How do I put this politely? I mean, this is a family friendly place, I can't just come out and say it. A handful of Tier II teams came out of the NIHL seeding round deserving better treatment than they got at the hands of the powers that be.
Let's first turn our attention to the St. Jude #1 Squirt team. They went 7-1 in seeding in the Gold B group, good enough for the highest points at 14 among the 16 teams in both brackets. Further, the team potted 30 goals while allowing only 8 to yield a differential of +22 ... also tops among Gold B teams. Surely this was worthy of moving up to Gold A for the regular season? After all, about 10% of teams used to move up or down after the seeding round any given year in NIHL. Where did they wind up?
Gold B. Tier 1.
WHA-WHA-WHAAAT?
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Looking up at the Gold A group for seeding, only ONE team out of 20 moved down. The top 10 teams became the Elite bracket and the remaining 9 became Gold A for the regular season. How could they possibly .... ok even imagining that 9 teams is better for scheduling than 10, some teams that remained in Gold A garnered 3-4 points and had goal differentials of -17, -23, and -24. Surely there is another candidate to be moved down somewhere in there?
And hey, the Bruins #1 and Blues #1 were right up with St. Jude with 13 points and goal differentials of +17 and +16 respectively. I think we would have had a better Gold A tier swapping these 3 teams into the bracket.
There are several mysteries to unravel here. How does a winless Rockford #1 score 3 goals and remain in Gold? Or a winless Bulldogs #2 that had 5 goals? Both are in Gold B Tier 3. Ain't that grand?
Next, let's tackle the PeeWees. Rockford #1 scored 8 goals in Gold A in seeding, EIGHT, and had a goal differential of -32, yet remained in Gold A for the regular season. HUH? That is a 1 goal per game average. Fortunately the top teams from each Gold B seeding bracket moved up into Gold A also, but wouldn't you just leave this bracket at 8 teams?
Wait!
Back up to that St. Jude #1, Bruins #1, and Blues #1 group from Squirt. Do you mean we can take the top 6 teams from Gold B in PeeWee and move them up to Gold A but we can't do that at Squirt. Why?
WHY??? ARRRRGH!!!
Ok anyway, back to PeeWee. What happened to all of those Gold A teams in the seeding round that were worse than Rockford? You see, because Rockford managed 2 wins they were better than Mission #1, CYA #1, Bruins #1, and Leafs #1. Going 2 points or less in seeding used to mean a big tumble down the tiers come regular season, so these 4 teams wound up at ... Gold B Tier 1.
At this point the aggravation factor is too high to express merely with capital letters and question marks.
I won't even mention the 3 teams from Silver A with identical 3-4-1 records that somehow got promoted to Gold B Tier 3, because I want to move on to Bantam.
The single, most dramatic cornswaggling came to the standout Silver Bantam teams in the seeding round. What does cornswaggling mean? This is what cornswaggling means:
The Cyclones #2 team went 8-0 in seeding with a goal differential of +27 in Silver Red. The Sabres #1 team was just behind them with nearly identical goals for and against, but being unlucky enough to lose 2 games (one to the Cyclones #2). Over in Silver White, the Komets #1 squad went 7-0-1 with a differential of +22.
Surely all 3 squads were deserving a promotion to the massive 17 team regular season Gold tier? Not one of them were promoted. NOT. ONE.
What were some of the luminaries that were more deserving?
Well let's see. We had the Wolf Pack #1 team which scored 8 goals in Gold A Red. EIGHT! There's that number again. And they were ahead of Wilmette #1 in the standings. Both had goal differentials of more than -30. Then there was the winless Leafs #1 team with a differential of -20. Yes, a few Gold B teams did move down, but ....
Swap those 3 and you have a better tier. Why do I feel like I've been reduced to pleading at this point?
You can find the NIHL seeding round standings here. What do you think?
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With Pee Wee teams making "Elite" with nearly .500 records, we need to come up with a different definition for Elite.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who has more sway here in keeping a team at a certain level after the seeding round - NIHL or the organization? Some of these +/- numbers, combined with low or no win totals, stick out so badly that you know someone was pleading somewhere.
ReplyDeleteWell said. Thx from St Jude!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, one of those three teams from Silver A that was 3-4-1 is now 3-0 in Gold B Tier 3.
ReplyDeleteAaaand they played 2 of those games against the same team. Kinda early to declare victory, is it not?
ReplyDelete