Seems as if the new rule never existed.

EDIT: Yesterday College Hockey news was tipped off by their reporters Brett Gobe and Ron Ayers, about the handbook containing the following new line: "To be considered during the at-large selection process, a team must have an overall won-lost record of .500 or better a team with a sub .500 record would not qualify for the NCAA tourney unless they won their conference tourney." Seems that was untrue and happened to be a miss-print. Hum, that does seem odd that this new wording would appear in the hand book and then be deemed a misprint.

Seems the complaining about which teams are going to get into the NCAA tourney is starting even before the selection committee meets. If I am not mistaken the selection committee will on or about the 23rd of March after all of the conference tournaments have been decided.

There are a number of college hockey fans that are upset with the high number of WCHA teams with less than stellar records sitting above the likes of Notre Dame, Princeton, Harvard in the PairWise Rankings. Also, there is a good chance that there will be teams with winning records that will not make the NCAA tourney. There is also a slight possibility that teams with a losing record might qualify for the NCAA tourney despite having a sub 500 record, this is based on their strong strength of schedule. While highly unlikely that is the reality of the NCAA tourney selection based on the PairWise Rankings.

The likelihood of that happening really isn't as good as it appears. Currently 8 teams in the WCHA are in the running for an NCAA bid with three weeks left in the season. The key word is currently, a lot will change between now and March 23rd. UND, C.C., DU, SCSU and Minnesota State University are looking like they have a good chance of dancing when the NCAA selection committee makes it's selections for the NCAA tourney. Minnesota, Wisconsin, UMD are going to need some serious help. That is why I believe some are getting way too excited about nothing. I do think eventually you will see a rule that states that a team needs to have a record above .500 to be considered for an at large bid, unless you qualify by winning your conference tourney.

Not so fast folks the rule never existed.

If you look at the PairWise Rankings you will see that there are 4 WCHA teams sitting in the 11-13 spots that could get into the NCAA tourney if the selection committee met today. In reality this is not going to happen because there is going to be a massive fratacide that is going to take place during the WCHA playoffs. In reality there are only going to be 5-6 teams that make the NCAA tourney. More than likely their will be 5 WCHA teams that make the NCAA tourney. These five teams will be participants from the Final Five.

11 Minnesota State 17-13-4 .5588 (10th)
12 Minnesota 14-13-9 .5139 (8th)
13 Wisconsin 15-14-7 .5139 (3rd)
13 Minnesota-Duluth 12-14-6 (2nd)
15 Providence 14-13-5 4688 (17th)
16t Notre Dame 22-12-4 .6316 (27th)
16t Princeton 17-12-0 .5862 (34th)
18 Boston University 15-15-4 .5000 (12th)
19 Harvard 14-11-4 .5517 (33rd)

Strenght of Schedule (ranking)