Le Manifesto

[imported_Patman]

Ahh... summer time with no job... I guess its time for a manifesto for Collegiate hockey... right now I have 8 pages of single spaced material and I will add more, but since its been awhile since I started this I kinda got lost and forgot where I wanted to go with it in broad context... again, its a boring summer.

I. Introduction

In the coming months the foundation of professional hockey will be, if not destroyed, thouroughly rocked. We enter into the summer with the prospects of a major labor battle that is predicted to be the worst ever labor battle in professional sports history. In this battle neither side seems intent on giving in with a gap that appears to be as wide as even seen. This means that there appears to be an absolute certainty that the National Hockey League 2004-2005 season will not take place with the specter or the 2005-2006 being likewise canceled. In that time the entire professional hockey world will change dramatically if we are to believe the rumblings as written in various newspapers across the United States and Canada. This likewise jeopardizes the market of video games based on the NHL Hockey league and video game hockey in general. While this market in the grand scheme of things is not incredibly large (as compared to other sports) it is sizable enough that it has 4 competing video games in its market (Sega, EA, NextLevel Games (independent for now), Sony). While this year’s series of games will go as planned by every indication (except for NL Games and Microsoft which pulled out for various non-strike related reasons) there is some mystery as to what will occur in the following year. If there is a strike that eliminates the entire 2004-2005 season there are already going to be complicating factors. First of all, the database for which all NHL players are based on will be inherently unrealistic. This might not be a problem for the most part because many will just be happy to have hockey again. A secondary problem is a massive change in rules and financial structure, such a change could come so late that a game released will not be based on the “new” structure (salary cap, other restrictions). Again this might not be a problem if a company wishes to ignore recent changes in the short term. A third problem will just be a general stale feel of playing what is virtually the same game, even if much of the potential game is retooled about the game there might be a general weird feeling. All of this presumes that the strike ends after the cancellation of the 2004-2005 season.


There could be other strike related complications that are possible. I have always held the belief that if the NHL goes on strike or lock-out that the obtaining of a license from either the NHL or the NHLPA might be difficult. As most of us understand, a game has little potential without the NHL license (which provides for team names, logos, and much of the jerseys and other symbols) and little potential without the NHLPA license (which governs which players likenesses can be allowed in the game). If either side decides that they are better off without videogame ice hockey they can end it. It is possible that I am wrong about how the process works, but I believe it is rather plausible that one or both will not allow a game based on the NHL or the NHLPA players to be allowed to be made. In that case that obviously poses a problem. If the strike carries on into year two the next iteration of video game becomes threatened and the whole game altogether could end up being scrapped. This would be a great waste of resources and time put into making a game, but I cannot think that it isn’t a possibility.

The NHL is in an uncertain position and there needs to be a new way to ensure the future of video game hockey. I believe that there will always be an NHL of some form, although its shape and reality may change, because of that I believe that its support structure will remain in place. I believe that the AHL will remain a league as is, I believe the ECHL will remain as a league as is, I believe that the NCAA will maintain the level of teams that it current holds and will slightly increase in the coming years despite a strike, I believe that the CHL (Canadian Major Junior) will remain. All the structure that supports the existence of hockey will remain because those leagues still have fans and have seen growth in popularity as the existence of the NHL flounders. This gives the makers of video games to expand the scope of hockey that they cover. There has been demand of “wishlist” boards for more minor leagues or deeper function of minor leagues. There has been slight demand from a minority for a CHL or NCAA themed game. The intent of this document is to stress the latter. The link between the AHL and ECHL and any given NHL team is still tenuous unlike major league baseball, and it would require a vast overhaul of a game’s manager system to support the AHL and ECHL in its current forms because of the reality of contracts and the lack of a perfect farm system as it exists in major league baseball. Player development in any of the games that feature multi-year franchise modes have always lacked a sense of realism. Many times draft modes have tended to be a joke once you stepped out of the first or second round of the draft and once you had these players it was hard to see progress. A low rated player couldn’t really progress and would be forgotten soon after. While this might often be a reality when you look in relation to the NHL there enough players that become “career minor leaguers” and other players that eventually turn out to be solid 4th line players after not being too hot coming out of various leagues. It can also be pointed out that there are some NCAA players that don’t even get drafted and later have an impact. Also many drafted players do not enter the “system” right away (don’t sign, stay in college, other reasons). Below the issue of the minors is the idea of a NCAA themed hockey game. While the overall demand is small in terms of the general population, there is enough interest to warrant the general study of the idea. Likewise, it might be wise to study up on the idea a Canadian Major Junior game… however, I am of the belief that an NCAA game could be a stand-alone video game while a Canadian game cannot. Much of this will be addressed later. While the AHL and ECHL are popular within their local populaces and are spread out throughout the country they are generally limited in scope. To care about either league typically means that you live near a city which has that league. In that regard I was lucky that I am personally close in distance to several AHL clubs having an affinity to the Worcester Ice Cats while I was in high school seeing as Worcester, MA is a quick 30 minute trip from home for me. However, I believe that these teams do not hold enough prestige and esteem to carry itself on its own. If the use of actual minor league teams in a game were to succeed it would have to occur in the general context of the professional (NHL) game much like MVP Baseball does. The NCAA can be a standalone game because there is something much stronger when you have a bond to the local college. We have seen this in the football and basketball games and video games, and this same feeling exists in hockey although on a smaller level. I have personally seen the throngs of people at Alfond Arena in Maine and Whittemore Center in New Hampshire. I’ve seen the powerful bands and the raw emotions at Boston University and Boston College and there have been moments where even my school which seems to get lost in the shuffle has its high moments. I cannot speak for the enthusiasm in the Major Junior level of hockey so I won’t even try, but much like other titles, there are certain things that you can do in a professional league video game that you can’t do in a college game and vice versa. More importantly, things in a college game can be allowed to get a little bit more wild.

