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Path: utzoo!dciem!jeff
From: jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson)
Newsgroups: net.sport
Subject: Re: Alternate playoff systems
Message-ID: <1087@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Aug-84 16:02:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1087
Posted: Wed Aug 29 16:02:20 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Aug-84 16:17:03 EDT
References: <3032@watcgl.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 26

The problem Steve spoke of has existed in that league for years. One of the
years I was going to the University of Toronto (1978, I think), they tried
an experiment to combat this age-old problem:  they sort of split the
league into two sets of four, one with the top four teams, and the other with
the bottom four.  Each team played only one game against a team in the other
four, and the other six games were two each against the teams in the same
group of four.  Even though they really had two separate divisions, they
lumped all eight together and let the four with the best records into the
playoffs.  It worked pretty well because it gave the bottom four something
to aim for, and one of them made the playoffs, but the bad point is that
Toronto, who was probably better than anybody in the bottom four,
ended up with a record of 1-6.  If they couldn't beat any of the
top three in six tries, they probably wouldn't go far in the playoffs,
but it made for a pretty disappointing season for us Blues fans, who
were used to our team being in first or second.

If you want a weird playoff system, I think the National Hockey League
takes the cake.  They let 16 of 21 teams into the playoffs, which means
that even the most disgustingly hopeless of teams is usually still in the
running until the last month of the season.  The problem with it is that
for the most part, the regular season is totally meaningless so most people
don't bother to watch it.
-- 
Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto  (416) 635-2073
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