Beyond the Scoresheet

Shore Conference playoffs

I had the Shore Conference hockey playoff system explained to me Saturday. It took about 20 minutes. I have been told by a local that Shore Conference rules may appear to the unfamiliar to be “quirky.”

He was putting it mildly.

While there may be changes in the future, I’m being told the first Shore Conference tournament (Shore Cup? Jim Dowd Cup? I don’t know if there’s a name yet) will be conducted by Shore Conference by-laws. Which means an 8-team tournament featuring:

• Shore A North public team with best divisional record
• Shore A South public team with best divisional record
• Shore B North public team with best divisional record
• Shore B South public team with best divisional record
• private school (not sure how they will choose)
• at-large
• at-large
• at-large

Is that bizarre or what? I’ve got so many rants and raves about this, I don’t know where to begin.

At-large teams will be chosen by committee. Let’s look at it slowly and figure out how this will play out.

1. Wall / Middletown North (Shore A North public)
2. Brick Memorial / Brick (Shore A South public)
3. RFH / RBR (Shore B North public)
4. TRS / Jackson (Shore B South public)
5. St. John Vianney (private)
6. Red Bank Catholic (at-large 1)
7. Monsignor Donovan (at-large 2)
8. the other Brick school (at-large 3)

Not an awful tournament. Assuming seeding is subjective, you have 1-SJV vs. 8-TRS, 2-MD vs. 7-RFH, 3-RBC vs. 6-Brick; 4-Wall vs. 5-Brick Mem. … or something like that. Semifinal matchups would be SJV-Wall, MD-RBC. But there’s not much of a level playing field or incentive for Shore B teams.

Now, to my questions:

Why are Shore teams forced to schedule 17-19 games within the conference if only 6-8 of those count for postseason seeding?
Why are the private schools treated differently for purposes of the postseason tournament but not the regular season? That screws over teams that have to play four division games against private schools.
Why does the Shore B schedule make all Shore B teams play all other ones twice?
What the heck will happen when CBA comes in next year?

But I guess it really boils down to this: Why does the conference mandate that its teams play all these games that have no bearing on the conference postseason?

first-win shout-outs continue

Edison picked up its first win in school history by beating West Orange 5-2 on Saturday. Congrats to the Eagles! And I think I forgot to give Dayton some love for its win over Old Bridge on Thursday. We’re still looking for Old Bridge and West Morris to garner victories, but they’ve had winning seasons before. Hats off to Edison – that first win is always special.

NJ HS hockey makes the Uni Watch Blog

If you’re an online blog junkie like I and some of my friends, you may be well aware of the Uni Watch blog, which occasionally turns into a Uni Watch Column on ESPN.com’s Page 2.

Well, the Uni Watch blog in this post linked to a slideshow of the high school hockey jerseys hanging at the Prudential Center – which I think is really awesome, by the way – and so you should all check out this post. Maybe if enough people follow links from my blog, the Uni Watch will link back to mine!

Also, if you missed it, Rick Nash scored a ridiculous game-winning goal in the final minute that was SportsCenter’s top play of the night last night – still waiting for a YouTube link.

NFL playoffs digression

Let me talk football for a moment. What a series of games the NFL had this weekend! Between my high school sports coverage, my Sunday soccer league and my occasional social life, I haven’t watched a ton of football this year. But I managed to watch three of the four games this weekend, and they were all terrific. The fourth one – Green Bay’s win on Saturday – was played in one of the crazier snowstorms in NFL history. Quite a weekend!

Tonight, I had arranged to DVR the Giants-Cowboys game and watch it later this evening with one of my old roommates, a Cowboys fan. Driving into my apartment complex, I caught a glimpse of a neighbor’s TV and thought I saw somebody in white being interviewed. So I spent the whole game thinking the Giants were going to lose, only to see them pull it out in the end! Holy crap! I still can’t believe the Giants won that game after being completely unable to stop the Cowboys for most of the game.

Having been in Texas Stadium when the Giants beat the Cowboys in the fall of 2006, I can appreciate just how quiet that place got and how big it was for the Giants to win a game in that rivalry. I’ve hated the Cowboys since I was a little kid and they got the best of the Giants every year, it seemed, after Super Bowl XXV. So it’s nice to be on the other side of that.

