Beyond the Scoresheet

updating scores

In addition to these score requests, how about a hand for Hunterdon Central? After Sunday’s game with Cranford was canceled due to transportation issues, the team found a way to reschedule the game for today, even though the cancellation would have put Hunterdon Central in the playoffs. That’s classy. The move allowed Summit, whose game today was cancelled to make room, to qualify for the state tournament. Here’s hoping that even if Hunterdon Central loses, coach Chris Mikolajczyk and his team get an at-large bid.

EDIT: Cranford beat Hunterdon Central 4-1. I think every player, coach and team in the state just gained a ton of respect for Hunterdon Central with that move. Hopefully the at-large committee will follow suit.

Holy smokes, we got them! Thanks to many people, but especially Jim McConville, for catching me up with some scores.

Preparing for the state cutoff

As a reminder, all games played up to AND INCLUDING Monday, Feb. 11 count toward teams’ records for the state tournament. Apparently shootouts count as wins and losses for the purpose of the state tournament.

With that in mind, here’s a breakdown (which will be updated periodically) of which teams are already in and which teams are on the bubble. If you see a mistake, please send an e-mail to jty [at] njhockey.org.
Continue reading Preparing for the state cutoff…

tragedy

http://www.northjersey.com/news/aroundnj/Wayne_teen_struck_and_killed_crossing_Route_23.html

RIP.

tiebreakers

I always start getting questions about tiebreakers this time of year. And I always forget how to answer them.

So a year ago, I wrote it down on this blog for future reference. I did a handy-dandy search and came away with the answers. This post explains it all – at least everything I know.

Shore Conference gets it (mostly) right

The much-maligned Shore Conference has heeded the advice of ice hockey coaches and administrators and scrapped its plans to have one tournament. Instead, there will be a six-team Shore A tournament four-team Shore B tournament. Regulations for the tournament, always an interesting read, can be found here.

My only beef with the set-up is the following lines: “Division winners are granted an automatic entry to their respective tournaments. The seeding committee will determine the remaining entries and all seeds.”

I am still mirky on the criteria that will determine “division winners” and how that fits in with the private school requirement standard to most Shore tournaments. More importantly, what’s the point of all these league games if seeding is not going to be determined by league standings. All the Shore B teams are playing each other twice; take the best four records from those games? Or count the Shore A games, for all I care, but let the seeding be determined by standings, as in the other leagues, and not by subjective seeding.

Otherwise, a big thumbs up. Any chance Paul McInnis and the NJIHL will sell off the Handchen Cup and Dowd Cup trophies to the Shore Conference?

A big thanks to all the Shore Conference coaches and administrators who pushed for this.

late night blues

If it’s 2:20 a.m. in Texas, it must be hella late on the East Coast.

I was so late getting home from work tonight that I ran through scores without responding to very many e-mails, so I apologize to those people who submitted scores on Friday but did not hear back from me. I thank you for the help.

That being said, we’re still missing a ton. What the heck? How am I missing a Gordon score six hours after the game ended? So shoot me an e-mail and correct that.

Couple other things … The Shore Conference has apparently reversed itself and will hold a Shore A and Shore B tournament. I’m not posting any more than that until somebody I trust faxes or e-mails me the brackets, because it sure doesn’t seem like anybody knows what’s going on down there. … Princeton Day is playing in the Mercer County Tournament for the first time in forever – seems there’s no requirement that teams play a percentage of their games against Mercer County opposition to qualify for the tournament. Mercer publics have to be happy that Princeton Day, Pennington, and Notre Dame ended up in the same quarter of the draw. … Fair Lawn’s win over Northern Highlands tonight sure was big – I heard about it from at least four different sources. I also heard from three different sources about the Westfield-Hunterdon Central game. Now if some of those people would just report on Old Bridge, we’d be all set.

Oh, there’s an ice cups page hiding on my site. I haven’t made time to link to it yet, but here it is. Do people want each cup to have its own page, as I did for the holiday tournaments?

Have a great weekend … GO GIANTS!

(Yes, I know the Super Bowl’s next weekend, but Pat Verney and I, among others, are pumped for the Giants anyway.)

Other Monday action

Okay, what do I know? Watchung Hills did not take advantage of its mulligan, losing 3-0 to Cranford on Monday. I know Cranford has a decent team this year, but the Cougars did just lose to Summit. The Central White is turning into an interesting race. If I could get Paul VI to report its scores, we might even find out who finishes in first!

Ramsey also slipped up, tying Mahwah 3-3 just a few days after beating the Thunderbirds. St. Joseph Metuchen had a chance for revenge against Hillsborough but could only come away with a 3-3 tie. And Notre Dame got whipped 7-0 by St. Augustine Prep. That one really wasn’t too much of a surprise, but it just adds to a poor performance from yesterday’s Top 20.

Moral of the story is … the Central Conference and NBIAL are pretty darn unpredictable, and ranking their teams is next to impossible.