[imported_Patman]

II. NCAA and Major Junior

The NCAA and Major Junior leagues amount for almost all of the development of Canadian and American ice hockey players. The NHL is still composed with a more than a fair number of European players, but the Canadians and the American contribute the most players by far. However, the NCAA and Major Junior do not operate on the same footing. The Major Junior leagues are considered (by the NCAA) as a professional league which allows players as young as 16 to play for their teams (though many don’t play until 18) and has a cutoff playing age of 20 (I’m not 100% on the top limit). The NCAA typically has no players younger than the age of 18 due to the requirement that a player (student-athlete) must have completed high school, though there are some exceptions (Alarvo Montoya-UMich, Adam Pinneault-BC (left school) were 17 year old freshmen). Even though you can enter for the most part at the age of 18, many do not play college hockey for the first time until the age of 19 and 20 due to the nature of the junior system. This causes the Major Junior and NCAA to be very much unalike in the players they attract and the nature of play in the leagues. The other key difference is that Major Junior is seen as primarily Canadian and the NCAA is seen as primarily American. This is a fair statement since all but 2 Canadian Major Junior franchises are located in Canada, and NCAA schools are only located in the United States. Major Junior consists of a great majority of Canadians and some Americans (and possibly a few European players), the NCAA consists of a fair blend of American and Canadian players with a few European players. The Major Junior system is ingrained in the whole structure of hockey of youth development in Canada. Many players naturally worth through that system right into Major Junior. In many cases the top Canadian talent will tend to become major junior players. I will hold most other comments on the Major Junior leagues in respect to how players get there due to my lack of knowledge. I am likewise ignorant about the progression of “youth” players through the US hockey systems. But most players play in some form of junior league before progressing onto the NCAA. A rare handful of players (10-12) play straight from high school hockey (high school tends to have a dual problem of lack of talent strength and a small amount of games and they take more time to adjust to the level).
Now that we’ve looked at how they get there and their age, the big question is what happens when they get to that level. Canadian Major junior players play upwards of 70 games and then playoffs afterwards all leading up to the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian Major Junior. The Memorial Cup is a round-robin tournament with playoffs consisting of the champions of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), and Western Hockey League (WHL), and a host club. The NCAA clubs play anywhere between 29-38 regular season games depending upon league restrictions, tournament exemptions, and (Alaska) travel exemptions. After that teams play in their various conference tournaments before progressing to a 16 team national tournament.

Now, having been through the generalities, it would be a good idea to talk about the feasibility of the two leagues as video game(s). I believe that the NCAA can be a standalone title, but I do not believe a CHL title can be a standalone title. The NCAA can work by itself because the NCAA brand is very recognizable. It is recognizable in the United States mostly through the sports of football and basketball, and it is recognizable in Canada for much the same reason. The NCAA also has a key advantage in that college fosters attachment, especially if you attended that college. The Major Junior system of the CHL doesn’t have quite that same effect, but rather has the same effect as the AHL and ECHL where they are popular within their locale (noting again my ignorance of the CHL). While the CHL is popular in Canada, in the US it is a rather unknown league in comparison to the NCAA, AHL, and ECHL.