Now I just wish I could be at Lambeau on Sunday.

Thursday update

A couple of results from Wednesday games that are worth noting. First of all, and most importantly, East Side got a win! The Red Raiders beat St. Rose 5-4 on Thursday for its first win since beating St. Rose 7-1 on Feb. 1, 2006. Of course, that’s only about five games ago, since East Side did not field a team last year. Next time these teams meet (Jan. 14), I’ll root for St. Rose.

I also wanted to point out an article most people may have missed on Delbarton’s 6-2 win over two-time defending Rhode Island state champion Bishop Hendricken.

I’ll be flying back to New Jersey for a brief holiday stay on Friday night, which means Saturday will probably be my only day of checking out N.J. hockey games this year. Any suggestions as to where I should go?

Thursday update
Just to explain several updates to various schedules … I’m told Hackettstown and Hudson Catholic had five players EACH given game disqualifications in their Dec. 17 game. That’s from one skirmish, in which I’m told no punches were thrown, and both coaches were baffled by the referees’ decision. It happened in the first period, and Hudson Catholic played the rest of the game with only six players, total.

Due to mandatory two-game suspensions (which will also yield state tournament ineligibility for both teams) for roughly half of its players, Hudson Catholic has chosen to forfeit its next two games: Friday against High Point and Sunday against Dumont. Assuming my schedules are up to date, that could save Dumont from playing on three consecutive days, which it should be noted is NOT legal. Dumont, Nutley, and Parsippany are all teams in danger of playing three games on three days at some point this month. This is a violation of NJSIAA rules and has, in the past, been punished with forfeits.

NJSIAA posts public split

As you can probably tell, I’m fascinated by the state’s process in splitting the public tournament. The NJSIAA has posted the list of teams that will be classified as Public A or Public B. The list is available on Page 11 of this document (which always makes for interesting reading anyway).

I haven’t done a 100 percent cross-check, but here are a couple of things:

Woodbridge and JFK Iselin are on this list, but Monroe is not. Odd, considering Monroe fields a varsity team, and Woodbridge and JFK Iselin do not.

Co-ops are listed with the enrollment of one school (Whippany Park, Point Pleasant Boro, Tenafly, Jonathan Dayton, Verona) only. This leaves all five as Public B teams, when a combined enrollment figure would have pushed Point Pleasant, Tenafly and Park Regional into Public A.

I was originally told Nottingham would be Public B, but apparently the split has been amended to place Nottingham in the Public A classification.

I don’t know if these are mistakes or if the NJSIAA has reasons, but I really feel this should have (a) been fact-checked better and (b) been released much, much earlier.

MONDAY EDIT: I have been informed that the NJSIAA will likely re-release the list in the coming days, presumably with some of these mistakes corrected.

TUESDAY EDIT: The NJSIAA has added Monroe and fixed the enrollment of various co-ops. This led to me discovering that Pascack Valley and River Dell are both co-op teams. Why does nobody tell me these things? The only kink that remains involves Verona and WWPN. I’m trying to get it sorted out.

Explaining the public tournament

Thanks to a frighteningly early deadline (before practices even begin), I’ve been working on my HNIB preview (including a Top 10, of which you might see a sneak peek soon) all week and talking to coaches.

This afternoon, I finally broke through and got hold of NJSIAA Assistant Director Jack DuBois, who confirmed the particulars of the public tournament split. I’ve heard a lot of information from a lot of people on this one, but nobody seemed really sure. So here’s what I’ve got:

According to DuBois, the 95 public schools playing varsity hockey (I’m not sure if that number includes East Side and Monroe – I’ll check when I get home to my personal computer tonight) will be classified before the season as either Public A or Public B (the terminology is not finalized, but that’s how DuBois referred to them.) Hamilton (10-12 enrollment 1,013) will be in Public A and Nottingham (enrollment 1,010) will be in Public B. DuBois iterated that the at-large process will remain the same, which seems to mean three private and three public, regardless of class size.

I’ll try to have more analysis of this later.

On a private school note, great to see New Jersey prep seniors representing in the DHI Cup – Mike Morreale had a quick recap at njice.8m.com.