When it is all said and done I do think the Mavericks will be a NCAA participant. While some have said that losing to UNO will kill their chances I think if they make the final five they will probably be in. Trust me CCHA fans I don't think that there are a lot of teams that would like to face the Mavericks right now. In fact, I am happy that the Sioux will not be facing them for the third year in a row during the WCHA playoffs. The Mavericks play hockey like a cornered animal and they will beat you up in the physicality department.
This blog post started as a result of this USCHO discussion.
Debunking the WCHA Myth
Let me be perfectly clear about this at the outset: I do think the WCHA is the best conference.
Where I disagree, however, is with the people who think that the mediocre teams in the WCHA are better than they are, solely because they're in the WCHA. I also disagree that the CCHA is a joke and that outside of the top 4, it's a horrible conference.
One of my favorite things to do is to take a look at numbers, with almost no idea about where they're going to lead me. I did it with the CCHA officials and I think that piece ended up being fairly interesting. The majority of this article was written over at USCHO in the "Minnesota State is over-rated" thread, which was basically making fun of the WCHA fans.
I find it amusing that when Miami loses to Ferris or Alaska, it's evidence that they're overrated and supports the idea that the CCHA sucks. But when CC loses to Michigan Tech, it's evidence of how deep that conference is...how even the bad teams are still really good.
The strength of schedule of the WCHA is part of the reason that everyone thinks they're so good, and why there are so many teams in position to make the tournament. I decided to take a closer look at things to see what I found. It was pretty interesting. At least to me.
Here ganzhimelf has a pretty good response to this post that I thought laid out what a lot of us have been saying all year long.
Originally Posted by ganzhimself
Give me a break... Let's look at the strength of schedule of the teams in the USCHO top 20 in the CCHA and the WCHA...
CCHA
Michigan 13th
Miami-Ohio 27th
MSU 16th
Norte Dame 24th
WCHA
North Dakota 1st
CC 5th
Minnesota State 10th
St. Cloud State 9th
Wisconsin 2nd
Minnesota Duluth 3rd
Minnesota 4th
CCHA is obviously the weaker conference with the over rated teams. I mean, not a single ranked team in the CCHA has a harder schedule than the ranked WCHA teams. Get over yourself and the Colon Cleansing Hockey Association.
