Open Mouth, Insert Keyboard

So, as a college hockey fan, during the season I make a point of reading articles on USCHO.com and Insidecollegehockey.com (otherwise known as INCH...please no jokes, this is a family-friendly post). Every week INCH and USCHO run their weekly previews of the various games coming up and normally these are published late Thursday and I read them Friday morning.

Due to the extreme mess in Hockey East (teams 2-7 can end up in so many different combinations it's not even worth going through it), INCH ran their Hockey East Notebook a day early (plus with the Providence v. BU game tonight I guess they wanted to get it out before then). Part of this column runs a mini story on some interesting piece (in this case the standings and the excitement of the final weekend) and then they have little blurbs called "Stick Salute" and "Bench Minor" for things they feel are really good and really bad in the individual conference.

This week's "Bench Minor" berates the announcers on NESN for their off-the-cuff erroneous generalizations on the playoff hopes for Maine during the broadcast of the Maine v. Vermont game last week. Apparently, they overstated the importance of the game and how Maine would be eliminated if they lost and "control their own destiny" if they won (not sure where this phrase started but it is one of the most overused sports cliches right up there with "walk-off").

I bring this up for a very particular reason. In the body of the article, when analyzing the chances of the various playoff bound teams to get home ice, he mentions that even with a sweep this weekend against Northeastern, BC would not be guaranteed home ice. Apparently, the author did not take his own advice from "Bench Minor" and decided to make a statement without doing the math first.

Currently BC has 27 points. They are tied for 4th with Providence and BU is second with 29 points (for purposes of this discussion, Vermont is irrelevant because in the case of a sweep of NU what Vermont does makes no difference to BC's home ice). With a sweep, BC finishes with 31 points and at least 4th place. Guaranteed. Let's do the math.

Providence plays BU this weekend which means only one team can get 4 points. If Providence sweeps, Providence ends in a tie with BC at 31 points and BU finishes behind BC, hence guaranteeing at least 4th. In any other scenario, PC finishes under 31 points and hence behind BC and BC still gets home ice. Hence, a sweep this weekend by BC guarantees at least 4th place. After poking fun at NESN broadcasters for making incorrect statements about Maine's playoff scenarios, I guess the author should have taken out a calculator before writing about BC's.

Luckily for you, my loyal reader, I am here to save you and point you to the light. BC sweeps then we have one more weekend of hockey at Conte Forum. Of course, whether or not anyone will show up is the question that remains.