[imported_Patman]

III. NCAA: Teams

The NCAA to date has 58 schools playing Division I Ice Hockey in 6 conferences. While the number of teams in not very high, this has to be compared against the history of hockey. Hockey is a mostly northern sport due to weather and costs. As hockey started to expand in the United States Ice Hockey at the college level did not. This is mostly because of the mechanism we currently know as Title IX. Hockey is a VERY expensive sport, and since it is expensive, a men’s program is rather difficult to afford. This is why you see northern schools and a more varied group of institutions play Ice Hockey. There are some exceptions, but hockey is very much a northern sport, especially at the college level.

As mentioned the NCAA has 6 conferences, the future of any of these conferences are uncertain as there are a few shifts of schools, and in a sport with low membership, a ripple will cause a lot of change. The six conferences are as follows: Hockey East Association (HEA), East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC), Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA), College Hockey America (CHA), and Atlantic Hockey Association (AHA). All 6 are hockey only conferences (except the ECAC, but that gets messy very fast) and act independently of the conferences that are more familiar in the other sports. They each have their own unique rivals and team of interest. For example, in hockey Boston College could care less about UConn as they might care in Basketball, but if you mention BU then let the hate flow. (BC will say that now about UConn in general, but I think most people knows that is not the case). In other words, take your preconceived notions and throw them out.

Each conference has its own character and I will try to describe them in brief: The Hockey East Association has currently 9 (10 in 2005-2006) schools consisting of a smattering of public and private institutions throught New England. This league is big time eastern college hockey and will contain the top eastern contenders for the NCAA tournament. Founded in the early 1980s as a split 5 school split from the much larger ECAC the HEA solidified its membership with the addition of 2 formerly Division II schools. It legitimatized itself quickly in the first year when one of its members were crowned the champions of ice hockey. In 1988 it added a small private school and in 1994 acquired a large state school. Last year this league contributed for 3 of the 16 NCAA bids, but have had many years when they provided 4 of 12 (under the old format).

The ECAC in general is the term for the large multi-division all sports conference. In hockey concerns, the ECAC are the schools that make up the Ivy League and other schools that tend to be of similar academic caliber and is currently made up of 12 institutions (11 in 2005-2006) The ECAC is in decline as a league, no longer quite the caliber league it used to be. Instead of the 1b status the HEA’s 1a, they have slipped into a firm #2 role in the makeup of eastern college hockey. Last year they contributed 1 of 16 NCAA teams and the year before only had 2 of 16 NCAA teams. It has seemed that in recent years that the only ECAC clubs that make the NCAA tournament are those who win their conference tournament. It is unknown if this decline will continue, but it doesn’t appear that this trend will end any time soon and it seems to have dropped out of the elite hockey conference. The ECAC is still a caliber conference, but it seems to be the distinct 4th best conference of 6 in the NCAA.

The AHA is a conference that owes its existence mostly to a change in NCAA regulations regarding the rules of divisional alignment and the elimination of the Division II championship. The AHA currently has 9 members (and might decrease by the 2005-2006 season) and it consists of those clubs that became Division I Ice Hockey members from the previously mentioned NCAA actions. This league was formed under the idea of “cost-containment” and thus limits travel (by the location of the schools), limits scholarships (I don’t know the number), and plays in smaller facilities. This conference contains the worse programs in collegiate hockey, though one or two clubs will be half-way decent on a year to year basis.

The WCHA is premier western collegiate hockey conference and currently has 10 members. This conference consists of the teams that tend to be further west than the rest of the nation, although it contains only one of the two Alaska schools. I do not have great knowledge of the genesis of this league (or the CCHA as mentioned later), but this league will get 4-5 of its members into the NCAA tournament. Over the last couple of years the WCHA has turned into an inordinately strong league and seems to be the top conference in college hockey today.

The CCHA is the second best western conference consisting of 12 members, but the level in talent drop is not the same as the drop from the HEA to ECAC. The CCHA can be regarded as the 3rd best conference in hockey and is a small drop lower than the HEA in terms of level. I am unfamiliar with the league history but this league for the most part contains schools located in the Midwestern states of Michigan and Ohio. The CCHA can be counted on to provide 3-4 NCAA tournament bids of the 16.

The CHA is a league of 6 members founded out of the need for the remaining independent schools and schools that moved up to Division I due to the elimination of the Division II championship a league to play in and a group of consistent common opponents. This league stretches from Colorado to Alabama to New York and has had its membership problems due to its distances and fragility of some programs. The CHA is roughly the 5th best hockey league in the NCAA.

As for the teams, I won’t try to describe each NCAA school, rather I’ll just leave that to a chart of affiliations, locations, and other information.

[imported_Patman]

IV. NCAA: Season

A typical season consists of 29-38 regular season games and as much as 12 post-season games for a total of no more than 50 games and depending upon league restrictions no fewer than 32 games. While a team can play less than the minimum of games as listed before, a team will not do so because in a season a team will want to schedule as many matches as possible. The more technical I get with the description, the more sense it will make.

