, the kid who loses 
        in the first rounds of a spelling bee gets to join the top contenders in 
        the semifinal rounds?  

        Of course, in the tradition of the NC$$ err NCAA, many would say that a 
        strong motivation behind this would be money.  Tuesday night games 
        weren't selling well, and the powers that be figure, more final rounds, 
        more money.  Right? Not if Prrrrrrinceton is playing that first game.  
        If I remember correctly, there were only four, count 'em - four Tiger 
        fans at Lake Placid last spring.  And most people wanting to save money 
        will probably not show up to watch the fourth and fifth seed go at it, 
        unless of course the entire ticket is an all-inclusive and relatively 
        expensive three-day pass (which will piss me off, since I owe my dad two 
        tickets from Christmas).  So in one sense, this will probably not make 
        anymore money.  On the other hand, people say Lake Placid will benefit, 
        bla bla bla. Now, Lake Placid is a minuscule town.  It was hard enough 
        getting hotel reservations last year, where are they going to put more 
        people?  Throwing economics right back in their face, there is a fixed 
        supply of hotel accomodations, almost all of which was filled last year.  
        Especially if the weather is snowy, people will not want to stay in the 
        next town over.  If Lake Placid wants more money, they should build 
        another hotel.

        The moral of this story?  If it ain't that broke, don't try to fix it.

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