A NCAA team has can play at maximum 34 games in a season, but there are exemptions that are not added to the count to that maximum. One exemption is that all games played in Alaska or Hawaii do not count to the maximum number of games. Another is tournament exemptions, the first is the 1 in 4 exemption (1 exempted tournament every 4 years) and a couple of tournaments are every year exemptable, but not many are like that (any tournament in Alaska is exempted any year). The “Ivy League” can play no more than 29 games in a season due to internal restrictions.

Each conference has their own tournament with their own formats. Most consist of a best-of-3 first round played entirely at the higher seed that follows up with a single game semi-finals and finals. Again though, each conference has their own methods, the ECAC has two rounds of best-of-3, the WCHA has one round and follows it up with a knockout Final Five. Each have their own way and own seeding methods.

After the conference tournaments, the NCAA tournament takes place with the 6 automatic bid earners (conference tournament winners) and the 10 best schools not receiving automatics bids otherwise known as “at-large” bids. The NCAA determines the 10 remaining teams by including all teams that have a Rating Percentage Index (RPI) greater than .5000 and all automatic qualifiers, these schools are Teams Under Consideration (TUC). From there the list is pared down by some manner to the automatic qualifiers plus 10 other schools. The next thing to consider in this calculation is to consider what is the “Pairwise Rankings” and what is the RPI. The RPI is a calculation used by the NCAA in almost all of its Division I sports where the value assigned to a team’s RPI is a school’s winning percentage multiplied by a weight factor plus the school’s strength of schedule multiplied by a weight factor plus the strength of schedule of their scheduled opponents multiplied by a weight factor, where the weighting factors used add up to one (1). I am not totally confident on how the strength of schedule is calculated but this can likely be answered by some press outlet or the NCAA themselves. The “Pairwise” calculations are a series of relatively simple comparisons between the teams. The factors used in the Pairwise comparisons are RPI, record against teams under consideration, record against common opponents, and head to head games. Each comparison between teams two teams and only those teams, consider it as a round-robin of statistical comparisons. A team with a higher RPI gives that team 1 pt, a team with a higher record vs. TUC gives them 1 pt, a team with a higher record against common opponents gives them 1 pt, and then the wins head to head count as a point per win. The point totals are then compared, if Team A has more points they get 1 pt to the overall Pairwise comparison, if Team B has more points they get 1 pt to the overall Pairwise comparison, and if they tie then the Team with the higher RPI gets the point, there are no ties. The numbers are then totaled and I would believe they would just take the top 10 of those not receiving automatic bids but I do not know if that is the case. After team NCAA tournament schools are decided the tournament is then seeded into 4-4 school regional tournaments. The seeding once again uses the pairwise method but there are restrictions. The first restriction is the striving to maintain bracket integrity. A pure 16 team single elimination bracket has a 1-16 8-9 4-13 5-12 2-15 7-10 3-14 6-11 team bracketing. The problem is that there are current NCAA restrictions that disallow that strict approach, the first is that there is a mandate that a school that is hosting a NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament regional must play in that region if they qualify for the NCAA tournament. The other wrinkle is that traditionally that the number one seeded regional teams are ideally placed as close to home as possible. At times this would be unusual, especially if 3 eastern or western teams are in the top 4 seeded spots. Luckily this practice does not need to be strictly adhered and can be broken when necessary. Another practice which is no longer part of the official tournament rules is the practice to avoid intra-conference first round tournament matches. It is obvious as to why this would be less than ideal, but its is then obvious as to why this would be impractical. In the past the NCAA has tried to avoid this scenario for both first and second rounds but now neither is a guarantee to happen, although I think they try to do it to some degrees. A major thing in all these manipulations is that it is bad to flip a team’s seed. Usually the teams are banded by seeds #1-#4 where there are 4 #1s, 4 #2s, 4 #3s, and 4 #4s and teams can be manipulated in these seeds. After all of the manipulation is complete the regional tournament are then populated and the tournament progresses. After all that the tournament winds down as a simple single elimination tournament down to the Frozen Four competition and eventually a champion.

[AirPip]

Life, such a terrible thing to waste.

[imported_Patman]

Originally Posted by AirPip

Life, such a terrible thing to waste.

You suppose I should do something else with my summer, I can't think of anything constructive.

[Seth]

Originally Posted by Patman

You suppose I should do something else with my summer, I can't think of anything constructive.

I hope this "manifesto" does not fall under constructive :(

[Stories]

Well, at least I've got a bit more knowledge in-depth about other conferences in the NCAA... :)